I'm saddened by the loss of knowledge that happens just two or three generations after someone dies. But we're living in a new era that, AI fraud apart, allows each of us to record who we and our friends and colleagues and neighbours were. The smaller the intended audience, as you imply, the greater the probability of veracity.
So far I've plonked my memoir on Amazon, transcribed my dad's 1944 war diary, and done the same for a 1904 stone mason's records. They can all go on to Amazon, Ancestry, or booksellers' catalogues for free, or donated to a regional library or museum or local history society .
With a sufficiently wide distribution, some may survive.
What a beautiful thing to do. I completely agree - alongside the many challenges to preserving historical knowledge we now also have a unique opportunity to leave documentation of our own lives and the lives of people we love who would not traditionally have been 'historical figures' (even though history is what we all make of it!).
Transcribing and making available thigns written at the time by people involved is perhaps the greatest gift of all to the future because it can be used to resist efforts later on to rewrite the past, or just alert us to things they thought were important that, with hindsight, might not seem so to us.
Do, please, either print out a couple of copies or get them printed via Amazon or similar. Plenty of people are worried about digital preservation and studying societies from hundreds or thousands of years ago, I'm a great believer in the hard copy :).
I'm saddened by the loss of knowledge that happens just two or three generations after someone dies. But we're living in a new era that, AI fraud apart, allows each of us to record who we and our friends and colleagues and neighbours were. The smaller the intended audience, as you imply, the greater the probability of veracity.
So far I've plonked my memoir on Amazon, transcribed my dad's 1944 war diary, and done the same for a 1904 stone mason's records. They can all go on to Amazon, Ancestry, or booksellers' catalogues for free, or donated to a regional library or museum or local history society .
With a sufficiently wide distribution, some may survive.
Isn't that a great gift to the future?
What a beautiful thing to do. I completely agree - alongside the many challenges to preserving historical knowledge we now also have a unique opportunity to leave documentation of our own lives and the lives of people we love who would not traditionally have been 'historical figures' (even though history is what we all make of it!).
Transcribing and making available thigns written at the time by people involved is perhaps the greatest gift of all to the future because it can be used to resist efforts later on to rewrite the past, or just alert us to things they thought were important that, with hindsight, might not seem so to us.
Do, please, either print out a couple of copies or get them printed via Amazon or similar. Plenty of people are worried about digital preservation and studying societies from hundreds or thousands of years ago, I'm a great believer in the hard copy :).