Family Historian User Group

I have volunteered to write an article for our small Family History Society about what might happen or what provisions we can make for our research when we are gone. My suggestion for the article was met with a resounding 'Yes please!' so I think it is a topic at the back of many peoples' minds. My article will not try to recommend one way over another but discuss suggestions with the reasoning behind them. I have asked the same question on another forum, so apologies if you see it twice.

I thought that forum members would have plenty of ideas for my article. Please can you say what you plan to do and why you are doing it? (even if it is 'nothing'). I don't want this thread to develop into arguments but would welcome suggestions to add to my own growing list of possibilities.

Thanks
Anne

Aye Anne,

Before making any "plans" have a face to face conversation with your children or immediate family as to whether they are interested! May seem daft, but can save a lot of grief early on.

If someone or multiple family members are interested, keep the conversations going and realise that you might have to modify the way you hold your data, so that it makes sense too them, when they come to take it over.

Having cleared that one up and found that the family aren't really bothered, I would suggest that you include in your Will, specific groups for specific objects, images and a copy of the relevant family data in both paper and digital (GEDCOM and pdf) formats; filing them accordingly and family and Executors know where they are. Again, you need to have conversations, with either the relevant (family place of origin) Family Historical Societies at Country, County, District or Town level and tell the family and Executors of your wishes.

I suspect, but haven't asked the question of the Society of Genealogists (Society of Genealogists_UK) that they might be interested in a copy of or the original data, documents.

Enough from me, enjoy the blether!

My regards, Bill

MY research is left lock stock and barrel in my will to the Society of Genealogists (with detailed instructions to my executors on how to gather it up and hand it over. There's also provision for any interested members of my family to have a copy of any digital material -- they may not be interested now, but they might be in the future. I have no 'original unique' documents, so there shouldn't be any argument about where stuff goes.

http://www.sog.org.uk/uploads/depositresearch.pdf

My father started our research and he asked me to look after it when he was failing, which I did and became hooked. My younger son has said he would like to look after it when I get too old, but as that is a bit off yet (hopefully) who knows?

With respect to alternatives, I did wonder about giving it to the Suffolk Record Office where the majority of our relatives came from, the alternative is the SoG. Having said that the data has to be in a usable form for others without the repository having to do much work other than cataloguing, such as written up in book style, which I have already done for our ancestors, or in some form of universal electronic file format. I note that SoG says it will take proprietary file formats, so I presume that includes FH/Gedcom, but I also note they talk about 3.5" discs and MS-DOS. This suggests the document is very old and could well be out of date now.

My father also started the family research and I became hooked when he passed it over to me, though not until I had retired. So far none of my relatives are interested but then they haven't retired yet.
At the moment - I have printed off the various branches of the family tree (brief details) and put it in the box files that hold various items of family memorabilia, in the hope that this attracts the attention of my executors sufficiently to open my family history software rather than deleting the whole thing (this assumes I will keep doing research until I die rather than handing it over in advance). I am gradually putting such memorabila in a specific cupboard.
I will also be sending my father's memoirs to his professional society once I have finished scanning them in to add to our family records (it's only taken me 10 years!) and plan to send part of my family tree to the Hugueont Society since I have proved a link.

Although, part of me thinks that, if any of my children/relatives want to start family history, they will want to find out the information for themselves rather than just reading about it. I redid most of my father's research and could have done much of it just as easily if I hadn't had it. So I think that original documents are the most important things to keep, and possibly things that have cost money, eg BMD certificates, copies of wills etc. At the end of the day, to me, it is a hobby like golf or gardening.

Thanks for the ideas. Lots of food for thought. A number of people have mentioned about family history being a hobby like golf or gardening and, of course, we leave little of those behind us!
Anne

If you are a member of the Guild of One Name Studies they have a facility for taking data and putting it into TNG format.

That of course relies on the continued existence of the Guild - and over a really long horizon not much can be guaranteed.

County Archives are another possibility, but I suspect that you need to talk to them in advance about whether they are willing to accept family archives and if so how much and in what formats.

The Wayback Machine is another option for websites.

In terms of practicalities it is important that wishes in a Will do not fail due to uncertainty - so wishes have to be kept up to date (or fallback provisions stated). And if you change the admin password to your online presence - tell your executors!