Don't Retire, Reinspire

In this episode, we dive deep into the rich world of family history, genealogy, and storytelling. We’ll explore how preserving your legacy through memory preservation, historical records, and personal archives can bring your family's past to life. Join us as we uncover the importance of documenting stories, building your family tree, and conducting genealogical research to keep your heritage alive for future generations.

Transcript:

Welcome to Don't Retire, Re Inspire, the podcast that helps you discover exciting and meaningful ways to enrich your retirement years. I'm your host, Lynn Nikoloff, and today we're diving into a fascinating and heartfelt project that not only connects you with your roots, but also bridges the gap between past and future generations. Have you ever wondered about the stories behind those old family photos or the tales your grandparents used to tell? Recording your family's history can be an incredibly rewarding journey, preserving cherished memories and creating a legacy for your descendants. In this episode, we'll explore how to get started on this meaningful endeavor from gathering stories to creating tangible keepsakes.

So grab a cup of tea, get comfortable, and let's embark on this inspiring journey together, because retirement is just the beginning of your next great adventure. Stay tuned. How much do you know about your family history? Well, I'm really lucky because I know quite a lot lot. Thanks to being a very nosy child and also having a grandmother who seemed to know everything about anybody who was loosely connected with our family.

And so I would often sit at the family gatherings or when she had her friends around and sit on the periphery and take everything in. She would take me out to the graves and explain to me who everybody was and their connections to to who I am. So I think I'm very lucky about knowing quite a bit about my family history. Well, statistically, most of us will reach our mid eighties and beyond. And if you actually think about it, that means that we will cover a huge amount of time.

We will we will have known at least 7 generations of the family from our great grandparents through to our possibly even great grandchildren. So when we think about the generations in our families that we've been fortunate to meet, it can span a significant period of time. Such that my grandparents, almost all the whole 4 of them were born in the 1st decade of 20th century. So that means in my lifetime, I have met people who span over a 120 years of my family history. And thanks to my grandmother and being a nosy child, I can even stretch that further back, because she told me with, about my great grandparents who were born in the 18 eighties, and I also have some knowledge, thanks to her, of my great great grandparents who were born in the 18 sixties.

So what does this mean? It means that I have acquired memory of my family spanning a 160 years. So here I am sitting here, and I can talk with some confidence about a 160 years of family history. So this is a significant amount of knowledge that I know needs to be recorded in some tangible way. And that's what this particular episode is about.

How do we, in fact, record our family history? And in fact, why should we even record it? So I'll ask you this, how many years does your knowledge of the family span, and how much recorded history is there? I'm rather fortunate because there seems to have been a number of writers in, in my forebears. And one of them, Jane McIlraith, was a cousin of my great great grandparents.

And, she wrote a book, Letters to My Grandchildren. And my great great grandfather, James Hamilton McIlraith, wrote letters home to Ireland where a group of historians in Ireland, not actually the family, but a local historical society published those letters. So I'm really lucky that, these recent immigrants to New Zealand have recorded what it was like in those early days. I also have other family members, on my mother's generation who also recorded quite a lot of history, in the Ellesmere District in the early days of farming there. So I guess from my family's perspective, we're quite lucky and that we do have quite a bit of recorded history.

So why should we record family history? Well, here's some compelling reasons why we should. It's about preserving heritage. It ensures that the unique cultural and personal heritage of your family is not lost over time. And each family has its own stories and traditions and values that shape its identity.

So this is the one reason why we do need to record that history. Connecting generations. Well, the history of the family bridges the gap between older and younger generations and fosters a sense of continuity and also belonging. So younger family members can learn about their ancestors' experiences, and, and can strengthen in that way the family bonds. We're also able to pass down wisdom.

So family history and particularly my family history, there's a lot of valuable lessons learned in life, undoubtedly. And so by recording these stories, you preserve the wisdom gained from past experiences and offer guidance and inspiration to future generations. We can honor in some way our loved ones, our memories of those loved ones who have passed away. And recording these stories ensures that their legacy lives on, allowing future generations to know and appreciate their contributions to the family. And I'm currently doing that with my mother's history.

I am, in fact, writing her story as we speak. This also gives us a sense of identity and self understanding. So by knowing our family history, it can provide a deeper understanding of who we are and our roots. And it can also explain some family traditions, maybe little quirks in the family and characteristics that have indeed been passed down through the generations. Our family history also makes a historical contribution, and and records historical events and societal changes.

So recording these narratives can contribute to a rich understanding of not only local, but also regional and maybe national history. So for example, my father came to this country as a refugee in 1951, and that was a really, that's a significant, contribution to our national history, his story is. We can create a legacy by recording and preserving family history. We can create a lasting legacy that future generations can cherish and build on. It's a way of leaving a meaningful mark on the world that extends beyond your lifetime.

In some situations, it can also provide healing and closure closure. For some individuals, recording family history can be a healing process, especially when addressing difficult or unresolved family issues. And it can provide closure and a sense of peace by understanding the context of past events. And I will talk about that in relation to my grandmother, shortly in this podcast. So overall, recording family history is a great way to celebrate the richness of human experience within your family, and to pass on the stories that define who you are and where you come from.

It's a gift that keeps on giving generation after generation. So let's get started. Now, I don't intend this podcast to be a lesson in how to do research for your family history. However, if this topic interests you, I strongly advise that you join a local genealogy group who will help you and guide you through the myriad of websites and organizations that have historical records. And a, who knows?

It might even, become one of your passions. Remember in episode 2, we talked about finding our passion and purpose. So this just might be that little door that opens for you. I can recommend that, there are some great archival records at the National Archives such as boat passenger lists and also don't forget birth deaths and marriages for historic records in that regard. And quite a lot of local councils also have local archives who may have institutional records such as orphanages etcetera.

Just be mindful that the National Archives, keep government style records. So, it won't be personal family records, it will be government records as I say such as passenger lists and, things like that. And, of course, depending on where your forebears came from, you may also need to research internationally. And that's where you probably need to start looking at some genealogy work websites, to guide you. And I know that I have personally used ancestry.com, but some of these do require you to get a subscription, which is why I strongly recommend that you go to a subscription, which is why I strongly recommend that you go to a local, genealogy group who will guide you to the best places for you to go.

I mean, if you're researching, your family history in in in the UK, for example, you can online without joining, any organizations access a census data. You can't access the same census data here in New Zealand. I desperately want to get access, for our family history to a 1911 census and that just is not available. It has not been digitized. So, so do join those groups.

I'm sure that they will give you a wealth of information and advice about where to go and what to do. But, you know, let me just give you an example of a serendipity. I was fortunate some years ago when I was officiating at a funeral ceremony. And in speaking to the family prior to the funeral and preparing the ceremony, they mentioned a particular surname. And I said, oh, that's kind of spooky because that surname appears in my family tree.

Well, long story short, they were the branch of, the family from my great great uncle, and so my great great grandmother was related to their great great grandfather. Kind of spooky really, isn't it? And long story short also, they were they were members of the church of the Latter Day Saints. And as you may be aware, they, keep some fantastic genealogy, records. And anyhoo, they, had our family tree on that particular side go dating back to the 1600.

And they sent me a copy. And so I now know who my descendants were in the time of James the first and Charles the first just after the death of Elizabeth I. So I think that's pretty amazing. And and so that sort of gives me 400 years of family history there. But the the challenge with a a family tree is that all you really know is the names, the dates of births, who married who, and how many children they had.

You don't actually know the personality. So that's kind of all it really gives you. You could can't write a story about it because you really don't know who those people were at at all. So, so I'm sure that you have some family, records there and somewhere hidden away, maybe a family member has them. I mean, don't overlook things like personal diaries, letters, wills, house sale documents, maybe even books that your forebears have written, like mine have.

And so before you get started on researching the family history, I do strongly advise you to, a, join a genealogy group, but also talk to family about who has the family records or maybe some oral history. Because that's a really great way to start. And, you may in our family, one of the things that happened with lots of photographs that particularly my grandmother took, there was always almost an essay written on the back of crucial photographs. So do look at the back of photographs. Even if they're in an album, take them out.

I'm sure you'll find that there's some information written on the back. There may be some birth and death certificates around, maybe old wills, maybe even some knickknacks. So just check out and see what the family has actually actually got, and that's probably a really good place to start. I found, particularly now family that all too often when a loved one dies, the family archives get divided up and get divided up and get divided up. So there's no kind of central way, for these documents and these photographs can be in.

And you know, if you talk to anybody at a local dump, they will tell you that, people just discard photos. You know, they just get thrown out because to future generations, those photograph those people mean absolutely nothing. I mean, I've got a photograph of my father in a displaced person's camp, and he's surrounded by about 10 men. I have no idea who those those men are. So it would be so easy to throw that photograph out, but I do know the significance of that photograph so I have retained it.

But apart from him, everybody else is lost in the mists of history. That's for sure. So maybe a good, re inspired project for you might be to start with your photo albums. Yeah. And and get your photo albums sorted too.

Because, you know, when when you get to that particular age and your family is going through, your your documents and things, and if they don't know who those people are or what the significance of them is to you and to the family story, they will just be discarded. And just imagine how much history is gonna end up at the bottom of the skip at the dump. And so may maybe that project might be to get your photo photo albums out and actually start recording information on those photographs or beside those photographs. Now my uncle, elderly uncle did this recently before moving into residential care. And he took the time, it took him almost a year where he named, dated, and ordered his photographs into albums for his grandchildren.

Now believe it or not, there are 6 toolbox I mean, giant toolboxes that he filled up with albums. And, I'm unsure how his grandchildren might receive them, but I'm sure one day his great grandchildren will appreciate the history that he recorded on each of those photographs. So maybe you should start with a bit of date, location, and names of people and significance to that photograph. That might be a really good way to start. And, I say this about photographs, because my mother didn't value family photographs, even photos of us.

She had this everything drawer, and everything was put in it. And then one day, while she was renovating the kitchen, I think it was back in the 19 seventies, when wood and orange were the decor of the moment, that the drawer was left outside and the photos obviously got damaged in the weather. And I have, gathered some of those photographs. I've tried to have some of those photographs repaired, but we lost a huge amount of our our childhood photographs as a consequence of that. And, so value your photographs and make sure future generations value those those photos as well.

Now, as I've mentioned before, my grandmother was a great keeper of the family records. But again, when she moved from the family home into a little unit and then finally into retirement care, her records were divided up between her 2 sons. And this meant that the family archives were divided accordingly. So each of the 2 boys took something that was of interest to them. Now they did not see themselves as custodians of that information.

They saw them as owners of that information. And that meant that the care of those documents was one of just leaving somewhere to, in in a corner not thinking about actually preserving them. And, when one of them died, the rich archives he had gathered were then divided between his children. And so, as a result, the archives that, my grandmother have have now been truly diminished by all of this division. And when I tried to start gathering it all back in again, I realized just how much, in fact, had been lost, in that process, because people didn't see that they were just custodians on behalf of future generations of all those fantastic documents that were there.

We did, however, manage to, locate a handwritten diary of one of my uncle's lives, from the 19 thirties to 19 fifties, and I'm fortunate to have a photocopy of his transcript. Now another uncle, he did he did, record his family history, because he was in the New Zealand Navy in the 19 fifties and when New Zealand was in fact mapping its coastline. So, so he's kind of connected with New Zealand history. And he did write this this wonderful book and that has recorded, his life for the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So and included some photos in that as well.

So I'm again, I'm lucky to have a copy of that. I'm aware that, that if you have family archives that you can gift these to the Alexander Turnbull Library, who will hold them on behalf of the family. And this ensures that future generations of your, family will be able to access these documents rather than them being sort of diluted through people taking some or lost in the midst of time. So I may do just that, when I finish with these documents to make sure they are available for future generations. So before you get started on your legacy project of recording recording your span of family history, first, just remember to identify the rich resources your family might already have, and make sure you know where they are located.

Now many of us here in New Zealand are descendants of immigrants, and this adds an international dimension to the search for family history. On my father's side, we have no recorded history. And as he arrived in this country as a refugee or a displaced persons, as it was called back in the day, There is the additional barrier of language when researching our family history. I'm fortunate that I did take the time to record his story before he passed because it is closely connected to European history, such that, my great grandparents were born in the Ottoman Empire. My grandparents were born in Bulgaria, and my father was born in Romania.

And by the time my father was 15 or 16, he lived in Bulgaria. And at the age of 18, he was part of the Soviet Union. Now these changes from Turkish to Bulgarian to Romanian and back to Bulgarian, and then, in the Soviet Union, This all happened without the family leaving the family village. And that's how European history can be so complex, and it also makes family records even more complex because different generations, have their history recorded in different languages. So my great grandparents, birth certificates and everything are Turkish.

My, father's documents are all Romanian. And so this can just make it very very complex to, to research family history if you're going to a non English speaking country. And so when it comes to getting started with a project such as recording in some tangible way the history of your family, then a good place to start, I think, is the horror oral history of recent family and also any documents that the does have. But be warned, researching family history can get very complicated in all sorts of ways, and let the following be truly a cautionary tale for you. My grandmother was adopted at the age of 4, but she was unable to ever find out who her birth mother was.

And because back in the day, adoption records were locked up for eternity, and you may recall that the government changed that law in the 19 nineties, but by then she had passed, so it was too late for her. And this was a great sadness to my grandmother that she never got to reunite with her birth mother, even though she had been with her birth mother until the age of about 3 or 4. And she could even remember that she had 2 brothers and she knew her birth surname. Now in 2010, 16 years after her passing, I decided to obtain my grandmother's original birth certificate. And this required applying to the Department of Internal Affairs and providing copies of death certificates for the adopted parents and for my grandmother to show that all interested parties were no longer alive.

Now I received a 3 line document and it was only 3 lines that listed my grandmother's date of birth, her registered name, including surname, her birth surname, and, and also, her birth mother's name, and where she was the place where she was born, and there was no father recorded. And so after almost a 100 years of mystery, I now had the information my grandmother so desperately wanted to see. And here is the cautionary tale. Full of optimism, I took it upon myself to research the birth mother to see if I could find the family, and I did. I messaged the person who had posted the family tree on a genealogy site and introduced myself as the great granddaughter of the lady, whose family tree it was, explaining that my grandmother had been adopted at around 4 years of age and had been born out of wedlock.

Well, that was like a red rag to a bull. How dare I accuse his grandmother of having an illegitimate child, etcetera etcetera etcetera. So I submitted her original birth certificate to show that she was indeed, the mother, and asked that my grandmother's name be added to the family tree. I thought she deserved that at least. Now you may think that that was rather bold of me, so maybe a bit of a backstory is required here.

You see, my grandmother, when she was adopted, was well looked after by her adopted parents. She had a wonderful life. But back in the day, when the parents who had adopted her died, the relationship the the the legal relationship with the family ended. That meant my grandmother could not inherit. And these were wealthy people.

Now it's not like she wanted the money or anything. She wasn't even allowed the knick knicks. And at the time, my grandmother was a recent widow. She had 3 young children. 1 of the children was very unwell and she had been living with her father and caring for him, in in his in his ailing days.

And but the moment he died, the family, put her out of the house, and she had nowhere to live. Literally put her on the street with 3 young children. And this was because she had been adopted. And so at the death, the connection ended. Even his death even his death notice in the paper mentions that my grandmother was adopted.

And so that was the end of the connection with this particular family. And so that's why I felt that my, grandmother deserved to be on a family tree at the very least. She was never going to go on her adopted family's, family tree. She did at least deserve to be on her birth mother's family tree. So this is the caveat that comes with researching family history.

Be prepared. There will be unpalatable things that you will find out. And in the case of adoptions or illegitimate children, family may see that as a skeleton best left in the closet. Respect those choices. Needless to say, I never heard from the, publisher of the said family tree.

However, he did forward my email to another family member who was so much like me. We even share the same birthday. And she was also researching the family tree. So from her, I learned that her mother, her mother was my grandmother's cousin. So the area where my grandmother lived and the area where this relative's mother lived were only streets away.

They would have seen each other at the shops, on their walks, at the hairdresser, wherever. They were, in fact, cousins. And isn't that kind of spooky that they were so close to each other, but didn't know that they were in fact related. I find that really, as a great sadness actually that my grandmother who so desperately sought to find her birth family had in fact been so close to them. And had she have met this woman, she would have been welcomed into the family of that.

I am absolutely, certain. And and another interesting thing here so going back to my grandmother's birth mother, I discovered that, she had lived in the same town that I was living in at the time. And I also found out that one of her sons, so this would be my grandmother's half brother, had lived within 200 meters of my home. So this birth family that we had never connected with, never met, we had in some way cross paths, albeit different generations and different times in place, but we nonetheless cross paths. And I find those coincidences are such fun to find out.

Anyway, thanks to my generous relative, I have reached back into my grandmother's history learning about her grandparents growing up in Somerset and immigrating to Canterbury in the late 18 seventies, and how 2 of her children were the first to be buried in the Tomuka cemetery, which at that time was only a plowed field. So I now have insight into my maternal family reaching back into 18 fifties. I think it's quite extraordinary. But wait, there's more. I soon learned that my grandmother was correct.

She did have 2 brothers, also born out of wedlock. Now one of the brothers at the time my grandmother was adopted went to live with the maternal grandmother, and the other brother, interestingly, stayed with the birth mother, despite her getting married and going on to have 6 children. So to me, the plot thickens. And I can only begin to imagine what the little girl my grandmother felt when she was placed in an orphanage at the age of 3 or 4 awaiting adoption. Separated from her older and younger brothers, The anxiety she must have felt, the confusion, worrying that she must have done something wrong to upset her mother, and so much more.

My gran never met her brothers again. We did find one brother's unmarked grave and have since erected a headstone connecting the 2 siblings after almost a 110 years apart. My gran's name was Grace, and so I added a quote from Amazing Grace, which was her favorite hymn. My eyes were blind, but now I see. I can assure you, lovely listeners, that I never imagined when I held my grand's birth certificate that day that I would meet my wonderful relative and be able to connect my grandmother with her elder brother who had tragically died at the age of 22 in 1926, far too young.

When we begin to connect our oral history with the archival documents, sometimes there can be more questions than answers. I have no idea why this woman abandoned 2 of her children, but kept one of them. I have no idea why the brother and sister had to be separated and never see each other. This part of my family history truly saddens me because I cannot understand the choices that that woman made, and the impact it had on my grandmother, and the impact that was passed on to my mother. It had intergenerational consequences.

So just be ready, history hunters. There will be skeletons. There will be things that your forebears have done that you just cannot understand or align with your values. And that makes it even more important as we sit in this re inspired life that we make some attempt to answer the questions that might be asked about our life by our great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. And that is why I urge you all to in some way record your version of the family's history.

Now I say your version because in families like ours, there may be different versions of history depending on where you sit on the family tree. We all have fallible memory, and we all have different relationships with each other. So just remember, whatever it is that you write about your family, always preface it with this is what I remember. This is what I understand the records are showing, and invite your siblings to record their versions of the family history too. However, you cannot argue with facts, and I find papers passed as a great place to find articles about family members.

And it seems like every year, we get access to more and more digital newspaper archives. And I was able to find a record of my grandmother's wedding day, including what the bride's mother wore and, the the groom's mother, a description of my grandmother's dress and her and her bouquet, and so much more. Even the place where they got married. I even found an article about my great great grandfather who was in his late nineties when he died. I was even able to read my great great grandmother's obituary.

I even found adverts to for my father's my grandfather's barbershop. I've read about how my grandmother's brother, that that's the birth mother's, son, about his school awards and what he was doing at school. And that's another thing, you know, you're going to see in these old newspapers, you know, what little awards they got, you know, did they put their flowers in it? A horticultural society thing, you know. You know, did they win a prize for best pipe clots?

It's just wonderful researching that sort of thing, you know. And surprisingly for me, I even read, in my, my grandmother's, brother's obituary that, it had recorded there that his parents had been killed when he was young. Now as we know, that was total and complete hogwash. His mother was very much alive, living in the North Island with her railwayman husband, father to her 6 children. And she didn't die until 1950 7.

So obviously, the way they had explained this young boy coming to live with his grandmother was that his parents had been killed. And as I say, it's complete and apple absolute, utter hogwash. And that's one of the great things that you find out. Right? Just the little lies that people told to make themselves socially acceptable.

So there are some ways to get started. Just begin where you are in the current journey and let the rest unfold. And your great grandchildren will one day thank you for reaching into the future. Well, I'm in the process of writing my mother's family history and this includes how my parents met and so much more that I won't bore you with. But it wasn't easy being a single mother in the 19 sixties when women found it hard to get jobs and she they were paid a third of what men were earning for the same job.

So for her, putting food on the table and paying the bills was a daily challenge, as well as standing up to domestic abuse. I did I did get, one of those little booklets from Whitt calls, which is, you know, grandmother, grandfather, tell us about yourself. And when she was, dipping into the mists of dementia, I, each night I would ask her one of the little questions in the booklet and she would tell me, her responses. You know, grandma, what did you like about Christmas? And she started to tell me some things from her childhood.

And I wrote everything down verbatim because I wanted her little turn of phrase. In the book of her story I'm writing, it's my turn of phrase. But in this little little booklet, you know, of about 15 pages, I wanted my mother's turn of phrase. And one day I will give that little booklet to my eldest granddaughter who is very much interested in family history as me. So there's another place to get you started.

Just go and buy one of those books and answer those questions about yourself, or maybe if you don't have that information about your parents, maybe you could answer that information about your parents as well. There's also some great templates you can get online if you want to write a little bit more. So do search, do an uncle Google search and see what you can come up with, but I do like those little books. They're just small and they're they're just very simple and easy to do. So, let's now talk about, tangible keepsakes.

So how do we create tangible keepsakes? Well, we can put together a family history and a written document. And today, there are all sorts of options available in terms of publishing that information. I mean, you could publish it in in a in a in a book, as a paper version. You could retain it as a p v PDF and just give copies to all the family members, or you could create an ebook.

I guess one of the challenges about using technology to record, family history is that IT programs do change. And maybe your great grandchildren will not be able to open up the document, and read it. Whereas, a paper version is certainly accessible across the generations. But I'm gonna leave that for you to decide, about how you want to publish your family history. But do think about, publishing it in some way.

Now when it comes to the archival records that your family may hold, I strongly advise that you get them scanned and create a digital version. Because if there's a house fire or natural disaster, they will still be retained, and and maybe even post them on the cloud. And I think this is a great little project that maybe you could involve your grandchildren, and they could sort of, in fact, help you here. And, and along the way, maybe ask you a few questions about the family. So do investigate.

Do talk to family about how they would like those documents, recorded in some way. And it's also worth mentioning that you've probably got knickknacks as well. Now I've got ornaments and jewelry. I've also got, I've got a lovely, old pencil cases that my, my uncle made as well. But you might have a lovely piece of woodwork.

You might have a piece of furniture. You might have paintings that forebears have in fact, done. So just remember that these 2 need to be recorded and archived. You can donate, if the paintings are particularly valuable, you can of course donate them to the local museum or to the art gallery who in fact look after them on your behalf. But what I'm doing with the keepsakes that I've got is I'm photographing them and writing a story about each one, where it came from, and its historic importance to the family.

And ultimately, I'll digitize the photographs and the stories so that we retain that historic record. Now we may lose the and the knickknacks along the way, but there is a record of their existence. One of the knickknacks that I, hold very dear to me is a little porcelain shoe that would have been given to my grandmother on her first Christmas when she had been adopted. So she would have been, only 4 years old and, and had only been in her new home for 4 months. And the local department store, used to gift out shoes, every Christmas, a different shoe.

And this was the the, the gift that particular year. And so, whenever I look at that shoe, I'm reminded of that little girl and how she must have treasured that little gift. You know, something really special. And that shoe is now a 110 years old, and I think would be a great shame if the story in the shoe was lost in the midst of time. And so, I feel responsible to ensure my great grandchildren know about my grandmother's story.

Now when my father turned 80 years of age, I took him to Bulgaria to see his family after 60 years, and you can imagine there was much celebration. There was also, quite a lot of miscommunication, as well that went on. But anywho, moving on, One day while I was visiting my aunt who spoke no English, there was her friend there to greet me and she also spoke no English, so I had to use my father as interpreter. Well, my aunt's friend gave me a hand embroidered table cloth explaining that she had made this table cloth for me and it contained all beautiful traditional Bulgarian symbols that you might have found on a wedding dress or a wedding flowers or something of that sort of ilk. And, and she gave it to me saying to me that this was her way of thanking me for making her friend so happy.

Now that tablecloth is very precious to me and I certainly want it to remain in the family as a tangible connection between the two branches of our family. And also a reminder to how much a gift of kindness can mean to somebody. I also have my grandmother's wedding presents and her adopted mother's wedding presents as well. These are just little knickknacks, plates and vases, and things. Now now in the case of, of my great grandmother, on the adopted side, these some of these are getting on for, you know, a 120 years old.

And in the case of my grandmother, 90 years old. So these are pretty special. And I'm sure you've got those as well. And those little things in some way connect me to these 2 ladies, you know, and, that's very, very special as well. Now you might have wedding presents that mean a lot to you.

And, I know I've got one. My mother gave me an embroidered table cloth, for my wedding, and I'm certainly gonna make sure that I record that story as well. Now people may not want my my my descendants may not be the slightest bit interested these things. But, I'm going to at least give them the option to say thank you, but no thank you. I I don't know how they will receive that information and neither will you.

But, you know, we have a responsibility to record in some way those tangible keepsakes and where they come from and the story behind them. And that's my challenge to you today. So here are some inspirational quotes to get you started. The Chinese proverb, to forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root. I love that one.

Now William Morris wrote the next one, and interestingly enough, in my, my research of the family, it would seem that, my, mother my grandmother's birth father was probably a Morris. Yes. On his mother's side. So there you are. So I am connected, I think, in some way to William Morris, the crafter in arts and crafts era.

Anyway, the past is not dead. It is living in us and will be alive in the future, which we are now helping to make. There you go. That's interesting, isn't it? Alex Haley wrote, in every conceivable manner, the family is linked to our past, bridged to our future.

Here's another. Our ancestors live on in our thoughts and dreams, guiding us as we navigate our lives. The author is unknown. Now please forgive me. I'm going to attempt to pronounce a Maori proverb.

Whakapapa Te Wanui Te Ririringa o Te Tangeeta. The translation is whakapapa, our genealogy, is the forest and the pathway of the people. So as we conclude today's episode of Don't Retire Reinspire, we've explored the profound impact of recording your family's history. By embarking on this journey, you're not only preserving cherished memories, but also weaving a tapestry that connects past, present, and future generations. Remember, every family has a story worth telling and yours is no exception.

Whether through audio recordings, written memoirs, or digital archives, you have the power to ensure that these stories endure for years to come. So take the first step today. Reach out to family members, gather those old photographs and letters, and start capturing the rich tapestry of your family's journey. Your efforts will not only enrich your own life, but will leave a lasting legacy that inspires and connects generations yet to come. So here's your call to action.

I encourage you to start recording your family histories and share your progress or results with us here at Don't Retire Reinspire. The email is in the show notes. Thank you very much for joining us on this inspiring adventure. Stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore ways to reinvent and embrace life and retirement. Until next time, keep exploring, keep re inspiring, and keep celebrating the milestones that make life truly remarkable.

This podcast was produced by Anthony Radley.