Lamont Clark - Family History! How to Turn Your Genealogy into a Lasting Legacy

Family History!

How to Turn Your Genealogy into aLasting Legacy

Second Edition

By

Lamont Clark

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 -70WestPress

www.70westpress.com

Dedication

To my loving wife Sheila, whosupports all my zany ideas.

To my sons Justin and Ryan, you arenot just in my heart, you are my heart

To my ancestors, thank you forsetting the stage, I will try to build on it.

Table of Contents

I am excited youve decided tocapture, create, and publish your Legacy Book! In this book I willwalk you through the necessary steps in creating what I hope willbe a family treasure, something that will help preserve your familystory for generation upon generation.

These are some the topics welldiscuss:

What is a Legacy Book?

Preparing to conduct an interview;

What equipment will you need? ;

Conducting the interview;

Transcribing and editing the interview;and

Publishing your book

Ive tried my best to write this guide withyou in mind. I am going to walk you through the key steps for everypart of the process. I may repeat myself, but youll just have toforgive me, because that just means it is important enough to sayit again. My purpose is to make sure you get exactly theinformation you need, when you need it.

Creating you Legacy Book is a process. Someparts will be easy, some will demand a little bit more of yourattention, but getting it done right is important because this issomething that will be seen by family members for years and yearsto come. So the time and effort that goes into creating this willbe well worth it!

Before we get started, let me briefly share mystory.

Growing up in New York, I was very close to mygrandmother (my mothers mother). From birth until about five yearsold, my mother and I lived with my grandmother in her apartment.But even after moving out, we lived two floors below her, so I wasat her apartment almost every day. As life goes on, I got older,went to college, and ended up staying in the Washington DC area, soobviously I didnt see her everyday any more, but we were stillclose. My grandmothers apartment was the place where the wholefamily would gather for holidays, particularly Thanksgiving where Iwould see not just immediate family, but extended family as well. Ididnt have a crazy family (well, not too crazy), so it was alwaysgood to be with them during those occasions.

In November 2010, as my family was preparingfor Thanksgiving, for some reason there was a discrepancy as towhere Thanksgiving dinner was going to be held. It wasnt a disputeor anything, it was just the planning was off, so half of my familywas going to my cousins house in the Poconos, while the other halfwas going to my grandmothers place in NY. At first I was going togo to the Poconos, but at the last minute decided against it so myfamily drove up to my grandmothers house. Little did I know thatthis would be the last time I would see my grandmother as hernormal self.

A couple of months later, my grandmotherpassed out in her apartment, but fortunately a cousin of ours wholived downstairs found her. My grandmother had to be admitted tothe hospital, and was put on ventilators. She was conscious andalert, but she still had to be on the machines, but her health grewincreasingly worse. I remember one Saturday morning my family wason I-95 on our way up to see her, but I was then told she had to betaken to emergency surgery, so we had to turn around. She wouldntbe conscious after that. My grandmother was basically put on lifesupport. The family had to have a conference call in order todecide how we should proceed. Most of us agreed we shouldntprolong the inevitable, but my great-aunt (my grandmothers sister)clearly didnt want to let her sister go, so we agreed to keep heron support for another week or so. Once my great-aunt (who lived inOhio) got a chance to see my grandmother in her condition, it wasagreed that we should take her off of the machines and let her passnaturally.

We know the sayings and the clichs None ofus are promised tomorrow, Todays a gift, thats why its calledthe Present, Life is too short for etc. etc. But its not untilyou lose people close to you that we really think about it. Inaddition to losing my grandmother that spring 2011, in December2010 (just before Christmas), my wifes grandfather passed; almosta year later, December 2011 my wifes aunt passed, and in winter2012 my aunt passed. So in a span of about 14 months, four membersof our family were gone.

I will spare you the details of other familymember who had died previously. Instead, I will say that just aslife ends, life also begins. In 2011 my wife and I had our secondchild, and we had six of our friends give birth as well as one ofmy cousins got pregnant around the time my aunt passed.

In addition to the fact that loved ones aregone and we cant enjoy their presence any longer, they also taketheir stories with them. Everyone has a story to tell, some moreinteresting than others, but we all have one. So when a personpasses from this planet, unless they wrote an autobiography, theirstory cant be told from their perspective. And when it comes topassing on the stories of family history, it gets losttoo.

While I will not fully know my family history(the stories that my grandmother or grandfather could have sharedwith me) fortunately, my childrens grandparents are still alive(my mother as well as my wifes parents), and I wanted to createsomething that would be a legacy not just for my children, butfor my generations to come as well.

There are books available that ask questionsand you can write the answers in the book so that you can createyour own biography of sorts, but I wanted something more than that.I wanted a real book where I could give copies and give to anyonein the family who wanted one. So I came up with questions for myin-laws and I interviewed them. I also did research and found a wayto make my interview into a real book.

Before you go, please do me one favor,wherever you purchased your book please click the Likebutton.

It only takes a second, but it means a lot tome.

Thanks and Enjoy!

Preserving Your FamilyHistory

Life is shorter than it oftenseems. Sometimes we are only given a few minutes to be withthe ones we love, and hundreds of hours to spend thinking ofthem. Cherish the moments you have with your friends andfamily, because in one single second they can be taken away fromyou forever.

Okay, so now that youve read my story (in anutshell), think about yours. Have you lost an elder in yourfamily? Before they passed were you able to capture all of thewonderful stories they had to share? How about those stories ofyour family history, did you get those?

If your grandparents or even better your greatgrandparents are still alive, think about how moving it would be tobe the one who created a book that told the history of your familyas told by your great-grandfather, or grandmother, you, or anyoneelse in your family line.

This book you create would be your familysLegacy Book.

The Legacy Book is an opportunity for you tosit down with someone or several people in your family and conductan in-depth interview with them. The interview is an ideal chancefor you to discover the richness of your familys history, recordit, and put it into a document that would be available fordescendants. What you write today, you can pass it on to yourchildren. Some of them will be immediately fascinated with it, andsome will probably put it in on a shelf and forget about it. But atime will come, maybe in 10, 20, or even a 100 years later, andyour great-great-grandchild will rediscover the book to his or hergreat delight!