The Memory Fades: Why Do Genealogists Remember?

Last Night in my Crib
collection of the author
Photo by Dorothy Frances Stewart Broadfoot
Taken in Cranston, Rhode Island

The Memory Fades 

Why do Genealogists Remember?

I know that this photo looks faded. So many of the photographs in my personal collection are fading because my mother and I looked at them a lot together. I'm not sorry that we did because otherwise I would not know some of my family history and I would not understand my childhood from the perspective of my parents and grandparents. My mother was annoyed when I wanted to label, date and write down our conversations about photographs. She wanted me to listen but she didn't want me to remember. She wanted me to live in the moment.

Dementia runs wild in my family tree, partly because so many of my ancestors lived to be very elderly and partly because dementia is a by-product of other medical conditions. Death records mention this over and over like bad song lyrics. It is hard to pick apart metal illness from physical ailments. 

Because genealogists live in a strange world of records, memories and photographs, my own personal history gets shoved to the background and I fear that I will not leave any impressions behind of, well, me. I do think that my fellow genealogists share this fear. I don't think that this is just because I am an only child, only grandchild and for a time, an only great grandchild. It is because to us, our ancestors are more fun to work with.

I stopped blogging through the holidays because I want to learn to live in the moment. I've read so much about mindfulness and how regular day to day life is giving me anxiety. Do genealogists think too much about the past or is it something that is happening to me now because I am in my 70s? 

Should I be fearful that dementia is already happening inside my brain?

I think I should write about some things that I remember because there is no photograph that matches the memory because we can't take a photograph of everything. I suspect the generations that follow me will try to do just that. 

Blogging was designed to be about short writing. I think that is why so many have stopped writing blog posts. Writing is time consuming, so let's just take a photograph so we won't forget. Is that going to work?

Some studies suggest that writing with a pen in a journal helps us remember better than recording with a computer and sharing online. What do you think?