Preserving Memories in an Electronic Age

For historians, the loss of the paper trail poses a problem in an electronic age, where most things are done via telephone or email. But opportunities exist to make it even easier to capture memories-especially for people with poor penmanship.

Here are some tips for doing just that in this electronic age:

• Chat rooms—If you participate in any chat rooms on the Internet, copy and save all items you post to a folder on your hard drive. I have a folder called “My Memoirs.” Inside that folder, I have a folder for each decade. While participating in a chat room called “Pregnant at 40,” I copied each of the posts I made to the room. Today, I have my entire pregnancy chronicled with its emotional and physical ups and downs.
• Emails—If you send emails to friends or family, generally you will mention what you’ve been doing and perhaps anecdotes about your kids or grandchildren. Copy and save each email to a folder on your hard drive. I have a folder called: “Jokes and Emails.” Inside, I have separate folders for “Emails we sent” and “Emails others sent to us.” So I’m preserving my memories as well as those of family and friends. Later, I can edit those emails, generally by date. I have been able to chronicle wonderful tidbits about my son’s early years by saving emails to the hard drive. The baby books aren’t filled out, but the memories are preserved.
• Christmas letters—If you put together an annual Christmas or holiday letter, copy and save all Christmas letters you write. Later, you can put them together into a book and you’ve got the highlights from decades of your life preserved in an easy to read format.
• Journals—If you type journal items, keep them on computer. You can always edit them later to remove anything you’d rather not share with others.
• Letters—Type in old letters and diaries you have so there’s an electronic backup and scan in a few pages to capture the handwriting. Often, the handwriting fades over time, particularly if the letters were written in pencil. I’m in the process of typing in the letters my husband mailed to his family members while serving on the front lines in Vietnam.
• Photographs—Save those old photos onto CDs so they can be shared with other family members. Scan the photographs into the computer, tinker with them if necessary, then make backup copies and store those in a fire safe.

Now, here’s the most important tip if you decide to preserve any family memories on the computer:

BACK UP EVERYTHING, either on CDs or some other discs. I tend to burn CDs continuously.

While you’re here, you might want to see more free articles and resources. Have you thought about preparing your spiritual legacy? Julie Zander also offers help for historians.