Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Legacy Consultant Game

We have added a game to the Priceless Legacy website that highlights the advantages of becoming a Legacy Consultant. Please play it here.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Grandparent Legacy Project


I recently learned of a very exciting and important initiative called the Grandparent Legacy Project. A joint effort of the Association of Small Foundations and the 21/64 initiative, the GLP is dedicated to helping small family foundations (which represent about half of the nation's vast philanthropic effort) pass not just money, but values, lessons and stories to the coming generations.

While their focus is apparently on the wealthier segment of society, the message of legacy transference is very similar to Priceless Legacy's. I have reached out to the leadership of the GLP. There are bound to be useful ways that we can work together for our common aim.

The GLP has books and other resources available at their website.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Priceless Legacy Promotional Video

This is a new promotional video for Priceless Legacy. It provides a broad overview of our mission with a leaning towards LC recruiting.


Nine Questions Everyone Should Ask a Veteran on Memorial Day



The Priceless Legacy Company released its list of Nine Questions Everyone Should Ask a Veteran on Memorial Day

Too many people procrastinate asking a veteran they know some simple questions. They do so at their peril. So this Memorial Day, ask a veteran these simple questions and record the answers if you can.

1. When, where and how did you serve?
2. Why did you serve?
3. Can you recall any special stories from that time?
4. Who do you think about on Memorial Day?
5. Tell me about some of your friendships from that time.
6. Do you think young people today have the same commitment to service as your generation? Why or why not?
7. How do you feel each year at Memorial Day?
8. How did you feel when you came home from your period of service?
9. What lessons did you learn through your service?

As a former peace-time U.S. Marine officer, I have an acute awareness of the importance and meaning of Memorial Day. We owe the men and women a debt of gratitude for their service, dedication and sacrifice. One of the best ways we can show our support is to have the courtesy and curiosity to listen to their accounts and preserve them for the future.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

National Genealogical Society Conference

Mary Kerr and I just returned from the National Genealogical Society's annual conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.

We exhibited for about three and half days which was, to be frank, too long. The conference could have been accomplished in a day or so. That said, we met some interesting folks and had some very interesting conversations with four of our Legacy Consultants who came by to help us man the booth.

A special thanks to Sara S (Charlotte), C. Larsen (Pinehurst, NC), Dan S. and Jodi M. (Richmond) for stopping by. We enjoyed our time together and learned a lot.

One funny comment heard by an amateur genealogist at our booth after she heard about our offering: "Oh, you deal with the living!" We do indeed.

It struck me how much easier the genealogy industry would have it if people in earlier generations had had the benefit of Priceless Legacy.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mark Twain on Procrastination



“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.”

- Mark Twain

Saturday, May 9, 2009

From a PLC Transcriptionist Editor

A Priceless Legacy Transcriptionist Editor wrote this when she submitted her latest Life Story work:

As always, it's wonderful just hearing about the history and the different lives people chose to live. I have to say I have made some different choices recently because of the stories I've heard. There's so much wisdom to be given by someone who has lived and experienced life. Who knew that I'd be learning so much from a part time job?!


I could not have said it better myself!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Genealogists and Story Tellers


I read a very interesting post on Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy site.

It is a short article by Annie's Ghosts author Steve Luxenberg who explores his foray into the world of genealogy from the perspective of a writer. I particularly like his description of genealogists and story tellers as being like distant cousins who look alike but have differences.

Genealogy for the Rest of Us
A Writer's Guide to Diving into Family History

By Steve Luxenberg,
Author of Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret

I am not a genealogist. I am a storyteller.

The difference? Well, I’ll tell you a story.

In the spring of 2006, I was racing against a loudly-ticking generational clock, trying to find as many living relatives as I possibly could before their advancing age caught up with them. I was hoping that they could shed light on a long-ago family secret, one that my mother had created in the early 1940s and kept throughout her life. She had hidden the existence of a disabled sister who had been institutionalized for 30 years. Mom had died in 1999, her secret more or less intact. I was researching a book on her motivations for keeping the secret, and the consequences to her and those around her.

My working hypothesis: I had relatives I had never met, and I wondered whether their descendants might have some knowledge of my unknown secret aunt. Perhaps a bit of family folklore had traveled down their branch that had never made it down mine.
I had the beginnings of a family tree on my dad's side, courtesy of a cousin who had emailed me a version, but none on my mom's side. So I started to construct one, but got no farther than I had in junior high school, when an enterprising teacher had assigned us to create family trees for a class project. When I had asked Mom back then for the names of my grandmother's parents and siblings, she had just shrugged. That was the old country, she told me, as if that explained everything instead of nothing. Mom, born in the United States, professed no knowledge of my grandparents' early life in Russia or Ukraine or Poland (it was a mystery to me then), or whatever part of Eastern Europe we once called home.

According to a medical record that I had obtained, my grandmother was one of 10 children. I knew none of them. I knew none of their descendants. I just needed one name, and then I could pursue the genealogical trail, perhaps to someone alive, but if not, perhaps to a document, or a photo or some other clue that might lead me deeper into the story of Mom's secret.

Through painstaking work with passenger manifests, I had managed to learn the likely spellings of my grandparents' last names when they left Russia before the first world war. They were born in a small town near the old Austro-Hungarian border, a town that had changed hands several times in the course of the 20th century. Did the town's birth and marriage records still exist? If they did, would they yield the information I needed to trace the living descendants of my grandmother's nine brothers and sisters?

I consulted a genealogist with experience in obtaining records from the archives of Eastern European countries. He gave me a crash course in what I needed to do. The more he explained, the more daunting it sounded -- and the more expensive. He suggested that I purchase every record with any connection to the family names I already knew.

Worried that I would be overwhelmed with information, I asked whether it would be better to start with the smattering of the records that seemed most relevant. "I'm not a genealogist," I told him. "I'm not trying to build a family tree. I'm writing a book, and I'm trying to find out the things that will help me tell the story."
His genealogical ears couldn't believe what I had just said. "How could you not want to know it all?" he said, his voice reflecting his amazement. "How could you pass up the opportunity?"

I felt sheepish. "I'm interested, of course," I finally said. "But right now, the story is what I'm after."

Genealogists and writers are like distant cousins: They resemble each other, but it's easy to tell them apart. I'm in awe of the discipline that genealogists bring to their craft. I admire their dedication to a well-understood (if unwritten) set of rules for pursuing, finding, sifting, confirming and verifying information, before they connect the dotted lines between a ggf (great-grandfather, in genealogist parlance) and a second cousin once removed. As a writer, however, I'm wary of becoming a member of their club.

No need to be daunted, however. Genealogists are a welcoming bunch. They not only love company, they invite anyone to join their growing numbers, and millions have taken trips down the genealogical trail. The sudden accessibility of information online, such as census and immigration records, has made it possible for anyone to make a stab at researching their family origins, often without leaving the comfort of their living room. Amateurs like me vastly outnumber the professionals. Ancestry.com, which calls itself "the No. 1 source for online family history information," claims nearly 1 million paying subscribers and says that online visitors have created more than six million family trees since that feature was introduced three years ago.
You won't find mine there. My tree, with more broken branches than sturdy ones, exists only on paper, two pages taped together to accommodate the bits and pieces I had collected. I constructed it as an aid for interviewing a long-lost cousin, and then kept it on my desk as I wrote my book.

It was a huge help, a reference that I used so often that it became a bit tattered. Some day, I'll go back to it. I'll try to flesh out a few of the bare branches. I might even take a risk, and order some of those records from Eastern Europe. I'm curious, after all.

But not just yet. I have to finish this new story I'm working on.
©2009 Steve Luxenberg, author of Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret

Author Bio
Steve Luxenberg has been a senior editor with the Washington Post for twenty-two years, overseeing reporting that has won numerous awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for explanatory journalism. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

For more information please visit www.steveluxenberg.com

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Life Story as a Decluttering Tool



Priceless Legacy exhibited for two days in Orlando at the National Association of Professional Organizers' annual conference.

This group of mostly women was a serious bunch of professionals. Although most seemed to suppress the urge to tidy up our booth or lecture us on time management, I was very impressed by the professional caliber of these people. Each PO practices a wide range of specific disciplines from residential (closet, kitchen, attic and garage) to commercial (office, warehouse, business process consulting). Most are very tactile and physical but some where more intangible in their orientation (time management and efficiency).

Of the hundreds that stopped by our booth, all were impressed by the quality of our life story packages. Some signed up as LCs on the spot and about 60 others indicated a strong interest in joining our cause.

The "buzz" of the show was the growing market for senior services. Senior move management in particular was of great interest to the attendees. Many see the Priceless Legacy Life Story as the perfect "decluttering" tool to organize the many photos and documents that are often carelessly stored at a senior house. By combining the best of these items in the context of a life story narrative, the senior, and his or her family, are able to enjoy their reminiscence without moving boxes, unpacking albums and accumulating "stuff." Of course, these ladies are also daughters themselves and many expressed the usual regret over not having made a Life Story or expectation over their need to do so.

We really do learn something new every day!