Thank you Tim McGlue, Marci KR, Bill Moore, Jennifer Jones, Kristin Rapinac, Deborah Carl, Jane Chapman, Becky Hetchler, Marian Beaman, Linda Stufflebean, Sovereign Signal, Dr. Mary M. Marshall, Annette Gendler, Paula Collins, D Carlile, Linda Teather, Kyla Bayang, Lynda Heines, and so many more for taking the time on this Sunday (or Monday morning) to join us for today’s program.
These are special ways for a community to come together to inspire, encourage, and support one another. Forgive me if I missed any of you or the topics and questions you asked in the online chat. Feel free to drop your questions in the comments below and share your support with a ❤️. Algorithms are listening.
What a fun topic today, and a delightful conversation made possible by my dear friend Kathy Stone of Kathy's Coaching. I know everyone joins me in thanking Kathy, my Kathy’s Corner partner, for jumping in when it became clear that Taneya Koonce wouldn’t be able to make it.
Taneya of 🌳Academy of Legacy Leaders was unexpectedly called to attend to a personal emergency. She still plans to join us for her scheduled program on Thursday, “Genealogy Storytelling and Junk Journals.”
Both today’s and Thursday’s programs were the result of a conversation I had with Taneya last summer following her post following her rediscovery of the art form:
Artifacts & the Stories of our Lives
Today’s program began with a few references Kathy had collected from the history of scrapbooks and ephemera collections — ranging from pressed flowers to memorabilia. Many of these came from a presentation she’d prepared several years ago and (conveniently,) still accessible on YouTube:
This resonated strongly with many of you in today’s livestream audience as you brought up examples of artifacts in our inherited family collections, from quilts and cigar boxes to photo and memento albums. Thoughful curation is key, we concluded, especially as compared with movements to “declutter.”
After some research, I’ve come to believe that my grandmother’s self-published family history book, “Harger and Allied Families,” was inspired by her mother-in-law’s 1880’s era scrapbook. I have both now in my collection:
As Kathy pointed out, the tradition dates back at least to the Commonplace books the philosopher John Locke discussed in “A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books,” published in English in 1706 and available today on the Internet Archive.
On the topic of handwriting, we talked briefly about handwritten postcards and other samples of writing. I mentioned my offer to all projectkin members to add you to our Members’ Map to see a sampling of our global members’ map and add yourself to the map by completing this form:
Our conversation turned to the subtle distinctions among albums, journals, junk journals, datebooks, and more. That discussion is helpful if you are considering starting your own, in the context of modern digital tools and the kinds of content you may add to these books.
Community Conversations
Artifacts, mementos, and ephemera are topics never far from family history. Kathy has picked up on this in her Kathy’s Corner programs for Projectkin, most notably in her December holiday special focused on postcards. Stay tuned for her February program, when we’ll circle back to preservation of these materials. Learn more about Kathy and her expertise at:
Join us on Thursday (or Friday in Asia/Pacific) to learn more about Taneya Koonce and the wonderful community that’s developed around her work with Legacy Leaders:
As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories.
