What's your login?

My creativity seems to be a bit clogged up recently.  Just like our dishwasher, washing machine and toilets!  Must be the cold.  I was thinking I might blog about celebrity scandals in your parents' lives since the whole Justin Bieber DUI arrest business has taken up much more media space than necessary these last few days. 

Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis.  I have to wonder what your parents and grandparents thought of these situations.  Did they yawn in a manner similar to my own when Justin's booking photo appeared all over the news?  I realize society wasn't surrounded by news the way we are today, nevertheless I'm quite certain there was a great deal of ink consumed by such scandals back in the day. 

Which led me to think about what I'm tired of hearing about or seeing as I sit down every evening to watch television.  Mostly it's the content of the advertising.  You have to wonder how much further it can possibly go:  "light bladder leakage"; "cleansing the V" (good God); "ED". 

But I can sit myself back and watch Downton Abbey or the like and relish in the past.  Downton Abbey family and staff are dealing with the after effects of the death of one of the leading characters and the financial foundation he created for the estate.  So, of course, this led me back to thinking about my family history research work and its future.  I often worry about what will happen to all this work when I am gone, but I don't take the opportunity often enough to make public my wish that it be well taken care of.

For your family, almost 30 years worth of work now is summarized in a software program meant for that purpose.  A fair amount of paper remains.  And I don't think it should be chucked into the recycling but I'm not sure that I can guarantee it won't meet the fate of such work done for years by many gone before me. 

I'd like you all to make a collective promise to take care of this work when I no longer am able.  There will be a descendant somewhere in the line for whom this will be more valuable than gold or platinum.  When that person reveals him/herself I hope these things will find a good home.  No, I am not sick or dying.  :)

This brings to mind the need for us all to prepare our online presence for our absence.  We all have accounts, profiles, logins, passwords and the like that we maintain for a variety of purposes.  But the aliens may take you away and leave your family clueless as to how to pay the electric bill.  This is not something your parents had to worry about for the most part, but it is definitely something we need to be concerned with.  Just something to think about for this week's post.  And, again, I am not sick or dying :)

Don't forget to check out Gathering the Cousins public blog.  One of the podcasters I listen to referred to such efforts as "cousin bait" which I find appropriately amusing.  I am hoping to lure in one of those heretofore unknown cousin.