Barbara posed an interesting question this morning

that got me thinking....

I've been doing genealogy for about 30 years. When my great-grandmother died all of her journals and books got put in an aunt's garage. Several years later, like ten, I found them and held on to them for many more years. As technology changed, I scanned several of the journals and things that looked like others would enjoy - burned them on disk and sent them out to other family members.

And the the big lesson: my mom-in-law passed in New Orleans just prior to Katrina. We went down there for four months to help her pass and then settle the estate. I took my scanner and laptop and scanned a little over 1000 photos. People thought I was nutty (or worse!) Six weeks after returning to the high, wind-blown deserts of Southern Utah, Katrina gathered up the photo collection, which was now in Bay St. Louis, Miss (ground zero) and carried them out the the Gulf of Mexico.

I have wondered why I felt possessed to scan the photos. Several relatives called right after Katrina saying they could not believe I had scanned all of the photos. The following year each descendant of the great grandparents received a DVD of the ancestral photos. Where does it all end up? I don't know but digitizing the grandma and grandpa papers takes a bit of time, but as things move forward those who are the guardians of the information can change the formats.