52 Ancestors - Week Nine - Where There’s a Will ...

If you follow my blog (or know me at all!) you are aware that I am THE KEEPER OF THE FAMILY TREASURES! As I mentioned in my post about family heirlooms, this is an awesome responsibility that I don't take lightly. 

As part of my Genealogy Do-Over in 2015 (sponsored by Thomas MacEntee of High Definition Genealogy), I created an inventory of some of the major items in our "family museum" using an Excel spreadsheet. (Click here to learn how to create one yourself.) I read Thomas' book  After You're Gone: Future-Proofing Your Genealogy Research. I watched his webinar on Familytreewebinars on the same subject. Then, at a JGSCT (Jewish Genealogical Society of Connecticut) board meeting I learned that our April 2018 presentation would be given by Marian Burk Wood, the author of Planning a Future for Your Family's Past. Right up my alley!! I immediately downloaded her book to my Kindle app and started reading. That was November 2017. Three months later-  still no will, genealogical or otherwise. 

Inspired by this week’s blog prompt for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge and thinking that perhaps my readers may be more proactive than myself, I decided to write a little book review. 

$8.99 on Amazon.com

In her book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, which is written in an easy-to-read conversational style, Marian shares her PASS system: 

Prepare by organizing materials. 

Allocate ownership. 

Set up a genealogical will. 

Share with heirs. 

The book is organized by topic and chapter and designed as a step-by-step process, but Marian suggests which chapters to focus on depending on where you are in the process. A summary of specific points is listed at the end of each chapter. As a teacher,  I appreciate that Marian provides this “takeaway” of the points she wants you to focus on.

Personal examples of how using her methods helped her solve specific problems makes it easy to understand how to apply the methods to your own work.

In Chapter 5 Marian describes the value of indexing your inventory. I had no issue with doing an inventory but I was a little skeptical of spending all of that time doing indexing. After reading the chapter (complete with examples and templates) and learning how she was able to solve a family mystery, I got it. 

Another great feature is the inclusion of many links to explore for further information on the specific strategies she describes.

  

I had done pretty well on the first two steps, but step three - set up a genealogical will - was something I had yet to do. (Admittedly, I do have a problem with wills, a trait I might have inherited from my mom - we wrote hers during the last few weeks of her life. My husband and I have yet to write one ourselves. Thank goodness nothing bad happened when the kids were young!) 

In Chapter 9 Marian shares suggestions for identifying heirs, and something I’d never considered- getting permission to bequeath your collection BEFORE you send someone your “life’s work”!

Her tips on giving things away while I'm still here might help me connect with my living relatives - something I’m not really good about! 

Chapter 10 is all about writing your genealogical will. A sample template is provided along with some very practical advice, such as leaving a sum of money to help your heirs care for your collection.

The final step of the PASS process is sharing with your heirs. Marian provides many ideas for sharing your research now. If you haven't yet started writing your story, get going! Marian’s tips are very helpful; making what can be a daunting task easier - write a blog, write a story, make a commemorative keepsake ...

Whatever the size of your collection, the practical information in Planning a Future for Your Family's Past will help you to keep the stories alive! 

52 Ancestors - Week #8 - Heirlooms - Keeping Track of the Important Stuff - Create an Inventory!

My mom used to say she wasn't hoarding stuff, she was "holding it" for us. She referred to herself as the manager of the family "museum." Since her passing, I have inherited that role. I've tried to be diligent about tracking who has what and where our treasured items are.

A situation this past week has shown me that I've slipped up a bit. On February 11th, my brother, Dean, proposed to his long-time girlfriend. Yay! Welcome to the family, Shellye! To tell the truth, she's been part of the family for a while now. My first thought was to offer her the ring my mother wore when she married Dean's dad (To clarify: Dean is my half-brother.) It's not really her style but I wanted to make the gesture. After taking a photo of the ring, I started to wonder where a few of Mom's other jewelry pieces went. As the executrix of my mom's estate, I was responsible for inventorying and disseminating the items. So, it was concerning to me that I couldn't remember who received my grandmother's aquamarine ring. There was no will (more about that next week!) so we five kids pretty much just got together and chose what we wanted for ourselves and our children.

A flurry of texts ensued:

             

Then a couple of phone calls. Which were fun, because I got to "blab" about Dean and Shellye's good news.

And then one more text:

Apparently, the ring went to my younger daughter, Meghan. And, she obviously knows me so well!

You may be thinking that I'm just totally disorganized and let things go "willy-nilly" without recording where they settled. Not necessarily the case! I'm usually pretty meticulous about recording where our important items reside. In fact, while participating in the 2015 Genealogy Do-Over sponsored by Thomas MacEntee, I inventoried EVERYTHING in the "family museum" aka the genealogy corner of my bedroom. Um - yeah - that's typical of me. I made sure to note the location of my grandfather's 1937 Urology report but neglected to write down who received the precious heirlooms from my mother's estate.

Creating an inventory can be a godsend in the event of a home disaster. Years ago, we suffered a house fire. Trying to remember every item in the damaged rooms was pretty time-consuming. An inventory such as this would have been helpful. We were lucky not to have lost any sentimental items but if we had, an inventory, complete with photographs would have at least preserved an image of the treasures. Next week, I need to clear the room in preparation for some ceiling repair work. Having this spreadsheet will help me to put things back the way they were. Give it a try! It's pretty easy to do.

Here's a screenshot of the Excel spreadsheet I created:

The Yellow Highlighted row indicates each container. The rows below list the items inside the container. In the Photo column are the links to the pictures of each item.

Clicking on the link will open a picture of the object:

Want to create an inventory yourself? Here are the steps:

FIRST: Create your spreadsheet.
SECOND: Place all your photos in one folder. I named mine INVENTORY PICTURES. You don't have to do this, but it makes adding the photo links much easier. (Note: I first tried adding actual photos in the cells but that became unwieldy really quickly - resizing photos, file size, etc.)

NOW:

To date, there are 209 individual items listed. I guess I'd better go update the list with the location of the rings!!

"See" you next week, when the topic is "Wills."

52 Ancestors - #7 - Valentine's Day Cards

Just a short post - been a very busy week!! Valentine's Day is not one of my favorite holidays. I feel it's best suited for "young" love and kids!! So - I struggled with what to post for this week's 52 Ancestor challenge. I decided to share the first Valentine's Day cards I ever got - and the last one I received from my mom.

It should be noted that these cards traveled a very long way to get to me - my parents and I were living in Japan on a US Naval base in 1955. Also notable is that, on my 1st Valentine's Day, I was a mere 5 days old - my birthday is February 9th!

My first Valentine from my maternal grandparents - Rose and Paul Lichtenthal

My first Valentine from my paternal grandparents.
Hortense and Edgar Samuel

This is what the card looks like with the little feet folded up.
Cute, right?

The last Valentine I got from my mom, Doris Lichtenthal Falcone.
February 14, 2011

52 Ancestors #6 - Favorite Name

I really wasn't too keen on this week's topic for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge: Favorite Name. I have previously written about the importance of the WINCHESTER middle name in my husband's family. I am not comfortable posting information about living relatives that might encourage ID theft. Therefore, I won't write about why my sister Betsy has two middle names or why our mom chose the name Dean for our brother. I have also previously written about the "S" confusion with my last name: SAMUEL vs. SAMUELS and the origin of that surname.

So... what to write about?? Keeping with my theme of using this year to chronicle my own generation, I decided to write about the origin of my own name. It's pretty straightforward and admittedly a little boring. But, I promise you, if you keep reading, there will be a funny story as a reward!!

Deborah is a Hebrew name (Devorah), meaning "bee." Bees are very busy insects - always producing honey. As I also am always busily "producing" something, I guess I am appropriately named.

I enjoyed reading these definitions[1] found on the Urban Dictionary website:

 I actually was named for my mother's best friend, Deborah (Debby) Moscowitz. According to my mother, she chose my middle name, "Joan", for no other reason than "it sounded good."  Over the years, I used variations of the name: Debby, Debbie, and now, finally, Deb. (I think it sounds more "grown-up" than Debbie.) My mother referred to me as Debbie, or DJ when she was feeling sentimental. Unfortunately, that was also the initials of Dishonest John - a villain featured in the Beany and Cecil cartoon show during my childhood! 

My favorite "Deborah" story also has to do with my mother. I never knew exactly how to pronounce my name. Was it [deb-or-ah] - all syllables accented equally - sounding more like "deberah"? Or [de-BOR-ah] - with the middle syllable accented? I finally decided to ask my mother. I think I was maybe 50ish at the time. (Do you think I waited long enough?) Mom's response, "How the hell should I know?" Yup - should have expected that! For the record, I mostly say [deb-or-ah]. That would make an interesting Facebook poll - so many women in the 1950s were named Deborah - how do they all pronounce it?

Here are some other interesting facts about the name Deborah.[2]

See you next week, when I'll be responding to the prompt "Valentine." Not sure yet how I'll approach that topic - it's one of my least favorite holidays, coming in right behind New Year's Eve!

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[1]"Urban Dictionary: Deborah". 2018. Urban Dictionary. Accessed February 2, 2018. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Deborah.

[2] "Wolfram|Alpha: Making The World’S Knowledge Computable". 2018. Wolframalpha.Com. Accessed February 2 2018. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+people+named+deborah.

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