This month is the anniversary of a dear genealogy friend’s death. Ann was the consummate genealogist…. the sort who speaks up in a stalled elevator, “Anybody researching the Miller family?” Ann died quite unexpectedly of a blood clot from her broken ankle to her lung. She died at home the day after teaching a class on “How To Be An Organized Genealogist.”
Ann may have taught these classes, but she did not practice what she taught.
After her funeral, her curmudgeon husband called me to come over “and clean out that messy room” because he needed it. Ann had four children (and six grandchildren at the time) but none were interested in “all that stuff.” The one who was was the son in Texas who was coming up with a suitcase to take home “stuff.”
Oh my.
I went into Ann’s room and cried. Nothing was in order; her desk and files were a mess. I could not tell what was really her family’s stuff and documentation and what was just notes. She had one large bookcase filled with scrapbooks. I could not find any computer back-up discs. But I spent the afternoon and did what I could. When I called the son and told him he’d need a truck to take all the stuff home, I could hear him shrug his shoulders. He came with one suitcase.
And I know for sure that the curmudgeon husband put all Ann’s stuff into black plastic garbage bags which went out to the curb one garbage day at a time. Ann’s entire life’s work was gone to the dump.
How does this story make you feel?
My favorite class to teach is “Leave A Legacy and Not A Mess.” If I were the Goddess of Genealogy, and could make decrees, I would decree this: “Thou shalt do no more research until thou hast gotten in order all thy findings to date and hast gotten them into some order to pass on to the next genealogist in the family.”
I still think about Ann and cry. For my departed friend and for her lost legacy. Please don’t let this be you.
Donna, aka Mother Hen, until next peek.