Preserving Your Family History from Disaster 

By Michael R. Boyter 

Fire! Fire! Fire!
  

In a frantic minute you grab the kids and get a safe distance from your house. There you witness your home, and everything in it, burning to the ground. It's a total loss.

A disaster of any kind is not ever a pleasant experience, but at least there is insurance to build again and to buy new furniture. But let's talk about what is not insured. Things that once lost, are gone for ever!

I'm referring to your family keepsakes. Your home videos, family photos, journals, diaries and other priceless family treasures. Losing any of these things is a terrible tragedy!

-Video of your baby's first steps...Gone!

-All your wedding pictures...Gone!

-Your diary you wrote as a teenager...Gone!

What if you had to evacuate your house and only had minutes or less to get out?

As I pondered this, I realized that it would be next to impossible, in a short amount of time, for me to get all of these things out of the house and to a safe location.

Why? Because I had 8mm tapes all through the house. My old journals were stuck in a box somewhere in the garage. Some photo albums were up in closets while others I looked and looked for but couldn't find for awhile. I had no idea where they were. I had to go looking for them.

In a disaster situation, there is no time to go "looking".

Here's some of the preventative measures that I took in order to keep myself from such a situation. Use these ideas and tips to ensure that your family memories are preserved for generations to come!

FAMILY PHOTO ALBUMS:

Share them as gifts often – Pictures of the family are great gifts to give to grandparents and other family members. If you lose yours, you always have a way to regain copies.

Online photo storage – My wife and I have put many of our pictures on a free, safe and secure family web site. There are many of these but I personally like MyFamily.com Build your site in minutes and you don't need to know a thing about making a web page. Your pictures are stored remotely and something like a house fire couldn't touch them.

One central location - Designate a location for all your photo albums and don't deviate. By putting them in a box and in one location in your house, you increase your chances of being able to get out quickly with all your pictures.

HOME VIDEOS:

Duplicate them - Makes copies and get them to other members of the family. This makes for a great gift. What works for me is to simply connect my video camera to my VCR. I then push play on my video camera and press record on my VCR. This isn't the fanciest way of tape duplication but it works and my parents have loved getting videos of the grandkids.

JOURNALS, DIARIES, and PERSONAL HISTORIES

Personal histories of your own or those of an ancestors are one of the most valueable items in your possession. If kept protected, they will be treasured for generations to come.

Duplicate & Distribute - My grandma gave me a copy of my late grandpa's life story. I typed it up and printed multiple copies for all of my cousins and aunts and uncles. They loved it and we took steps to make sure grandpa's life story will live on in the hearts and minds of his posterity.

Diary Safeguards - If you are currently writing a journal or diary I realize that some of it may be personal and you may not wish for it to be distributed out at this time.

If you write your journal by hand, take your journal in and photo copy any part that you plan to pass on to your children someday! Don't wait! You may then look into putting a copy into a safe deposit box. Just as long as it is out of your house.

If you write your journal with the aid of a computer, I recommend storing copies often to any one of the many free online storage web sites. Nobody will be able to access your data but you. I personally recommend XDrive. 

SO, IN CONCLUSION...

Rule #1 in any of this is to duplicate your family keepsake items and store them in multiple locations. This is the only way to ensure that if disaster strikes, you will be able to easily recover those priceless family momentos that define you as an individual and as a family!

Michael Boyter is the creator of The MemoryGrabber. MemoryGrabber is a downloadable "e-book" that makes writing life story and journal writing simple with it's fill-in-the-blank format and self-interviewing style. Over 600 questions, prompts, lists and activities to spark your memories.  Visit Family History Products