I think the biggest thing I tend to forget when it comes to genealogy is that my life is just as important as those of the ancestors I’m researching. It may seem obvious, but I really had to sit and think about the fact that I need to write down things about myself. But what?
What are somethings that I’d like to know about my ancestors, was really the first question, but the answer wasn’t helpful, because the answer is, well, everything. Had ever ancestor written an autobiography, I’d probably own and read them all. Not helpful. So, my next question was what do I feel my kids and other descendants will care to know, and that answer was also not helpful: I don’t know. What is important in my life? I could think of some obvious ones but not everything. So when I found Arcalife.com I was overjoyed. This website is essentially what I was looking for to help guide me to preserving my own story, and in addition it has a feature to connect to other family members to build upon a general family story. Now if only I could get all my family members to take the time out of their day to answer at least one question… but, that right there, is something I can do myself. I could easily copy down the questions I think are important and ask anyone willing to do an interview.
The site has a lot of other helpful features and is absolutely worth the time to go check it out. Aside from the wide array of questions to be answered and the family connectivity, the other feature I like the most is that it will compile all the information you feed to it into a biography with a story-like format. As silly as it may sound, I hate having to take a pile of information and format it in a way that other people will understand, since raw data tends not to be the way most of us like our information presented. Not to mention that a story format is much more pleasing to others who aren’t researchers that way they can still get the information without looking at a list; makes it more interesting to the average person.
Give Arcalife.com a shot. Not only will you fall in love with answering all the questions and delving back into your own past, but if you can manage to get other family members to connect with you, it’ll be worth its virtual weight in gold.
