Why Do We Do Genealogy? Part 2

 

This is a continuation not of Alexandra Rain’s article but a parallel article.  This bit is from the Sept/Oct 2020 issue of YourGenealogyToday magazine, an article by T.S. Davis titled “What I’m Looking For.” I quote from his article:

“It is an odd obsession, and people who are not consumed by it can’t understand why we don’t focus on our own lives at the least instead of scouring the internet and tramping around graveyards on the weekend, or why we don’t worry more about what’s going to happen to our family than what already has happened. There’s no good retort to this argument. But I will say this: the past is as unpredictable as the future, but unlike the future, the past is discoverable, and often a lesson can be learned that prepares us for the future. And also, a person’s unique personality and struggle in life, their contribution to the human experience, is not forgotten until the past person who knew and loved them is gone. Until that happens, something can still be learned from them. And even when they finally are forgotten, some future obsessed descendant like me may come along and discover them all over again and appreciate them for the interesting life of anonymity that they lived.”

“Most of us would like to be remembered ourselves, so we do our fair share of remembering. Finally, there is the desire of practically everyone not to feel alone in this present moment. We want to be part of a tradition, a family that struggled and failed, or succeeded, and struggled again, a family that somehow, inexplicably and miraculously, led to us in this present moment. Because it somehow validates what we’re going through and gives us the strength to continue.”

**Thanks to Scientific Magazine for the image via Google. 

Why Do We Do Genealogy? Part 1

 

Read recently an article by Alexandra Rain in the April 2023 issue of Deseret Magazine and was fascinated by her ideas.  I quote from her article:

“The urge to document our lives is not new,” Rain wrote. “Humans have been documenting themselves for as long as we’ve had the ability to do so. The first known “selfie” dates to about 40,000 years ago when a person pressed their hand to a cave wall and sloshed it in red paint. A more modern “selfie” is “Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk,” drawn on paper by Leonardo DaVinci in 1510. Across the millennia, we have painted ourselves, carved likenesses of ourselves and sculpted ourselves.”

“In 1839, a Parisian named Louis DaGuerre invented a technique that would hand self-portraits over to the masses. The daguerreotype captured images on a device that could be carried anywhere. After World War II, 35mm cameras became accessible to ordinary families. A decade later, disposable point-and-shoot camera were the rage. Camera sales grew until 2010 when more than 120-million were sold globally.”

“Camera phone changed the game. There are now an estimated 1.5-billion iPhone owners worldwide (documenting themselves)! We post baby pictures, graduation pictures, wedding pictures and even our meals. (And certainly our gardens, pets and travels!!) “

“So why do we all want to record our own images? Quoting Joe Marotta, a photog and emeritus art professor at the University of Utah, who quoted Louis DaGuerre as saying, “Now my immortality is guaranteed.” Meaning he would be remembered and relevant beyond his time on earth. Marotta said, “The photograph in a sense extends our mortality.”

“Grandmas who did scrapbooks of photos and beg the indulgence of grandchildren to sit and learn, didn’t do it for herself,” wrote Rain,” but for the living so we can remember.”

 

Continues with Part 2 next..................