Twittering The Great Depression (the first one)

I think it’s safe to say that every generation from now on will have the blessing/curse of having their entire lives cataloged online. Despite what may be your views on personal privacy, one benefit is that our children’s children’s children (and so on) will be able to learn more about their ancestors than most of us ever will about ours.

When I’m 90, this blog – in some form – will probably still exist. Imprints of my time in London and my life from about 23 on will be there for my future family members. I think that’s kind of cool. I just wish I had the same sort of resource for my ancestors.

Last night on Twitter I saw that David Griner from AdFreak started a Twitter account for his Great Aunt who, today, suffers from severe dementia. The feed is solely made up from her line-a-day-diary during The Great Depression.

Late last year, my family found a line-a-day diary maintained by my great-aunt from 1937 to 1941. She was in her early teens, living on a small farm in rural Illinois with her two brothers, one of which was my grandfather.

It’s a fascinating account of life in a bygone era, a time when my family’s only connections to the world were schoolhouse chatter and a neighbor’s radio.

Looking at the terse journal, my sister quipped, “This is the Twitter of the 1930s.” We glanced at each other and almost immediately began planning the Twitter account that would become Twitter.com/Genny_Spencer.

What an amazing idea. Thoughtful, topical and incredibly innovative (in a roundabout way). We spend so much time talking about ourselves online, perhaps we should make more of an effort to showcase how we got here.

Has anyone taken any efforts to record family history online that otherwise wouldn’t have existed online? The most I’ve done is scan some of my baby photos. :-(

*Photo of Genny borrowed from Dave’s site. See more about the project here.

Rax Lakhani Says:

31 January, 2009 at 1:06 pm

Hi Melanie

I’m always fascinated with stuff like this and I’ve worked with The National Archives (TNA) in the past which encourages people to do just what you’re proposing.

More recently, I started subscribing to the Orwell Diaries which converts George Orwell’s memoirs into daily blog posts. Some days, it just notes how many eggs he had for breakfast but on other days you get a real insight into the author’s world.

http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

The project’s been going on since August last year.

Claire Says:

1 February, 2009 at 9:59 pm

That is a fascinating idea.

My dad is just putting the finishing touches to our family tree, well at least back to 1845.

Also after clearing out the loft, I found some letters that my grandma wrote whilst being evacuated during the second world war. I will probably scan those and the rest of the photographs that we found.

Anjali Says:

6 February, 2009 at 5:36 am

Lovely idea Melanie. I read the post you linked to as well. I’m trying to figure out a way that I can sort of leave a meaningful legacy too – my blog and Twitter will always be there I guess, but something more – I don’t know – private? I mean, with life’s lessons and things for my future generations. Hmmmm.