It takes time and effort to write the story of your life or to collect your memories in photographs and videos, also it needs some care to preserve it so that future generations can have it. Many times I wanted to know things about my ancestors and I simply regret that they were lazy to write, I have a picture of my paternal grandmother who was born in 1864 and I have kept it for many years among my memories and I can say that I look like her, I think that photo was taken in 1915 and my father appears in the photo and was only 5 years old, he was born in 1910.
Keeping records broaden our memory, we learn from the mistakes made when we look back and they serve as learning to others when they read about our successes, failures, experiences, etc. We can keep diaries that can even preserve our lives if we have been judged of events that we have not committed.
Illustrating the story of our life with photos helps us to see ourselves as people of progress and show our loved ones as we really are or were. I invite you to divide the story of your life in three parts: childhood, your life as a teenager and your adult life that includes marriage and family if you have one.
I also invite you to create books of memories which only contain photos of family and personal events, cards, invitations for weedings, and many other things. Below I show you some things that I have collected for years and that I always enjoy having a look at them, because they remind me of events that sometimes escape from my memory. I hope they encourage you to start collecting your memories.
We always say that we do not have memories but if you look in your house you will find many things inside the Bibles, other books, drawers etc, look for a box and put it in a place where it bothers you and collect in it all the things you find, then organize all in folders, decorated boxes etc ...
You can create a scrapbook of your own design where you can place all the cards, special letters, wedding invitations, birthdays and other things. I have a chest and some plastic folders to which I give names such as: folder of letters of my son who lives in Mexico, folder of recipes etc
It is good to keep a diary, you will write down the relevant things of your daily life and things you do not want to forget, such as dates and places visited. From the diaries we take information to write the history of your life and of your family. You can also write about your ancestors and create a generational tree. There are pages that allow you to do so such as the FAMILYSEARCH.ORG
It is also a good idea to label the photos with dates, names and places and create an album that tells the story of your life in photography. You must take a camera everywhere and when you visit your friends and family ask them to lend their photos to scan and preserve them.
You can also keep in a plastic envelope all documents, passports, diplomas, marriage certificates, birth certificates and deaths. You should place these things near a place that allows you to take it in case of emergencies and that will help you in case of evacuations from the site.
The familysearch.org allows you to create a gallery of your memories and all your documents, I invite you to review what you can do but you must register, at no cost. In this page I have a collection of hundreds of names that I have investigated for many years.
You can start to write the history of your life begginning with phrases like: "I was born in a town called Cabimas in the year of 1956, this place recieved that name because there grew many trees called Cabimas (an indian word) from which the old habitants extract a resin that was very good for the muscle pains. This place is situated at the south of Maracaibo´s lake in Venezuela and is rich in petrol, wherever you go there is a tower for burning the gas that comes from the deepness of the soil. I was born from good parents who taught me......"
It is no difficult to start, you give the year when you were born and the place where you were born, and say something about the place where you come from, the details are so important. You should talk about your family, schools where you studied, teachers you had, experiences, your best friends.
I hope you enjoy writing your memories, I would like to read about a short experience you had in your chilhood I am sure many things will come to your mind.