Being NextGen

Moving Forward to the Next Generation of Genealogy
 photos by Midge Frazel, 25 May 2015


Descendants R #IAMNEXTGEN

It is important to recognize that genealogy is changing with the next generations. I clearly remember that I was, at one time, one of those young genealogists. My love and knowledge of technology used to set me apart from the genealogists and family historians around me. People actually asked me what the Internet had to do with genealogy. I smiled sweetly and explained. People thought I was younger than I really am. #iamnextgen

In my own family past, there were genealogists and historians leaving me clues to uncover. I am grateful to them. Now, I must recognize how things have changed for my daughter and grandsons. 

My daughter inherited her creative interests from my mother and grandmother. My daughter was seventeen when her great grandmother died and remembers her well. As a young teenager, she started scrapbooking her future. She took a high school course in family and scrapbooked a wedding and then used what she learned to plan her own wedding. Her teaching portfolio was a timeline scrapbook and was passed around and well received by the women at the oral comprehensive she had to pass to receive her M.Ed.  

Then, an amazing thing happened. She married a man whose sisters scrapbooked their children's lives. These women work on these scrapbooks like a quilting bee of the past. How did I get so lucky? She is #iamnextgen

My grandsons like to watch their mother make these scrapbooks. They know that grandma is recording the ancestors for them using tools they will grow up with and use everyday. They can use the digital camera and the iPad with ease. How did get so lucky? They are #iamnextgen

We use the tools of tomorrow to discover the past in present day life, we are #iamnextgen

NextGen Genealogy Network