Homestead forum diaspora

The wife & I occasionally eat @ the Crackerbarrel (a chain of restaurants, for those unfamiliar).  The decor consists of antique stuff hanging from the walls.  Always present are very old photos and painted portraits of people unknown.  Obviously, at one time these were treasured family possessions but somehow in the intervening decades they found their way into an antique store or a flea market, where the Crackerbarrel people purchased them.

How would the subjects of these portraits feel, 75 or hundred years later, to know that their likeness, once hanging in a prominent spot over the family fireplace mantle,  is now used as decor in a restaurant?

Last year, someone downtown (I think a church) was giving away tombstones.  Yes, there were already names and dates engraved upon them.  A century or more ago there was a graveyard but it was in the way of progress, and suposidly the bodies were exhumed and moved to another graveyard so that the plot could be developed commerically.  But if the bodies were moved, evidently the gravestones were not.  Instead, they were stacked in a church basement were they remained for many many decades, until the church cleaned-out their basement and offered the stones for free to anyone who could use them.  Maybe make a patio out of them?  Would you place them with the names up or down?  How would the people whose entire lives were represented by a mere block of granite feel about the fate of their headstone?  Would they care?  Are there any living relatives who care?   SHOULD anyone really care?

I wonder if the photo my wife took of me last week wearing my new Christmas sweater will end up, a hundred years from now, on the wall of the Crackerbarrel?

Max

I suppose such quesitons would have as many answeres as there are people who's images and tombstones have become dislocated pieces of decor.

I would say that if some day my family lines have dissapated into the ether and there is no one to honor old photographs of me and their other ancestors, there are worse fates for such images than to rest on the wall of a place where people gather to emjoy good food and company and, in absent minded idle moments, wonder about the people in the pictures... and perhaps tip their glasses to forgotten souls.

As an amateur genealogist and having spent many years researchingmy ancestors and documenting what photographs I can find I can onlysay that even within family archives all to often those old photosare of 'unknown' individuals. I have no problem with such anonymousphotos on public display and in fact find them quite interesting, myweb site in fact has a number of such photos on 'public display'complete with names. I find the removal and display of gravestoneswith their information engraved a little disconcerting however, theyare often the only source of information and once removed not so helpfull.

Gosh, at the last farm in WI - it came to us with a lovely tombstone for a girl who passed far too young, late in the 1800s. I left her there, in a lovely flower bed and there she lives. I was quite comfortable with her presence..... but ehn, my fam is in the closet.  Fortunately, Rob is comfy with them as well. They give every place I go the nicest, warmest feeling of.... belonging.

Considering the politics of Cracker Barrel...I wouldn't want to be hung in effigy there.

I hope to become a tree or two...a part of crows, mice, wolves, coyotes, worms...

The idea of tombstones being removed from the remains AND used to pave patios, etc. sends chills down my spine.  The fact that their tombstones have been found - often broken and moved from the grave site - has meant I know where my ancestors are buried.  None of our tombstones had been removed from the cemetery. 

Moving remains can be problematic.  After a certain time, all that's in the grave is a few bones and ashes.  The old wooden cofins have rotted out.  The tombstones are legal records that a person lived; often the dates (birth and death) are on the stone plus maiden names. That information has been used many times in court cases.  It's also a primary source for genealogists.  "Repurposing" tombstones should be illegal!  And for a church to allow such desecration is mind boggling. 

I won't rant on the subject of people who go into a cemetery at night and deliberately destroy tombstones and the old box graves.  I don't think we have enough band width!! 

As for pictures, I've found that the historic society in the place my ancestors called home want the pictures.  They also want any documents and would appreciate a copy of the family tree.  

Families die out.  Families forget to pass down the old stories.  Executors fail to understand the importance of all "those old pictures and papers" and toss them out.  It doesn't take but one generation to lose a family's identity. 

Yes, I found some possible ancestors (not proven yet) via some fallen tombstones that had been carefull collected and leaned against the churchyard wall and I also am surprised at a church alowing the removal of them for other purposes.

As for pictures and loosing track after one generation, some recent finds have highlighed that problen for me, it has taken much work and enquiry amoungst the older relatives to identify the folks in the pictures, particuarly those priceless family group shots. Having scanned them to disc/chip I am now attaching suitable text to the photos so that future generations know who these folks are..... and then backing up the files and passing the data and pics around the family. The decendancy lists are interesting but it is the anecdotes and pictures that make these things come alive. Talk to your older relatives, write it down, save it somewhere safe. Once its gone its too late to say 'I wish I had listened to grandpa and saved those pictures'

Rural at December 30, 2013 at 8:20 AM

Yes, I found some possible ancestors (not proven yet) via some fallen tombstones that had been carefull collected and leaned against the churchyard wall and I also am surprised at a church alowing the removal of them for other purposes.

As for pictures and loosing track after one generation, some recent finds have highlighed that problen for me, it has taken much work and enquiry amoungst the older relatives to identify the folks in the pictures, particuarly those priceless family group shots. Having scanned them to disc/chip I am now attaching suitable text to the photos so that future generations know who these folks are..... and then backing up the files and passing the data and pics around the family. The decendancy lists are interesting but it is the anecdotes and pictures that make these things come alive. Talk to your older relatives, write it down, save it somewhere safe. Once its gone its too late to say 'I wish I had listened to grandpa and saved those pictures'

It finally dawned on me that I'm the oldest living descendant in my direct line.  There are three of us doing genealogy research and I'm the only one who's been at it long enough to have really dug deeply.  I grew up on family stories told me by my maternal grandmother who knew the family lineage and had saved many pictures.  My paternal line is not so lucky.  Slowly, over @ 25 years, I've managed to trace Daddy's line.  The results have been spotty but at least there's something. 

My Ex's paternal line was done by his grandfather.  It's in story form and I stayed up most of one night reading it.  The book is now in the possession of a cousins and I've encouraged my sons to get the book and have it copied.  They're dragging their feet and this cousin is older than I am.  Time grows short and who knows where the book goes next. 

Genealogy is a hobby of the elderly.  So often life gets in the way when you're younger.  I think of all the questions I should have asked and now it's too late.  I was very close to my maternal grandmother and have included a description of her in my work.  She was a remarkable lady and I hate to think she'll only be remember as a name and a few dates.

Like Rural, I encourage you to talk to your older family members.  Also, write down the stories as you saw and heard in your life.  A tape recorder is invaluable - stories, in their own words, with accents and speech patterns.  

I too am the oldest (male) in our line, there being one cousin who is older and as you say it seems that as one gets older our interest in finding family grows stronger. My own research started some 15 years ago when an elderly aunt sent me a written history of her life and subsequent enquiries turned up a bit of a family tree started by another cousin, since that time the tree(s) have expanded to over 2000 individuals in 3 lines linked by marriage going back to the early 1700s. The advent of more and more information available online is what has made it all possible although I started off viewing microfilm of census and parish records (a painstaking process) so much has now been transcribed and available online that it is now much easier.  My task was also simpler in that my line came from Dorset, England which seems to be one of the most highly documented and transcribed area of genealogical records why I am not sure.

Such family  trees are 'interesting' particularly when one finds an ancestor who did something special such as my one ancestor who was sergeant of police in a Welsh Dockyard and who's sons all went on the become shipwrights and naval engineers in the 1800s. It is however the written histories of individuals giving details of their lives which are few and far between and to be treasured, I have but two such  documents of the previous generation and have been asking my current generation to write their recollections down with some success but as pointed out above sometimes it takes 'going for a chat' with tape recorder in hand to get those irreplaceable details that will become so important to future generations.

All in all its a wonderful journey to discover our history and distant family but a rather addictive hobby!

If a burial ground or cemetary should have to be used for something else, there is a wait of 50 years after the last burial. Then the vaults or caskets, if any have lasted, would be relocated with new headstones: flat markers flush with the ground. This facillitates lawn maintenance work and isn't as prone to vandalism. Old vertical marker stones are then recycled if not claimed by kin.

I for one, do not see any reason to attach sentiment or spirituality to stone, but do acknowledge the helpfulness to geneologists, and those who make rubbings and tracings from the old designs.

My mother has a ton of journal entries from the pioneer days, and books full of pictures of people who were LONG before our time. She loves that old book. Over time, the kids of her generation have photocopied it to share with younger generations who are interested in genealogy. It's amazing how little we know about the people just a few generations before us... The people who created us, who were our family before we were born. It's sad how few people care.

What is tragic to me is that the people who we know and love, who we view as "our family" will some day be gone, and not a single person on earth will remember them. But those who they view as their family will be people we are related to but will never know. And someday we will be those photos on the wall. Our descendants will not know the lives we all know now. We will mean little to them.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a world that continues to tick without my dear friend Tony in it... Billions of people who will never know him, never miss him, and not have a clue that they are missing anything. I can't quite grasp a whole world of people who will never remember a single one of all of those who currently exist.

Good for you, Slaeg!  I sometimes wonder what will happen with my records. 

Mac at January 3, 2014 at 10:37 AM

Good for you, Slaeg!  I sometimes wonder what will happen with my records. 

It can be hard to know who to delegate as the 'keeper of the records' after we are gone as all to often few family members in their younger years have any real interest, I am fortunate that my daughter is interested and will I know look after them. Never the less I have as much info as possible now on electronic  media, certainly the tree info with its interlinking of over 2000 individuals can hardly be done in any other way, and these record are copyied and passed on to any one in the family who show any interest. Even if now if it is just a passing interest the data is there in several places for future family researchers to find. The data for those before abt 1900 is also on my website and has been helpfull in getting in toutch with many other genologists that have shared info or found links to our family.

I am going to do everything I can to preserve my research, it was all done with future generations in mind afterall!