What can I say?  Life is busy these days and it’s hard to get around to things like keeping up the blog.  Thanks to the wonderful piece about LifeTales by Karen Elgersma on Shaw TV I’ve been working on a number of really interesting projects including ones that incorporate slideshow elements.  Working with pictures does add a great dimension to the audio tale but is definitely more time consuming!  This incredibly busy time has convinced me to avoid taking on so many projects at the same time in the future so I will be booking farther into the future than previously.  From the moment you think about having a personal history done it can take several months to get the finished product in hand so don’t delay.

I hope you had a terrific holiday season and enjoyed much family time.  I hope also that you resolved to make this the year that you record your family history.  However you choose to do it I know taking the time to preserve the stories of your own or your loved one’s life will bring you more delight than you can imagine.  Enjoy!

I was checking my blog page the other day and realized with horror that it’s been more than two months since my last entry.  Once again I’ve been a victim of that pesky time thief.  There are times when life gets terribly busy or circumstances change and the amount of time you can devote to a particular endeavour is reduced and you just let things slide.  A blog entry is easy to catch up on but taking care of personal history is harder.  That’s the main reason why it might be better to hire a personal historian who will get the job done.  If you want to explore that option further try browsing around the Association of Personal Historians.   And don’t forget some things really are too important to let slide.

I’ve had reason lately to think about what family really means and how our definition of family relates to personal history.  My definition of family includes those people you know you can count on to help you in whatever way they can when you need help.  That definition includes people with no blood ties like close friends, in-laws, a great aunt, employer or minister who may have influenced our lives more than any blood relative.  The personal histories of those people will contribute greatly to our descendents’ appreciation of our lives so think about paying tribute to them with their own story.

If “I love you” are the three best words in the English language the three worst have to be “I should have…” and never more so than when personal historians hear them.  You wouldn’t believe how often people say to me “I wish I’d done something like this with my mum, aunt, grandfather, brother…”.  One of my most heartbreaking moments this year was receiving a phone call from a woman who had (after thinking about it for more than a year) booked me to start recording her father’s story.  Three weeks before we were to start her father passed away unexpectedly leaving her with such regrets.  I usually feel uncomfortable talking about this because you shouldn’t feel pressured to explore a personal history but if you are pretty sure this is something you want to do I can’t urge you strongly enough to start NOW.

Do you have a message on your answering machine that you’ve kept for a long time?  It’s amazing how many people I run into who do.  People have told me they keep the messages of far away family and friends so they can hear them whenever they want to.  One person said she keeps a casual message from her son so that if anything happened to him she would always be able to hear him.  The power of the voice to sooth us is extraordinary no matter what that voice is saying.  My uncle Bob who sounds uncannily like my mother in accent and vocabulary once left me a message that made me miss my mother profoundly.  I would love to have even an answering machine message of her voice and the way she said “Susie”.  It’s why I started LoveTales.  The stories and information are important but it’s capturing the voice that really is the magic my clients will appreciate in years to come.

When I first thought about doing LifeTales I sat my Dad down to interview as a pilot project.  I thought I was doing it to figure out technical and time requirements, after all I had heard all my Dad’s stories growing up.  So I was pleasantly surprised to learn a lot about my father.  In hearing his reflections on his choices over the arc of his life I gained a much better understanding of the man and why he is the person he is.  And that in turn helped me understand some of my approaches to life.  What a gift to myself!

I’m hooked on David Lynch’s Interview Project.  The director of such films as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive has taken a film crew across America conducting mini personal histories with random people found at the side of the road or in one case, looking for a jumpstart in a parking lot.  What Lynch has found are fascinating slices of life that reinforce what personal historians all know - everybody has a tale to tell.  He posts a new interview every three days and the days in between the website is inoperable so keep checking back for the next one.

It’s been almost 200 years since Martha Ballard died.  The local paper wrote a one-line obituary “Died in Augusta, Mrs. Martha, consort of Mr. Ephraim Ballard, aged 77 years.”  That’s all we would have known about her passage if not for one vital thing she did.  She kept a diary.  And because of that we know she was a midwife who delivered 816 babies!  She was a wife and mother and respected member of her community. That diary has allowed historians to gain a better understanding of the social history of her time.  Historians 200 years from now will be ecstatic to find your personal history so start today whether you keep a diary, record your thoughts digitally or hire a personal historian.

There’s a fascinating website where you can find out more about Martha Ballard with tips on how to start recording your community’s oral history today.