Ruth Blair – Page 147

The Lost Art of Penmanship

This week on CBS Sunday Morning there was a segment about penmanship and how the art of handwriting could be lost. While it is a poignant thought there is far more at stake. The onset typewriters and then computers have changed how we communicate by the written word. Two hundred years ago, even with the printing press, the first draft of any written item was by hand.

Will the great grandchildren of the mid 21st century have letters and diaries handwritten by their ancestors? Will they have letters or diaries at all? How many of you print off your emails to save for future generations? It is just not feasible to do and emails these days are small bites of information. People rarely sit down and write a long letter to family that stayed behind when they emigrated. It is easier and less expensive to send an email, telephone or Skype. People are blogging but will the thoughts, sentiment and information in those blogs be available to our ancestors?

I remember in school learning to write and having difficulty writing the capital letters F and J. When we graduated from printing to writing, and could write clearly, we got a BIC pen. That pen was the most coveted item in my grade 4 class. Everyone wanted to move from the pencil to the pen, it was a status symbol.

I remember the excitement of finding a letter written by my 2x Great Grandmother to her soon to be husband in the early 1900s. It is a simple letter saying thank you for a box of chocolates and not being able to meet the next day because of a previous engagement. This is the type of thing that we would send an email or call someone about today. Since there were no computers in the early 1900s I have that letter in the handwriting of my 2x Great Grandmother. There is cookbook written in the hand of my 3x Great Grandmother with little notations and thoughts in the margin. These are items that the future generations will probably not be getting from this generation. They will not get the thrill of finding something in our handwriting.

Advanced Genealogical Skills: A Seminar with Elizabeth Shown Mills

Have You Noticed Genealogy Has Gone Mainstream in the Media?

Leave a Comment / By Ruth Blair

While watching television I have noticed that genealogy is appearing in pop culture. There is a commercial for a vitamin C product and above the bed of the cartoon character is a copy of his family tree. In the television show “Brothers and Sisters” there is now a theme involving family history that is bringing in a new story line regarding the past of one character and the parentage of another. In the movie “Little Fockers” the Focker grandparents, played by Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman, research the genealogy of the character Jack Byrnes played by Robert De Niro. Ancestry.com is broadcasting commercials in mainstream media. I wonder where genealogy references will appear next. Have you seen references to family history in mainstream media? Where? Let me know by leaving a comment to this post.

Author name: Ruth Blair