Those of you who know me well (and following this post, the rest of you) will be aware that I've been sporadically capturing my family history over the past few years. In a recent blog post Dick Eastman refers to a statement from an American archives technician that, on average, it takes just 3 generations for a piece of oral family history to be lost unless there is a diligent attempt to preserve it. There are certainly several half-remembered tales attached to my family, some of which I'm sure I'll never fully understand. I think I've solved the mystery of "the woman who ran away with the man from the powder factory" but I've no idea what connection we have to "the waterman from Wapping".
So, my suggestion to you all when you gather for your Christmas celebrations and swap family anecdotes is to write them down as soon as possible. So much in life these days is ephermeral (think of all those deleted emails and tweets) - let's capture what we can.
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