Have you heard of a “family keeper?” We meet so many through Artifcts that we discuss them quite often and with deep fondness. But it’s only recently that we discovered there’s more than one definition for a family keeper, and the definition you know may influence how you interact with the keeper in your family, too.
In Artifcts parlance, a family keeper is a positive, warm concept. A person becomes the family keeper by default or by choice. By default are those who gain keeper status through (a) accident of proximity—living closest to a family member with items they wanted to pass down and the stuff had to go somewhere—or (b) by legal right as the heir. In contrast, by choice are the keepers who are sentimental, family historians or genealogists, or perhaps simply collectors.
How do you recognize a family keeper? They are your family members who save the old photos and heirlooms, write down the stories, and create (or suggest) the family cookbooks and scrapbooks. Who is the family keeper in your family? (Maybe thank them with a gift membership to Artifcts.)
Now, a family keeper from the viewpoint of genealogists can be a bit different. As it turns out, many professional genealogists view family keepers as more like overly protective stewards who attempt to control the fate of the family’s heirlooms, historical research, and the like.
Professional genealogist Thomas MacEntee, that "Genealogy Technology Guy" and founder of Genealogy Bargains, explains it best this way: “[Family keepers] think they ‘own’ their ancestors and don't tend to work well in collaborative environments such as FamilySearch where anyone can modify a family tree.”
So why again should you care about family keepers?
No matter how one defines a family keeper, as a group, keeprs are under a lot of pressure, and we guarantee you that they feel it. When we ask folks, “Got stuff?” family keepers are quick to say, “Oh, yes, more than you can imagine.” And that’s typically followed with something like, “And I don’t know where it will go next! I don’t know who cares. I can’t get them to listen.”
Listening in this increasingly digital age is really challenging. It’s partly what inspired our piece “Storytellers, Beware.” Digital life complicates matters in a variety of ways, but topping our list are these two key points:
1. We are printing out fewer documents, photos, newspaper articles and the like.
Remember what it was like to sit and chat through someone’s photos from a recent trip? Or to share the story behind a collection of family photos that caught your eye? That’s how family stories lived on: access and repetition.
2. We consume information differently than in the past.
Why do the algorithms that make and break “influencers” thrive on video content? The youngest generations are subsisting on sound bites, DIGITAL sound bites, that they can access on a daily basis when and where they please. That simply is not a photobook, scrapbook, or any trove of physical documents or photos. It’s just not. Family keepers have to adapt and meet their loved ones where they at … in the digital universe.
If family keepers are left hanging, the likelihood that family stories and history and the family heirlooms will disappear forever increases dramatically. And then you’ll have to wait for the next family historian to come along and do their best to recreate it all, all being the stories and maybe even the genealogy.
The heirlooms? They’ll be long gone. And with them could be a surprising amount of generational wealth, too. One Arti Community member told co-founder Ellen Goodwin recently that growing up he pushed his parents constantly to declutter. He went so far as to haul off items that in his view were unused, uncared for, and or broken beyond reasonable repair. One day he got rid of a wobbly table that his father refused to fix. As it turns out, repairing an antique table from a famous designer is costly and hard to come by. So his frustration wiped out not just the family history behind the table, but several thousand dollars from his one-day inheritance. Ouch!
Now that you know, what will you do next?
If you're a family keeper, Artifct to preserve and share all those stories and all those items. Give family members the opportunity to surprise you with both what they may know and what interest they may have in the items for “someday” when you may not want to hold onto them anymore. Or maybe they can borrow them!
If you know a keeper, introduce them to Artifcts to ensure the family history lives on. Don't want to pay for yet another app? At the bare minimum use your five free Artifcts to tell your family story using a few choice photos, heirlooms, snippets of family videos, … the possibilities are endless.
Happy family history month. Happy Artifcting!
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Artifcts Genealogy Gems Checklist
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