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I found my Grandpa’s notes 20 years after he died (2020)
- reallymental 5y agoAn alternative comment: I've found people's handwriting deteriorate as time has gone by... cursive is rarer to come by (leaving the 'legibility' argument aside), typing has certainly contributed to this, but some people still write on boards to explore ideas and boy are those diagrams and writings unreadable. If the author posted some samples of the grandfather's notes (withholding personal information), that would have added a very personal touch to the article indeed, and also ensured his ancestor's work gets recorded by archive.com. edit: grammar.
- mgkimsal 5y agoI've been consistently embarrassed by my writing and drawing (cursive, block, white boarding, etc) since I was a kid, and I can't seem to get any better. My wife's penmanship in any situation is... great (stunning by comparison). I can read stuff she wrote 20 years ago - I have trouble rereading my own notes from 2 minutes ago.
- medstrom 5y agoWriting love letters and other notes to my girlfriend prompted me to look up videos on handwriting. It honestly doesn't take long -- in preschool it was torture, but as an adult you can achieve big gains in an hour.
- owenversteeg 5y agoWhat videos did you use? Other people here, what did you use? I see there are a ton of options - Getty-Dubay is mentioned below but there seem to be many other similar systems.
- krrrh 5y agoDrop loop cursive and get the book Write Now which teaches Getty-Dubay italic to adults. https://handwritingsuccess.com/ https://handwritingsuccess.com/
- intergalplan 5y agoThat loopy-style cursive they taught us in school was so damn ugly, even when done perfectly, and not especially fast. I never understood why they were making us learn it. Its existence only made any sense to me whatsoever when I learned it was designed with a fountain pen in mind.
- intergalplan 5y agoI have writing samples from second grade. My writing was much more legible then.
- JasonFruit 5y agoI improved my handwriting markedly by teaching my children handwriting. Knowing I was setting a poor example for them was motivating.
- anotha1 5y agoNice story. I was hoping for some more "groundbreaking revelations." However, the opposite was the conclusion: > he was a man like any other. He had hopes and dreams. Triumphs and failures. Faith and doubt. I write a lot of notes. I imagine there are some great takeaways in there. And sadly, I'm not very optimistic about those having any impact, especially if I get hit by a bus tomorrow. Mortality... Blah.
- guerrilla 5y agoI know how you feel. I suspect the only way to get them to have impact is do something else great or become famous so that at some point someone even bothers to go through them. :)
- anotha1 5y agoYeah, that's about it.
- brobdingnagians 5y agoHehe, sometimes feels like that but we have family stories in my family about incredible things in people's lives. Even if your descendants only get one amazing story out of your life, it adds up when combined with all the other stories from other lives. For just one example: one of my great great grandmother's was living in the desert and quick thinking when a son was hit in the face with an axe blade, stitched it up with her sewing kit and needle. He survived and recovered. Its just one story, but it's fun to tell in the family
- johnx123-up 5y agoFor me... A Hindu (?) doctor who had his faith in Christianity is a striking contradiction.
- pratik661 5y agoI don't think thats really a contradiction. As far as science/engineering professions go, I think doctors tend to be the most religious.
- jll29 5y agoMy grandfather never wrote much in his life, he was a man of physical work. When he turned 80, he suddenly wrote up his whole life story, end-to-end. I've always wondered how complete versus sanitised his hand-written book might be, but there is some pretty gruesome stuff in it including eating a dog to avoid starvation, which resulted in extra torture because the only meat available was the beloved dog owned by the very commander of the prisoner of war camp where he was held during/after WWII. Perhaps one day, I shall scan, OCR/type in, and publish it.
- adonese 5y agoYes please! It would very interested to read it all. Also sorry for what your grandpa had to go through. Stories like these never fail to remind me how -mostly- lucky and privileged we are to live in such peaceful times.
- klmadfejno 5y agoThe commander of the prisoner of war camp fed his beloved dog to the prisoners? edit: oh, no they ate the dog and were punished for it I see.
- zelphirkalt 5y agoSimilar thing told by my grandfather, who was imprisoned in Russia for some time: They had to eat the grass to avoid starving. Every morning someone would be frozen to death and prisoners had to stick close together to not freeze. Or someone would have drowned in a puddle of water over night. Horrible gruesome situations. He said things became much better in terms of food, when later on he was imprisoned in some US prison (not sure that was in the US or in another place but managed by US). He wrote it all down as well.
- ransom1538 5y agoHey can I have more details? How would he also be imprisoned by the US?
- toyg 5y ago
- sillyquiet 5y agoTangentially, I started my family a bit late in life, as such my daughter will be barely into her 30s by the time I reach my 70s. I started a journal for this reason - so maybe whatever family she has can know me. Might be a tad narcissistic, but I regret not having know my own grandparents very well, so maybe they will appreciate one day.
- hyperman1 5y agoThats not narcissistic but a very good idea. My wife is an orphan, and especially now we have our own kid, we wonder a lot about how her parents would think about this or that.
- awj 5y agoI never even got to meet one of my grandparents. All I have is stories, and honestly not a lot of those. I don't think you should feel narcissistic at all. Family is one of the prime places where we share our wisdom and values. Where we pass on the results of our mistakes in the hopes that the next generation avoids them. Don't feel bad for trying to do that, it's one of the fundamental elements of human progress.
- Baeocystin 5y agoI was born late in both my parent's lives, and even though I'm only in my 40's, they are both now gone. The letters my folks wrote home while we were stationed overseas are one of my personal treasures. You might be writing for grandchildren, but don't downplay how important these artifacts are, even for children who already have spent years getting to know you! Reading the prosaic thoughts of my parents when talking to other adults was like peeking behind the curtain, and it helped me understand them better as people, not just Mom and Dad. I am grateful for it.
- hycaria 5y agoI have the same age difference with my father. I have always been a melancholic and curious person so I ask a lot of questions. I think most people will have those questions that naturally come to them at some point. When you realize your parents are people with their own memories, hopes and flaws, a step that's probably called adulthood. A very common trigger for this, as I've asked about this topic to other people with elderly fathers, is becoming a parent. But for me it was leaving home. Also make room for such conversations. We had a month long vacation, just the two of us, which I remember fondly, even though there was no big event or deep discussion.
- js8 5y agoMy grandfather (from Czechia, cca years 1970-1990) kept daily notes of what he bought and did each day (he somewhat obsessively quantified himself before it was cool). I think these could be interesting to a historian, but they're written in pencil and kinda hard to read/decipher. I don't think technology is advanced enough for automated extraction yet.
- seniorivn 5y agoif you don't plan to profit from it, you can just scan it and publish as is. If it is of interest for historians they will convert it into data themselves (if you are tech guy you can help them cooperate)
- tinco 5y agoIt most certainly is, give a junior machine learning enthousiast a week and I bet they could have the entire thing OCR'ed, if off-the-shelf tools don't work.
- klmadfejno 5y agoI read a random letter from my grandfather recently. The most interesting part of it was how much mundane life updates were in it. Things that don't seem normative to communicate in written word anymore, because they're so transient they belong in a transient form, like a phone call. Letters felt much more like an ongoing spoken conversation.
- sokoloff 5y agoI think social media has a lot of these mundane life updates. “Cut the grass today; ate a burger; here’s the beer I’m drinking.”
- criddell 5y agoJerry Pournelle used to talk about his personal log. He kept a day book and would write notes every day about conversations, meals, things he did, etc... I heard him talk about it on This Week in Tech a few times and for years I've wanted to do something like that. I've done it occasionally but have never been able to establish the habit.
- tartoran 5y agoThis type of 'discovery' won't be possible with the next generation as the digital version of that would be locked on some media (possibly encrypted) somewhere forever.
- swalls 5y agoGood. Just because someone died, doesn't mean their personal writing belongs to you.
- syshum 5y agoit is only good if that was the intention of the descendant, unfortunately we as a culture do not properly plan for death there for I can see a huge amount of data being lost even if the descendant wished for their family to see the data. (or did not have a strong desire for data to die with them)
- tartoran 5y agoYeah, I wonder how many people share their passwords with their loved ones while they’re good and healthy, but disaster can strike anytime. Im thinking of an idea for a service to ping one every 6 months and if no answer is given back in another 6 months, then to allow a designated person to have all pasawords and keys. Some kind of digital will executor or something of the sorts
- bennyp101 5y agoMine is in a safety deposit box, in 3 envelopes. Each has instructions and part of my private key that can be used to decrypt my files and passwords. Also has the password to my yubikey - which also has the private key on it. Only myself and my wife have access to said box, so if I die, then she can get to all my stuff, if we both die then the kids can get to stuff.
- astura 5y agoNo judgement here, just out of curiosity, why? Why do you want your heirs to access your accounts? For what services? What's sort of data is in there?
- brettermeier 5y agoI don't want to create an account so I can't read this.... any idea how to get to the blog post without registering?
- brettermeier 5y agoAh, here...: https://archive.is/nLJdW https://archive.is/nLJdW
- johnx123-up 5y agoOutline is little buggy, but fast https://outline.com/https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/i-found-my-grandfathers-notes-20-years-after-he-died-here-s-what-i-learnt-b550a65069d7 https://outline.com/https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/...
- kiwijamo 5y agoI don't have an account but I was able to read this. Strange that there's a paywall for you but not me.
- ajaygeorge91 5y agouse incognito/ private browsing
- ilamont 5y agoI interviewed Ray Kurzweil not long after "The Singularity Is Near" came out. I asked him about a concept that he brought up in the book but didn't get much attention in light of the other more startling predictions he made. Excerpt follows: Q: In the Singularity is Near, you also discussed an intriguing invention, which you called the "Document Image and Storage Invention", or DAISI for short. But you concluded that it really wouldn't work out. Could you talk a little bit about that? RK: ... The big challenge, which I think is actually important almost philosophical challenge -- it might sound like a dull issue, like how do you format a database, so you can retrieve information, that sounds pretty technical. The real key issue is that software formats are constantly changing. People say, "well, gee, if we could backup our brains and I talk about how that will be feasible some decades from now. Then the digital version of you could be immortal, but software doesn't live forever, in fact it doesn't live very long at all if you don't care about it if you don't continually update it to new formats. Try going back 20 years to some old formats, some old programming language. Try resuscitating some information on some PDP1 magnetic tapes. I mean even if you could get the hardware to work, the software formats are completely alien and [using] a different operating system and nobody is there to support these formats anymore. And that continues. There is this continual change in how that information is formatted. ... Q: You said there's no technological solution. What about creating standards that would be maintained by the community, or would be widespread enough that future … We do use standard formats, and the standard formats are continually changed, and the formats are not always backwards compatible. It's a nice goal, but it actually doesn't work. I have in fact electronic information that in fact goes back through many different computer systems. Some of it now I cannot access. In theory I could, or with enough effort, find people to decipher it, but it's not readily accessible. The more backwards you go, the more of a challenge it becomes. And despite the goal of maintaining standards, or maintaining forward compatibility, or backwards compatibility, it doesn’t really work out that way. Maybe we will improve that. Hard documents are actually the easiest to access. Fairly crude technologies like microfilm or microfiche which basically has documents are very easy to access. So ironically, the most primitive formats are the ones that are easiest. As a genealogist, I have thought a lot about solutions to preserve data long term that don't have physical limitations of microfiche or paper media, or the problem of computers crashing, subscriptions lapsing, or for-profit online services shutting down (see "Ancestry deleted 10 years of my family's history", https://slate.com/technology/2015/04/myfamily-shuttered-ancestry-com-deleted-10-years-of-my-family-history.html https://slate.com/technology/2015/04/myfamily-shuttered-ance...) Maybe 10 years ago, a few people in the Silicon Valley futurist community came up with the idea of a ball or disc etched with gradually smaller text an excerpt from the Old Testament, translated into multiple languages. It was kind of a Rosetta Stone ideal ... The plan was these balls/discs could be seeded across the world so even if there was some great calamity or the loss of written languages, future civilizations could resurrect them. There are many limitations of applying this idea to genealogy or any written record, including cost and the inability to update the text. It made me think that a more realistic solution to the genealogy preservation problem aligns with Kurzweil's "most primitive" take: Preserve core records on paper, share them widely with relatives and cousins, and use an easy-to-understand versioning system. This could also be applied to other family records, such as the grandfather's notes. We know high quality paper can last hundreds of years. It can be easily copied and spread, potentially allowing the information to last thousands of years, as evidenced by Roman, Greek, and early Chinese dynastic records and literature that can still be read today.
- FriedrichN 5y agoI had a great-grandfather who was in the SS, in one of the divisions that wasn't really known for their good deeds to say the least. There is a journal which he wrote, I have yet to gather the courage to read it. All I know is some vague stories that go around in the family but from what I gather it isn't probably too pretty what he did. It's typical that most people will tell you their grandpa was in the resistance, rarely they will tell you that they collaborated.
- scanny 5y agoIt would be worth scanning its pages (even without reading) to make sure whatever history is in there is saved for posterity.
- whachawatch 5y agoWhen you say "It's typical that most people will tell you their grandpa was in the resistance, rarely they will tell you that they collaborated." - do you mean that people lie about being in the resistance or do you mean that they only talk about the war if they were part of the resistance?
- watwut 5y agoNot op, but both happen. People do lie about their own past when it is politically or otherwise inconvenient. Including to their own family. People also lie about their relatives past, if it is convenient. And people are more likely to talk about their family past if it sounds cool and good. They are less likely to talk about ugly parts of it. Regardless of whether ugly is personal, business related or political.
- FriedrichN 5y agoMany people don't know because of the shame, their parents never told them they or their parents were collaborators. After the war many destroyed as much evidence of their crimes and kept everything to themselves. In the Netherlands the death penalty was brought back for just for these crimes after not having been carried out since 1850 (officially abolished in 1870). There was a strong desire for revenge in the first years after the war. That meant anyone who did anything 'wrong' was not going to talk about it.
- bt1a 5y agoEnjoyed this writeup, I'd love to hear some verbatim thoughts he had, if they're not too personal to share with the world.
- brightball 5y agoMy grandmother put together a collection of copies of old letters from families who had been in our hometown for several decades and gave it copies to all of her children. Treasures of history right there.
- the_arun 5y agoThis story inspires me to write notes for my Grand kids :)
- every 5y agoI am soon the be a grandparent. I keep my missives and ponderings online but also archived. Perhaps not carved in stone for posterity but hopefully no more ephemeral than a physical notebook...
- ibudiallo 5y agoAs an HN user, when I die my notes might just disappear with me. My family probably won't be able to log into my custom made blog. It will go on for a few years then the domain will expire. My phone which gets unlocked with fingerprint or a 6 digit pin will remain locked forever. My computer, also with a secure password and encrypted hard drive will remain locked. All my accounts with secure passwords will remain unreachable. My dropbox which contains all my unpublished notes and books will probably expire and get deleted. I'll have to print some instructions and lock them in a safe for my family.
- 0b1k3n0bes 5y agoI have been able to research multi-generations of my ancestry, and it's been amazing to say the least. Emigration stories to America are really interesting. My Great-Great-Grandfather was tied to the ship's mast 2x for being a "bad" boy at 10 years old. Another ancestor was one of the first martyrs of my church when a mob marched against them in Nauvoo. He deterred the mob at gunpoint 2x and was a marked man after that. He was later caught, beat and whipped to death. I believe family history/geneology is very important, and we should be researching to see what was sacrificed on our behalf, and also documenting our own lives for our descendant's benefit. Some resources: ancestry.com familysearch.org
- 0b1k3n0bes 5y agoIn addition, there are multiple Family Search centers throughout the world that specialize in digitizing records, and assisting people with their geneology.
- anonymousiam 5y agoLast year I found an easter egg that my father left for me in his address database. (He died in 2013, but was afflicted with Alzheimer's for the last 10 years of his life.) From my father's address book (a DbaseII file that was last updated on December 15th 1992). This was a note associated with my contact info. Found on February 16, 2020. Hi there, son. I doubt if anyone else will ever see these memos, but if anybody ever does, it will have to be you because you would be the only one with enough computer savy to dig them out. Hope you are doing well--and if I'm not still in this dimension when you see this--have a drink to your old dad's memory. Having you around gave me most of the pleasure in our family's growing up period! Live long and prosper...............
- leesec 5y agoWhat a beautiful easter egg.
- chunky1994 5y agoThank you for sharing this, it's a beautiful expression of how uplifting emotion can be even in the face of how fleeting our lives are; especially during these times!
- testfoobar 5y agoThat's wonderful. Sorry for your loss.
- rainpain 5y agoThis made me shed a tear. Wonderful.
- codeproject 5y agoI have this bittersweet feeling. surely you had a wonderful dad. Thanks for sharing this wonderful story.
- h0p3 5y agoDude. Thank you for sharing. What did you do when you saw it? What would you say back? Are you leaving any easter eggs for your own offspring?
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.is/nLJdW https://archive.is/nLJdW
- aspaceman 5y agoMy mother committed suicide when I was a child. She kept a collection of journals, letters, writings, and various computer documents detailing her inner thoughts, bipolar disorder, specific medication schedule, ECT, and various medical records. I should go through it someday. I know it’s probably a psychiatric students dream. A complete documentation of someone’s entire life, with associated medicine schedule (and eventually, ECT schedule). I imagine there’s some value to it. Really don’t know where to start with it though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dzink 5y agoI have a lot of grandparents as users on https://www.dreamlist.com https://www.dreamlist.com (a family wishlist site) and one of them requested an ability to preserve notes and family stories for loved ones. I am about to launch that feature in the next few days - it will work as a shared brain for families with text and audio recordings. I started working on it during the pandemic - everyone should be remembered. Feel free to reach out if you are interested in the same problem and want to talk (founder (at) dreamlist.com).