Documenting the Present?

Are you documenting your kid’s life as you go? I thought about this the other day during my boy’s cub scout meeting. I was a cub scout when I was about their age, but all I really remember is going to the meetings and wearing the little blue uniform. I don’t remember what rewards, badges, or accomplishments I earned during that time. I kind of wish I remembered that or had something that told me.  I don’t want my kids, 30 or 40 years from now wondering the same thing. But how should I go about doing this?

We are already keeping some of the patches, belt loops, and certificates in a box, but what if this box gets damaged or lost? I think we need a backup plan. A scrapbook would work, but those are time consuming and have the same possibility of getting lost or damaged as the box. Then it hit me! My genealogy software would work great for that. It has an event process to enter awards, honors, memberships, etc… and I’ve used these for my ancestors but have not been very good at using them for documenting the present.

The boys cub scout and our daughters girl scout advancements and awards fit nicely within this program. I can add pictures of the events and electronic versions of their certificates. This is the perfect backup plan and something I should have been doing all along.

I think we get so caught up in finding out about our ancestors that we forget to think that our descendants are going to want to know about our life. I need to get better in documenting the present accomplishments of our family to help out our future generations who may want to know what we were up to. Remember, the past of the future is the present.

What present moments are you making sure you document? Have there been some that you’ve missed?

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.

Chris