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Unusual Digital Artifcts from Genealogy 

Jill Browne, Genealogist & founder of The Clutter School
October 30, 2024

Earlier this year we called out on social media for a genealogist​ who ​was interested in collaborating with us to see if our co-founder Ellen was in fact related to a global superstar.

Guess who the mystery superstar was? Lady Gaga!

This potential connection seriously confused Ellen, who asked, “Isn’t she Italian!?” whereas her family has a mix of Luxembourgian, German, French, and English heritage. It turns out Lady Gaga was a case of an over eager auto correct in a text message from Ellen’s genealogist aunt. The message should have read Lady Gage, with an “e,” as in the wife of Thomas Wentworth Gage, a commander-in-chief, North America, during the early days of the American Revolution. Granted, Lady Gage is still in impressive ancestor, but she somehow lacks the awe power of Lady Gaga.

We met with our volunteer, Jill Browne, Founder of Clutter School (@MessyNestDeclutterCoach on IG), and discussed exploring other family history instead, potentially through what, with a ​bit of ​latitude, could become ​ancestral ​Artifcts.

Today we’re sharing the highlights with​ you​, Artifcts style, as Family History Month ends, and we all settle in for a long winter’s nap, aka the holiday season with our family where family lore and history are born and shared. Seize the moment. Use these Artifcts as inspiration as you ask for details, sift through old family photos, and maybe even take home an heirloom or two, and Artifct That!

Over to you​, Jill​!

An Uncommon Ancestry Approach to Artifcts 

I love the concept of Artifcts. To me Artifcts offers an opportunity to create a digital museum of whatever one wants to preserve.  
 
As a geographer, I am fascinated by the immovable parts of our histories: landscapes, buildings, towns, roads, statues, and so on. As a genealogist, I can't resist a good cemetery, too. As Winston Churchill said, "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." He was talking about the Commons Chamber in the UK Houses of Parliament, but the same thing applies to our homes and to the shapes of our cities and towns. Buildings and cultural landscapes show us what we think is important in the part of the world we occupy.

This collection of Artifcts includes only one portable object, and it’s not in Ellen’s family's possession. It's in a museum and probably most people in her family have no idea it exists.

But with this one object, we can all appreciate how a single artifact can become a significant piece of family history to dozens, even hundreds of people with the passage of time. After​ ​all, you probably don’t even know your third cousins, and yet you share the same 2X great-grandparents. If any family heirlooms that belonged to those ​distant ​great-grandparents still exist, most likely you and your third cousins, their descendants, have no idea, or, if you do, have lost the history behind them. 
 
This is one reason why I love the intersection of genealogy and Artifcts, and ​it’s also ​my defence of Artifcting things you don't actually own. It gives people a chance to share and to discover parts of their family's history that basic genealogy doesn't usually include.

Now, let’s check out this Artifcts collection!

The Artifcts

Out of the many possible objects and stories tied to Ellen’s May (maternal) and Bowker (paternal) heritage, here are the ones I chose for Ellen’s ​ancestral ​deep dive:

      • a piece of WWI trench art, 
      • two cemeteries, 
      • a town, 
      • a homestead, and 
      • a national historic site. 

Artifct #1: First World War Trench Art engraved "Leut AH Yorton"

The Artifct preview below shows a piece trench art, in this case a decorated artillery shell. The ​etching​​ indicates​ France, May 21, 1918, A. H. Yorton​.​ ​It ​commemorates the day Andrew Yorton entered the trenches with Wisconsin’s 127th Infantry. As this article from the Lewis Army Museum points out, it's not known whether Andrew created this piece himself or commissioned the work, but the article does offer amazing details of Andrew's service during WWI.

 
 
 
 
Trench art engraved "A. H. Yorton", illustration in "An Introduction to Trench Art: The Story of AH Yorton," Allie Krisko, "Virtual Exhibits," Lewis Army Museum, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, photograph on website (https://lewisarmymuseum.com/virtual-exhibits: accessed 23 October 2024).

And who is Andrew to Ellen?

Andrew Henry “Hank” Yorton (1886-1959) was Ellen’s ​second ​great-uncle, the elder brother of Ellen’s great-grandmother, Rena Yorton Wilson (1888-1965). ​In January 1906, ​Rena ​​married Glidden Wilson, ​​the very man who bought the family harp ​that ​Ellen has often referenced and shared here.

From a family history point of view, the story here is that Ellen’s great-grandmother and all the rest of her brother Andrew's family had to endure the long wait while he was away in France, never knowing if he would return. He sailed for France on February 18, 1918, and while the war officially ended on November 11, 1918, he​ didn’t leave​ France ​until​ December 10, 1918.

The US ​observes​ Veterans Day, and Canada Remembrance Day, every November 11th, making this ​shell ​a fitting Artifct to share and reshare this time of year.

Artifct #2:  Two cemeteries in Aurora, Kane County, Illinois 
 
Can a cemetery be an Artifct? In my book, yes! Cemeteries are pieces of our heritage that connect families to their past. As physical places, they create a tiny dot on the map where we can say, yes, this is part of me. I would be especially likely to keep a cemetery as an Artifct if it had several generations of my ancestors. I don't have that, but Ellen does, and then some!

In fact, Ellen’s maternal family ancestry converges in Aurora: If Ellen were to look at just this one geographic area, she would find the impact of multiple ancestral families.

The Marywood Cemetery in Aurora has the graves for Ellen’s May and other ancestors going back in a nearly unbroken line to their very arrival in the US.  
 
The ​Calvary​ Cemetery has the ​graves and memorials for the ​original May family immigrant parents, Johann Petur May (1799-1861) and his wife Anna Knapp May (1794-1857), who were from Luxembourg. Their son, Nikolaus May (1838-1909), buried in Marywood, was also born in Luxembourg. He emigrated with his parents and at least some of his siblings in 1856. 

The May parents died within a few years of their arrival, but their son Nikolaus, continued to live in Aurora, where he married Eva Kellen (1842-1910). Eva, while born in Germany, had a father who was native to Luxembourg as well. That’s why it’s unsurprising to see Luxembourg feature prominently in Ellen’s maternal side DNA profile.

Artifct #3: The Town of Clockville, New York

Clockville also gets my vote for another unconventional family history Artifct. It has a known connection to not one but two families in Ellen’s family tree (Yorton and Lamoreux). In addition, Clockville is so small, that if Ellen were to visit, no matter where she’d venture in Clockville, she’d probably be retracing her ancestors' footsteps.

Remember Ellen’s great-grandmother Rena Yorton from our Artifct above about the trench art? She descended from Paul Yorton (1793-1871) and among her siblings was a brother, Hank, who was born in Clockville, New York. This is just a hamlet, but in its cemetery, you will find their dad Paul, Ellen’s 4X great-grandfather.

It’s through Rena’s brothers that the connection the Lamoreux family is made: Hank married Electa Lamoreux, and George married Electa's sister, Elizabeth Jane. This connection between the Yorton and Lamoreux families persisted as a number of them migrated west from Clockville to Wisconsin, where Ellen grew up. The “Old Lamoreux place” near Ashland, Wisconsin, is well known and Hank’s and Electa’s son Morris lived there at the end of his life.

BONUS TIDBIT: When you’re conducting genealogy research you often find threads you don’t have time to pull in the moment. This is one of those threads and too good not to share. Previous research by Ellen’s aunt traces the Yortons back to the Netherlands and Germany, although some other members of Ancestry.com may have found different lineages than her aunt, including a potential family association with the Dutch East India Company in Cape Town. That may be valid or completely fanciful. More research for another day!

If Ellen were to visit [Clockville], no matter where she’d venture, she’d probably be retracing her ancestors' footsteps.

Artifct #4: Castle Garden Emigrant Depot

Castle Garden deserves an Artifct if for no other reason than to dissuade you from potentially thinking of Ellis Island as THE point of entry for immigrants to the US. Not so fast!

It’s understandable that many people associate Ellis Island with the immigration of their families, as many immigrants to the USA did pass through the famed location.

But "about 20% of Americans can trace their ancestry to someone who went through [the earlier arrival station] Castle Garden,” according to the US National Park Service. Ellen’s May ancestors immigrated to the US in 1856, which would have put them in the right time frame to be processed at Castle Garden.

Artifct #5: Bowker homestead, Shabbona, Illinois

For the 5th and final Artifct, we’re switching gears for a peek into the paternal (Bowker) side of Ellen’s family to place them on the map (wink, wink) before we close out this genealogical Artifct exploration.

On March 16, 1849, Daniel Bowker bought 160 acres of land from James Jack, a Private in the Army who was given a Military Warrant for the land. Here is a copy of the transfer document dated December 20, 1850.

 
 
Bureau of Land Management, land transfer James Jack to Daniel Bowker, no. 43544, 20 Dec 1850, for SW12-Tp38N-R3-E3M; image General Land Office Records (https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=1020-324&docClass=MW&sid=42unaev4.g2y#patentDetailsTabIndex=1 : accessed 16 Oct 2024).

The land is close to Shabbonna's Grove, named for Chief Shabbonna, a Potawatomi Chief and notable figure in the history of the area. Here is a map of Shabbonna Township, DeKalb County, Illinois from 1860, with Daniel Bowker's name on the south-west quarter of section 12.

 
 
 Lamb, Daniel W, Map of DeKalb County, Illinois (Philadelphia: Daniel W. Lamb, 1860), enlargement showing D Bowker's land (SW 1/4 of section 12, Shabonna Township); image, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4103d.la000110/?r=0.306,0.82,0.288,0.127,0 : accessed 16 Oct 2024).

You can see how the area looks today – wide open farmland – on Google street and satellite view. 

Genealogy and Artifcts

These are the sort of Artifcts that genealogy and family history research can turn up, with only a taste of the finer details left in to give you a feel for how genealogists go about the telling of family history. But for most people, it’s not about the historical facts and dates but the key themes, stories, and connections behind these discoveries that matter most. And have no doubt, there are loads of more conventional artifacts hanging out in Ellen’s tree should she go looking to Artifct them, too – census records, photographs, drawings, certificates of birth, marriage, and death, and so on.  
 
Artifcts is a wonderful place for keeping and sharing memories. The five Artifcts I've shared are about recovering memories, recognizing the connections, and discovering and sharing the stories and doing so in a way that resonates through the generations. I hope they inspire you to preserve and share your own family history discoveries, traditional or otherwise, too.

Happy Artifcting! 
 
Jill

Enjoy all things family history? Take a look back at these ARTIcles, too.

DIY Family History Book: Publish Your Artifcts with Akin

An Easier and More Personal Approach to Family History

Use Artifcts Timelines to Enrich Your Family History

10 Ways Genealogists are Using Artifcts That May Help You, Too

How to Artifct Family History and Heirlooms

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© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Bring Your Family Tree to Life With Our Tips

You know the expression, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, we wonder, if you connect all the dots of your family history and no one knows about it, did it happen? 

Today's ARTIcles story is all about how we can share our family history so that the content and the message, aka stories, are actually received. To set the stage, we're sharing the inspiration for this article, a message from a woman we'll call Susan, who is a hobbyist genealogist, and who we think is not alone in her frustration. She reached out to us via Facebook Messenger back in March with a humourous headline: "True Story: My Family Refuses to Look at My Family Tree."

Here's a rough summary of what Susan had to say about her frustrations in trying to share family history with her relatives:

“My parents and siblings ask me for historical details about our family all the time.  

      • When was that again that they came over from France? And what part of France was it?  
      • Do you have a photo of Great Grandpa {last name}?  
      • Did we have any {bank robbers, poets, craftsmen, ... } in the family? 
      • Is the family burial plot in {city} the only family plot? 
      • Did anyone in our family serve in {name of war}? 

And I have come to realize I have no great way of sharing my findings with my family because they refuse to create accounts and sign into any of the genealogy software systems I use.

I’m in my late 50s and many of my siblings and in-laws are a lot older than me, so maybe technology is a factor. But I think it’s more that they simply want the answer, not what they see as the gory black and white details we genealogists love.

That said, even with the younger ones, the nieces and nephews, the second I flash a family tree or mention “Your great grandpa on your mother’s side… ,” they zone out.

That means I usually end up sending information by text message and email. But then they lose that quickly and it doesn’t get shared with everyone, so I have to repeat this work over and over again. It takes the joy out of it.

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Better Options than Text, Email, or Intimidating Websites to Share Family History 

There are so many options available to help you share your family history discoveries, all those dots you’ve connected, black and white facts found, that will save your sanity and keep your family better connected with their history now and long into the future.  

Stick with links.* Share website links to directly relevant pieces of a family tree, photos, or documents that you might have in MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch or the like to prioritize your time and sanity. Like Susan, this is where you are comfortable operating. If they are truly interested, they can follow the simple steps to create an account. And there is usually a free option for them to do so. If that’s not the case, tell them the price and/or tell them how to sign up at a discount if you know there is a free trial period, a discount code available, or a sale coming up. Since you so kindly sent them a link, they won't have to dig - you'll guide them to exactly where the answer awaits.

Grant access to your cloud storage.* If you keep your research in a cloud-based system (like Google Drive, DropBox, Box etc.), give family members permission to view specific folders or bits of information that answer their questions, such as photos, documents, and maps. This simple approach is still better than losing things in email or text.

And please plan for the transfer of your digital genealogy assets upon death in your estate plan so all these family history treasures can be passed on to the next generation. 

* Remember that anyone can share a link but granting permission to access what that link leads to may require another step. So, with either of these first two options you may get others coming to you to request access to the same information because someone gave them the link. Hopefully the genealogy software or cloud solution you use automates that all to make it easy on you! 

Scan the photo or document, and Artifct That! There are many great app- and desktop-based options out there to scan a picture or document that you as the family keeper may be holding onto, such as the “Notes” app on many phones or the Photomyne subscription app. If you’d like assistance digitizing media, you can hire a professional photo manager, pop into a local shop that specializes in digitization and/or archival preservation, or check local libraries and genealogy centers for digitization resources, like the Vivid-Pix scan stations.

Scan those photos and docs and then do not let them get lost in text messages or 100s of photos back in a folder.

Artifct in the moment where you can then record the story and details and share with your loved ones before moving on to the next piece of the puzzle. But share where? You can ...

... Create Artifcts Circles. You can create as many Artifcts Circles, with as many people in them, as you like, for free. Think of circles like chat groups – anyone who accepts your invite can then share their Artifcts to the circle, too. You can even name another admin to add/remove people, too. People you invite need only to create a free Artifcts account to accept your Circle invitation and create and share up to five free Artifcts with the Circle, too!  

      • Sharing your stories and discoveries with Circle members means you are no longer the single point of failure or truth. Everyone will have access anytime, anywhere. But again, make sure in you've listed your primary and secondary legacy contacts in your Artifcts account settings so your Artifcts can live on. 
      • And you can crowdsource with Artifcts Circles, too. Have a gap you’re trying to fill in the tree? Wishing you had more family heirlooms, photos, or documents to back up your research? When people and estates are dispersed through time, it’s easy to forget who has what that may help to fill those gaps.  
      • Ask family to Artifct and share with the Circle. Yes, it may be more family lore than history or genealogy, but the lore is often equally as valuable to any facts you have collected. Lore is the character and color of the family history that has survived and can provide clues along your way – Artifct that! Get step-by-step details and inspiration for family circles here >

Have Fun Preserving and Swapping Stories

Next time you and your family get together, pick a theme in advance, and ask everyone to contribute to an Artifcts Circle.  

Among our favorites:  

      • Oldest family photo 
      • Favorite heirloom 
      • Secret/not-so-secret family recipe

Suggest everyone use the same tag for instant sorting of the Artifcts in the Circle to see just those created for this activity, e.g. #PicChallenge25, #Reunion25recipe.

Old family photo with all 13 kids and the parents

 
 
A rare family photo, with all 13 kids, preserved and shared with the rest of the Tirres family via Artifcts.

Happy Artifcting!

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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What's In Your Garage?

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced, four garage “personalities,” and a lot of our readers found themselves exclaiming, “Yes, that’s me!” when we described the Classic and the Whozits and Whatzits garages. One of our readers even reached out to our founders to ask if it was written about them. Sorry, it was not, it was based purely on research.  

For those of you that find yourself staring at a lot of ‘stuff’ every time you venture into your garage, this ARTIcles story is for you.  

What’s In Your Garage? 

When was the last time you took a hard look at what was in your garage? If you had to create a home inventory of the items stashed and stowed away for safe keeping or “someday,” could you? The fact is that our garages often end up being de facto storage units of last (or first!) resort.  

Over 60% of US adults surveyed by Craftsman feel their garage is the most cluttered space in their home, and more than half of the adults surveyed use their garage for DIY projects. While Pods.com found that most garages in the US contain on average $1,800 worth of tools alone! Not to mention countless other items, some of which may be financially valuable or have what we love to call heart value. 

Our co-founder Heather, who lacks a garage in Washington DC, ventured home this summer to uncover the treasures lurking in her father’s garage. Kayaks, canoes, paddles, personal flotation devices, power tools, old signs, a custom-made West Barnstable Table waiting for its next home, and even a car. A car, shocking, we know! 

When asked, Heather’s father said he’d “certainly know what the big things are, I’d know there were two kayaks and a canoe, and one car...would my insurance company believe I had a West Barnstable Table sitting in the garage, probably not.”  

As for the rest of the ‘stuff’ in her dad’s garage, that’s up for debate. Which is not at all what your insurance company wants to hear if you ever need to file a claim if faced with a house fire, flood, or other natural or manmade disaster. 

If you aren’t sure what exactly is in your garage, take a moment this week to create a quick inventory.  

  • Start with the big ‘stuff,’ kayaks and cars included; 
  • Work your way down to the smaller, less memorable items;  
  • Document anything that has financial or heart value.  

Artifcts is a great way to record the stories and values behind all those whozits and whatzits lurking in your garage. You can also use one of the many inventory apps that we featured in last week’s ARTIcles story if you really get on a roll.  

...And Is It Insured? 

Once you know what’s in your garage, take a moment to confirm with your insurance agent that it is in fact all covered by your homeowner’s insurance policy.  

Homeowner’s insurance typically includes coverage for garages, whether attached or detached, as part of the dwelling policy. Coverage for detached garages is typically limited, however, to a percentage—e.g., 10 percent—of the dwelling’s coverage amount, which according to FEMA, may not be enough for valuable contents.  

Ask your agent about any additional riders recommended for particularly valuable items (antique cars, various collections, golf clubs, etc.) to ensure you don’t inadvertently end up with more ‘stuff’ than you have coverage for in your garage. Artifcts makes it easy to quickly and privately share the details of the items with your insurance agent via email or link. It’s a win-win for sure! 

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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How to Choose the Right Home Inventory App for You

In this era of more frequent and intense extreme weather events, more nomadic lives that send us across state lines and national boundaries, and often an abundance of ‘stuff,’ we have more risk and more at risk than ever before.  

Just think, back in 1994 after the L.A. earthquake, there were more than 19,000 insurance claims filed. That was 30 years ago when the population of L.A. was approximately 3.5 million. The population of L.A. has since boomed to 12.7 million. Imagine the volume of claims from this year’s catastrophic wildfires alone! 

Home inventories offer you a baseline level of peace of mind and practicality. If you have your home and its contents well documented, you’ll be able to proceed more rapidly through the claims process and likely recover more on your claims than without. 

That means if you do nothing else, take a video of each room in your house, and store the video in a private virtual space (and back it up to a second location, too). Now in a worst-case scenario, you have something to go from to prove what you owned to your insurance company.  

Better yet, subscribe to a home inventory app. Modern home inventory apps can take you much further than a baseline inventory and serve different home and life management needs and priorities. Today we’ll introduce a few home inventory apps to illuminate the variety available and offer some insights from professionals who are using these apps to support you through decluttering, downsizing, and moving. 

Before we dive in, for those who are less familiar with Artifcts, you may wonder, how does Artifcts compare with a home inventory app?  

What we built at Artifcts is wholly different from a home inventory app. We are not worried about every spoon, bed sheet, oven, or lamp. Nor are we worried about home maintenance. At Artifcts, we built a warm and engaging experience for the curated items of your life so that you can keep the memories, even if the ‘stuff’ is lost to time, relocation, or mother nature. You can Artifct the value, provenance, and documentation, too, behind your most valuable possessions to support your insurance claims or estate planning processes. And at Artifcts, we’ve made it easy to share and enjoy with friends and family as well as advisors (e.g., insurance, estate planning, financial advisors). 

Examples of Home Inventory Apps

We checked out dozens of home inventory apps designed for private homes to understand the variety of core offerings as well as bells and whistles each offers. For simplicity, we chose four to feature here not as a promotion, but to illustrate why a home inventory app that is best for you may not be the app that is best for me. 

Listed in alphabetical order. 

FairSplit. This home inventory system allows users to manually and/or with AI-support create a personal home inventory. But the ultimate distinguishing feature, in our opinion, is the upgrade available to then use the system’s proprietary options to divide the assets in a home among beneficiaries: Divide Things, Not Families®.  Web-based only.

HomeZada. This home management system integrates inventory, maintenance schedules, financial oversight, and management of remodel budgets into a single platform. It simplifies property management, empowering homeowners to maximize their home’s value and functionality. AI-enabled to provide critical supporting details. App- and web-based.

NAIC Home Inventory App. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) offers this free inventory app for you to create your inventory manually as well as through scanning barcodes for improved accuracy. The NAIC also features disaster preparedness and claims filing advice. App-based only.

Pinventory. This home inventory app offers a unique and extensive collection of reports customized to particular types of objects. Use the system DIY style or hire a Pinventory specialist to create your detailed home inventory. You can also leverage its integration with MaxSold to sell select items. Web-based with a limited-functionality companion app.

How Should You Choose the Right App for You?

Before you select the inventory app for you, here's some advice from our experience: 

      • Try it out free on the device, or combination of devices, you intend to use it from (e.g., mobile, tablet, desktop computer). If you think you are going to use it mostly on your phone, test it out on the phone, not on your laptop. Not all apps work like the Artifcts app, where we have nearly identical feature sets on the mobile app and website and automatically synchronize your changes on mobile with the desktop version. 
      • Read the reviews and pay attention to changes over time in customer support, cost, and features you care about most. 
      • Pay attention to media storage (i.e., your photos and videos). What is the storage limit? And will that work for you and the items you plan to inventory? What is the cost for additional storage? 
      • Understand the security and privacy of information you upload to the app and how you will be able to share private information with others of your choosing.
      • Learn how you can retrieve (i.e., download) your inventory data if you want to provide a summary report to an advisor or loved one, or if you decide the app is not for you and you want to take your information with you. 
      • Then decide for yourself, “Does this app, at its core, do what I need?” Ignore the bells and whistles. Are your basic needs met?

What the Pros Have to Say About Home Inventory Apps & Working with Clients

We interviewed several experts in move management, moving, and home cleanouts to get their takes on all things personal home inventories. We were curious how often creating a home inventory is a part of the services they provide to their clients and why they choose the apps they do to get the job done.  

MOVE MANAGERS 

Remarkably, at most, the move managers we spoke with create inventories as a service for 20 to 25% of their clients.  

“If our client is preparing to deal with beneficiaries in court for probate or is going through a divorce, that’s when we need an inventory app so we can be more thorough,” said Marty Stevens-Heebner, Founder & CEO of Clear Home Solutions and author of "How to Move Your Parents (and still be on speaking terms). “The reality is, most other clients are satisfied with simple photos and videos that they then save to their personal cloud account.” 

A problem that arises is that for many of us homeowners and renters, even if we do a home inventory, we’re human, and we forget to update it. It is used for some transitory need and never revisited. But the golden rule from an estate planning perspective is to set a reminder to review and update your inventory and the estate plan it’s tied to at least every two years.  

From an insurance perspective, the more often you update your home inventory, the better. Make a habit of updating your inventory with life changes (e.g., marriage, death, inheritance, new baby, move) as well as with any major purchases. Each of those appliances, large home furnishings, collectibles, and the like add up quickly when it comes to replacing them if lost to fire, flood, or otherwise. 

MOVING COMPANIES

Moving and the use of inventory apps are a whole different story. We spoke with Ryan Hegarty, Director of Residential Sales for Olympia Moving, a member company of Wheaton World Wide Moving. Hegarty described inventories as integral to his company's move operations. Every item that comes into company-managed storage, is placed on a truck for inter-state delivery, or is heading overseas is managed through an inventory system. 

“But inventories are also part of our sales and planning process. We schedule virtual calls with potential clients and guide them through creating an app-based video inventory using Yembo,” explained Hegarty.

Using AI, the inventory app allows the Olympia Moving team to provide customers with immediate estimates, too.

“It also provides us with critical information to estimate box counts, dimensions of entry ways, and where we’ll need a ramp. It means a better, more efficient workflow on move day and reduction in surprises for us and the homes we move.” 

HOME CLEANOUTS

Matt Paxton, Founder & CEO of Clutter Cleaner, offered a different view on inventory apps and the home cleanout process. 

“We have to do a full inventory of a home during an estate clean out. We often have multiple family members that live in different states that simply aren’t aware of all of the items in a home. Some of the states that our Clutter Cleaner teams work in, it’s state law to provide a full inventory of assets sold and dispersed during the probate process,” explained Paxton.  

He’s also found that it’s easier to divide the items when a family is aware of what items are in the home.  

“If the family already has a home inventory, it could save them money during the cleanout process. If they don’t, we typically use Fairsplit to help a family get a full inventory before estate settlement. No matter where you are in the process, a home inventory really helps you understand what you have and what you are willing to disperse, sell, and or donate.” 

__________________

We hope this ARTIcles story will inspire you to take a first and then a second step to inventorying your home for greater peace of mind. And if you discover an app or process that works best for you, share with us! We’d love to learn from you: Editor@Artifcts.com.

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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