What would you want your descendants to know about you?

As family historians we search high and low for stories of our ancestors and we love all those wonderful photos that we find to complement them. How many of you have recorded your grandparents or parents so that you will have a lasting record and memory of not only their stories but their voice telling them? How great would it be to be able to have these treasures of previous generations talking about their lives and their experiences?

This started me thinking about what I would want my descendants to know about me, what memories I would want to leave for them that might be meaningful. Have you ever thought about it? Have you left anything for those that will be the family historians after you (besides your research)? 

At the recent RootsTech conference (my first ever) I looked at one of the sellers called Audiobiography (https://audiobiography.com) and fell in love with their products. This was really interesting to me as I have done recordings of loved ones before but this seemed to be a really easy way, they use QR codes scanned with your smart phone to take you to a place where you can do multiple recordings. I bought several products while they were on sale, they have quite a range of different items.

So right now I must stress that I have NO affiliation with the company, I am only an ordinary customer, but I have been pretty impressed so far, by both their products and their customer service, so I wanted to share this with you. I had several questions of the company and they were very helpful at each stage. Be aware though that the prices on the site are in US dollars.

The products that interested me were:

• The memorial plaque - as my husband passed away a short while ago. The small plaque attaches to a headstone or memorial and people can leave tributes and listen to the tributes left by others. You can even record a message for others on your own memorial if you want to leave a message for your loved ones, while your still here of course! It could also be a unique way for you to record information about an ancestor and add to their gravesite for other people to hear. What would you think if you turned up at your ancestors grave and found a "message" waiting for you with information about their history? I guess you might have to check with the cemetery, but people leave a lot of other items on a grave that are less useful to us as historians! They also have a free replacement if it gets lost or damaged which I thought was a very good deal.

https://audiobiography.com/product/memorial

• The Keepsake books (shown above) - these have questions in them with QR codes that you scan and then record your answers. You can add several recordings and it is all saved online indefinitely for you and can be downloaded for safe keeping as well

https://audiobiography.com/product/jxP9n8n7HIycVTS82dPB

• Audio Stickers - QR code stickers that you can stick on photos and then record information about them. How often have you looked at old photos and wished that someone could tell you who the people are and when the photos were taken? Well how about doing this for other people!

https://audiobiography.com/product/HSeKzwheqIhAkamwthfU

Well, I bought each of these things. I bought several of the memory books, they have nice ones with beautiful timber covers (shown above) or cheaper versions that are just ordinary card covers. I bought the fancy timber one for myself and have started recording memories from my life. I just love it. I hope that someone will be happy one day that I left this for them. I also bought ones for my parents and my father-in-law. Now I just have to make time to go and sit with them, also very important :) as they aren't so good with technology.

Even if you don't want to outlay money for this type of product, I encourage you to record messages, or leave a written book or diary, plus of course your genealogy research. Make recordings of your relatives, young and old. I love listening to my recordings of my grandparents. It really brings their memory back to life when I hear their voices. Video recordings are great too!

Well that is my blog for this week! I would love to hear your ideas on this or other suggestions of what you do to capture your relatives stories and voices.