{"id":1541,"date":"2022-02-26T22:13:34","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T22:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/?p=1541"},"modified":"2022-07-10T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2022-07-10T15:43:09","slug":"core-genealogy-documents-for-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/2022\/02\/26\/core-genealogy-documents-for-the-next-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Core genealogy documents for the next generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Core<\/p>\n

We read an article a few days ago titled “How to Discover the Life-Affirming Comforts of \u2018Death Cleaning\u2019<\/a>” Despite the morbid title,\u00a0it’s a thoughtful discussion of cutting down clutter\u00a0so your loved ones don’t have to later.<\/p>\n

The article also got us talking about\u00a0the types of papers and other documents we want to leave to our descendants\u00a0… and those which should be trashed.<\/p>\n

The company I founded is all about<\/a>\u00a0preserving and sharing\u00a0core\u00a0<\/em>genealogy data, genealogy stories<\/a>, and family photos on paper, which is the only proven long-term storage medium that’s relatively affordable and easy to use.<\/p>\n

For instance, we have copies of a handwritten family tree and other notes written by great-grandmothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, some of which has survived close to 100 years.\u00a0If they had computers in the 1930s, we doubt any of this\u00a0would be available now, any more than we can easily read a floppy disk from the 1980s, a computer punch card from the 1960s, or a defunct online genealogy forum from twenty years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what about other types of information stored on paper that might be cluttering your basement right now? Consider the following:<\/p>\n