Creating new memories & preserving them for the next generation

This past Friday through Monday we spent a long weekend with family in Columbia, South Carolina. This was a good time to catch up with cousins, visit with my wife's Mom & brother, and for the kids to enjoy quality time with their cousins too. A highlight was a picture perfect day spent out on Lake Murray. We took plenty of pictures of the great times, capturing images of the kids & cousins, but also the adults too.

Photo by Patrick Jones - Lake Murray, SC

On the drive back, NPR ran a story about the importance of the family photo album in the digital age. I've had some time to think about this. One of the reasons I mix photos and stories of my own travels with examples of my family history is to share bits of this information for later. We store our digital photos in a variety of places, and while we could do much better about preserving this digital album for our kids, admittedly we haven't given it the thought that we should.

I think the family photo album is still important, we're just doing it differently than our parents and grandparents. After receiving a surprise package of 100+ year old photos earlier this summer from a distant cousin in Illinois, I am reminded of that our photos and digital memory will be valuable for the generations that follow us. We need to take care to sort through this collection, and to preserve it so they can see what we experienced.