What are you going to leave your Descendants

[EDO]

G'day RootsChatters

I have read with interest the several responses to the following thread -

what good did your ancestors do for you?

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,252912.0/topicseen.html


There is a corollary to that question -

What are you going to leave your ancestors??

EDO
in OZ

[philipsearching]

A jolly and spiffing good morrow to you, Edo.

Did you mean descendants?

I hope to leave my descendants the memory of a man whose heart was in the right place even if his brain wasn't always.

As far as genealogy goes, I expect to leave them a brick wall or ten, together with some unfinished lines of enquiry.  I want to leave them a sense of who their ancestors were, where and how they lived, and a desire to find out more.

Philip

[clematised]

The first thing I am going to leave my ancestors is nothing as they are no longer living but what I would like to leave my decendants is firstly my genes that will be very valuable in the future as genetics are the means to the future in mapping out our past and also the means to inform the people ahead of us what we are mad up of.

We can all leave our worldly goods and sometimes we have nothing of great value in monetery terms but we all know that we can leave a paper trail of information and pictorioral with names and places and also the tree that we are all mapping out but the best thing we can leave is the next generation that can spurn and carry on the family name.

The families of today are a dying trate as fathers are are unknown or un named and this will continue while the current trend of the law such as the CSA continue to hunt fathers to pay for their sires as in the old days of bastardy bonds where we are now searching for the fathers of our forebears where the fathers were unwritten.


I am pleased that you have written this question as it has made me think about the future as to what I will leave my decendants and one thing that will be certaian is that I will leave all the paper information and the pictorial information that is available to me and the most important thing is my families medical history which contains varian sorts of cancer diabetes and alczimers and any other medical ailments that may cross my path before my demise.

I thank you

Edna

[adee7]

Hi EDO

For my three children and on down the line through their children there will be a package of information about my ancestors that will include as much social history and as many old pictures as I can put into it.

I believe that it is important for our descendants to learn about our lives and why we are the way we are.  I want my grandchildren to learn about my life from childhood to 'seniorhood' (is their such a word?).

Born in 1936, my childhood with strict parents, constant moving about the country, and the economics of the times was so very different from those of my grandchildren, that I am contemplating writing it all down.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would like my descendants to understand my part of our family story.  How often have we wondered why our ancestors did certain things or moved from place to place?

Mostly, I want them to know that I love them.  Mushy?  Perhaps, but more important than all the rest of it.

Kathleen

[Kin-getter]

Whatever files/photos/curios/memorabilia/gedcoms I might wish to pass on I have no family to pass them on to. So much for material things.

Spiritually, I'd want to leave behind the feeling of pride that I have when I think of my Scottish and Canadian ancestry.

I'd want to leave these wee poems:

1)
A brief moment in Eternity.

While walking the dog I chanced to be
Down beside the deep blue sea
And gazed across this precious land
As we lay contented on golden sand
A brief moment in Eternity.

2)
"I am the sum of many parts"

I am the sum of many parts
Collected together since Time began.

All those genes flow from Adam and Eve
Not to forget Oor Jock Thomson and his bairns.

This is Nature's Book - The Book of Life, wherein
Our generations are its chapters.

With each generation a new Dawn comes
And just as surely night will follow day.

Are not our lives but words upon
The pages that make up The Book of Life?

Our events the punctuations in the text
We term as History.

What makes us so different
From those that went before?

And what of Evolution?
To what do we evolve?

What do we leave behind for others
When our Day has become Night?

More genes, words on a page?
What else?


3)
TREE of LIFE

Oh Tree of Life so tall and strong
With roots sunk deep in history,
Each limb a mark of Man's endeavour
And leaves the sign of growth.
In reaching up towards the sky
It shows the path to destiny.
Bending with each wind of change
Ravaged by the storms of time.
Its needs seem so few
While it offers so much.
(May I be your Tree of Life?)

Oh Tree of Life so safe and sound
A haven for so many,
Giving solace to weary souls
Who rest beneath your boughs,
As breezes rustle through your leaves
Making music pleasant to the ears.
(May I be your Tree of Life?)

From such a small and precious seed
You grow through Nature's care,
Past Man's allotted span of years
Upright, steadfast and true.
(May I be your Tree of Life?)

4)
Journey

Teardrops fall onto dry skin –
Many have gone before.
Their meeting –
A fleeting
Part of history.
Raindrops fall onto dry bed rock –
Others have gone before.
Their meeting –
A fleeting
Part of history.

Dewdrops fall onto dry brown grass –
Like those that fell before.
Their meeting –
A fleeting
Part of history.

Each journey begins with that single drop –
A journey that never ends.
Rain that rolls down dry slopes –
Flows in a lemming rush –
Who’ve done it all before.

Ahead and beyond,
Across and around,
Drop becomes pool,
Pool becomes stream,
Stream becomes river,
River becomes sea,
Sea becomes cloud –
Which falls as drops.

5)
Haiku


If it suits our mood
Haiku makes creative thoughts
Seasoning the mind.


James.

[EDO]

Hi EDO

.............................................................  constant moving about the country, and the economics of the times was so very different from those of my grandchildren, that I am contemplating writing it all down.

Kathleen

I am too::

BUT  'my mob' are saying the first thing they will do would be to throw out Dad's old junk!!

ps. Thank you to those who pointed out my error in the heading of -

"Ancestors"  in lieu of  "Descendants"


EDO

[MarieC]

I don't have direct descendants, but I am somewhat in despair about my nephews and nieces ever being interested!

I've already given them a little book I wrote about my father's life - am not sure what they think of it.  I intend to leave a family history - if I ever get round to writing it! - and hopefully my memoirs, if I ever get around to writing those!  I will give copies of those to the local Family History Society, just in case none of the next generation are interested - at least they'll be preserved there!

Then there are a few family heirlooms.  My mind is greatly perplexed as to who will value these.  Hope some potential recipients make themselves clear before I leave this world!

MarieC

[Tephra]

Absolutely nothing .............. I'm gonna spend it all on a cruise     


Barbara

[Gadget]

Totally agree, Barbara. I don't believe in inherited wealth - I didn't inherit any. I shall buy shoes 

Seriously , like Mary, I have no direct descendants so a charity and some  heirlooms like family bible and not very valuable (in money terms) jewelery to neice. I hope to write up all the FH and put it on the web.

Gadget