Five Reasons to Record a Life Story
November 16, 2021
- Strengthen family relationships – we honour our elders when we listen to them share their stories, memories, and perspectives. Family members who hear these stories gain a new understanding of that person, learning what it was like to live in a different generation, and why life choices were made.
- Preserve the history of your family – in recent years it has become much easier to do family research online but this is often just the names and dates. A recorded life story will preserve so much more detail and colour about your family history.
- Five generations remembered – most people can recall two generations above them, their own, and two generations below them. Sometimes they may even know stories going back over 100 years if their own grandparents talked about their parents. Once a person passes on, this rich history is lost forever.
- Leave a legacy for the future – research shows that young people who know their family history are more resilient. Leaving the story of your life will inspire and teach those that come after you for many generations.
- Remind people what is being lost – with technology and global warming, the pace of change has accelerated exponentially. Younger generations may never know what it was like to catch fish in their local stream or play unsupervised in the local park until dusk. They can’t miss what they have never known but hearing how life used to be may inspire them to make changes to improve the world around them.
