Journaling: Preserving Family Histories

If you’re interested in preserving your family’s history then you may be the unassigned family historian. Creating a family tree, documenting family recipes, and knowing your roots boils down to encouraging a practice of staying curious and asking the questions that no one else is asking, multiple times to multiple people. 

It sounds like “Tell me about how grandma and grandpa met” and “How did our family arrive to Kentucky?” It looks like writing down interview questions and asking every family member their version of the story and of course documenting it - whether online or on paper. It is common to hear names that mean nothing to us, but mean the world to others. Why is that? Who were they? Why are they so special to the people we love? One question unlocks one memory after another and soon enough, we are remembering our roots.

Journal prompt: What does this practice of curiosity look like in your life? What are you doing to preserve your family’s history? What else can you do to preserve the stories within your family? What stories do we want to preserve? How do you preserve stories?