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In a humorous turning of the tables, after our story earlier this month, “What is a Family Keeper, and Why Should I Care?” we heard from a lot of family keepers who said, “So what do you recommend I do?”  We know how you're feeling. You don't want the memories and history lost; you don't want the people behind it all lost.

The answer is not to throw it all away because you don’t know what to do with it. Instead opt for the good – better – best solutions that make sense for your life, your family, and your collective goals. There's simply no one or right way.

We suggest starting by thinking through these four questions. 

1. 1. Do you want it? Any of it? 
   2. Do you know if anyone else in the family wants any of it? Have you actually asked? And, if so, and any of it is of historical value to you or your family, or perhaps has an amazing story, do they know that? It could change their feelings about the items. Check out “Storytellers, Beware!”
   3. Do you know if any of it has financial value? You can always choose "What's it worth?" for special items you've Artifcted and find out! And, if so, do you have immediate or pressing needs to sell it and invest the cash in other ways in your life? Do you know the provenance of the items and do you have that documented? Get tips from a master, Lark Mason, of Antiques Roadshow.
   4. Do you have an immediate need to get rid of some or all of it? Or are you more interested in slowly downsizing the collection and re-homing or selling pieces of it? Factor in costs to store it and the stress of more clutter than you (or those who you live with) want to put up with! 

Good – Better – Best 

Sometimes we’re up against the wall and we simply do the best we can. Other times, time is on our side, maybe our personal interests/hobbies, too, and we can take the time to give more care not just to the ‘stuff,’ but to the people who it once belonged to and the people of today and the future who may value it as well. Here’s our good-better-best solutions for family keepers: 

GOOD.

If you truly must get rid of it, take photos and share them, pronto! Then you have never lost anything completely. You’ll at least give your family and future generations a clue about the people of their own past. 

BETTER.

Take the photos, but then get on a group call with your extended family (or invite them over if local), tell them about what you have, what your intentions are to keep, sell, donate, or rehome. Have a real conversation. Share stories. Learn what interest, if any, your family has for specific items.  

Think broadly about “family.” You know the people who were “like a second mother” or the neighbor who was practically family? Don’t forget them in the sharing. 

BEST.

Artifct collections of items – e.g. all the silver, a stack of family bibles, a collection of statues, precious textiles … – and individual items for which you know ANY supporting details or stories or you simply love for any reason at all. If you don’t, all those photos you took and what you do know could get lost forever and will not help anyone to make good decisions about what’s next for it all. 

• • What person and/or side of the family did it come from? 
  • How did you come to have it? 
  • What is it? Sometimes it’s not obvious!
  • Any stories or related photos, documents, or video you have for it. 
  • Then, create an invite-only circle on Artifcts and invite all of your family members to join (for free!). Share your Artifcts with the circle so they can once again see all the family heirlooms. Invite them to share with the circle any they may have, too. Perhaps you’ll discover answers to each other’s family history puzzles or matches/pieces of a collection. You never know.

If you have additional good-better-approaches to share, reach out to us at Editor@Artifcts.com, and we'll help spread the word. You can also follow us on social media and join the conversation there, too!

Happy Artifcting!

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© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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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Eager for more? You might also enjoy:

Additional ARTIcles related to Genealogy & Family History

Artifcts Genealogy Gems Checklist

© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.