Children and other progeny of baby boomers - Gens X-Z - are the ones who don't generally want grandma's or mother's teapot or Hummel collections...

My experience has been different...I think it's age-related, not generational. When the young ones these days get older they may be looking for those items for the fond memories they bring. When you're young, grandma's stuff is just old fashioned and dated, but give it a couple more decades and it becomes fashionable again.

"When the young ones these days get older they may be looking for those items for the fond memories they bring."

I have nieces and nephews in their 40s and 50s, whose attitudes are as I described.

How old are you proposing they need to be before you think their views will change? At least for those I know, it won't happen and your suggestion is far off the mark.

It's a bit too late anyway, isn't it, because as middle aged adults they waived interest in relics and collections of deceased family members in the face of such items being tossed. Which was the outcome, something I've heard no later regret about.

My parents died when I was 21. I was not interested in our family history at that time. My father was career Army as I was growing up, so we lived all over the world but never near family, except for two years after my father retired from the Army. Many people my age grew up around other family, and have memories of conversations about various ancestors, or they even lived near those ancestors and knew them, etc. I grew up knowing only this about my father's side: the names of both sets of great-grandparents; the name of one of my grandfather's siblings - a brother - but not whether the brother was older or younger than my grandfather or if there were other siblings; the exact date my grandfather landed at Ellis Island; the fact that one of my great-grandmothers (my father's mother's mother) was blinded as a child; I had more than one relative who was Mafia, but I did not know which ones (Daddy always told us it was better that we didn't know); my father's maternal grandfather (my great-grandfather) had a sister who also came to the US from Italy and married another Italian immigrant who was a widower. I knew that man's name, but not the fact that he had totally changed his surname, which made finding info on him nearly impossible. (Many, if not most, Italians changed one vowel of their surname, or dropped the vowel at the end of their surname, so they still had an "Italian sounding" name but it was still new and different. But not the man my great-grandfather's sister married - he chose an IRISH surname!) I knew even less about my mother's side.

I have learned SO much from obituaries and from graveyard headstones. And there is still so much more that I want to know.

We have a table in the foyer of our house that my father made in a shop class when he was in the 7th grade. It is hand carved, and beautiful. I have yards and yards of beautiful lace that was handmade by my paternal grandmother. I have no children, but I have a niece and nephew who very much want to inherit these, and other, items from me.

Edited to add that my father made that table in 1925, so it is almost 100 years old!

lindsey, I'm sure I'm not alone in being sorry to hear of your sad story but to also feel heartened that you've been able to fill voids and get answers you were interested in.

But you too are talking about yourself and your views several generations removed from those I was speaking about - my immediate and extended family members and those I know in other families who are younger than me. Children of baby boomers and older souls.

I was talking about adults with living and accessible ancestors. The ability to ask questions, straighten out or learn of ancestral unknowns and puzzle pieces. With the opportunity to get keepsakes, items of childhood memories, the like. Go to gravesites.

None of them are interested in any of that and do none it. I'm also a bit perplexed that some who have disagreed with me the strongest (also said with all due respect), who are of course welcome to disagree with me, nonetheless seem to be some who have previously said they have no children. That's fine, a lifestyle I respect completely whether by choice or not, but I can only wonder where the insistence on advancing their contrary ideas comes from.

I think this horse has been kicked enough.

"but I can only wonder where the insistence on advancing their contrary ideas comes from."

What contrary ideas? Or, a more important question, why do you see a problem on them "advancing their......ideas", when you do the same?

"who are of course welcome to disagree with me"

No one here needs your permission to disagree with you, or with anyone else.

elmer, I, too, am a Baby Boomer - born in 1949. My niece was born in 1977 (I have no idea what nickname her generation is called), and her daughter was born in 2008. My grand-niece had to do a family tree as a school assignment last year. Nieces and nephews on my husband's side (his brothers' kids), also had to do family trees as school assignments. And all have contacted me for help with their assignments. All of the nieces and nephews live in different areas and are, therefore, in different school systems, as well as in different grades. So, it seems that a certain amount of genealogy is still "in."

Just because your kids and grandkids aren't interested doesn't mean that the majority of other folks aren't.

Just wanted to add that none of the schools that gave out the family tree assignments are religious schools -- all are public schools.

"Ok, fair question"

Yes, and you still haven't answered it. You seem to have a problem with others stating their experiences and making inferences from it, but have no problem with you doing the same yourself. And this idea that other people are "insisting" on their "contrary" views is kinda weird, since we're all just hear sharing experiences and ideas, right? No one is insisting anyone else is contrary or wrong, right?

You don't seem to have any experience with school assignments. You'd assume a kid given an assignment to write about Father Junipero Serra (a common one when studying California history) is interested in the priesthood and becoming a missionary?

No, my question is with people in later generations assuming (many lacking family or other experiences) that younger people have attitudes similar to their own.

elmer wrote, "You don't seem to have any experience with school assignments. You'd assume a kid given an assignment to write about Father Junipero Serra (a common one when studying California history) is interested in the priesthood and becoming a missionary?"

Is this directed at me? No, I actually have had plenty of experience with school assignments. I did attend school, and even graduated! (Will wonders never cease?) And, no, I would not presume that a kid given an assignment to write about Father Junipero Serra is interested in the priesthood or in becoming a missionary. And, for the record, when I was given an assignment in high school to write a pro/con paper about the death penalty, it didn't make me interested in committing crimes.

And, yes, I've had experience in helping my nephew (my younger sister's son) with a lot of his school assignments, as we helped raise him. And I've helped multiple nieces and nephews with family tree assignments.

And yet, here you are, assuming that because you and your kids have no interest in family history that everyone else younger than you has no interest in it, either.

Well, I'm enjoying reading what people are saying in this thread. I am not reading these thoughts as responses to Elmer, but just as something someone wanted to say. And what they say is interesting.

I don't know why I engage when I know where this will end up.

But I can't resist the absurdity...

How old are you proposing they need to be before you think their views will change?

62.3859 years old...and then miraculously it happens!!

SMH.

Exactly. That's the absurdity of the comment I was responding to, suggesting that the disinterested would change when they got older.

As for school assignments, getting to the end of high school is a 12 year process. Add college, another 4 plus grad school for many.

One assignment with one nephew isn't indicative of a groundswell of interest at the level of people younger than a senior citizen. Give me a break.

seem to be some who have previously said they have no children....I can only wonder where the insistence on advancing their contrary ideas comes from.

Oh shucks! I forgot! Just because I don't have children must mean I have no other relatives, no friends or acquaintances and have never talked with anyone else about inheritances, clearing out and handing down, cleaning up an estate after someone passes, regrets about things I recall that were let go, or any other such sources from which to derive an opinion that -- horrors!!! -- is contrary to that which has already been stated.

The reality is quite the contrary: When you don't have children, passing things along to the next generation becomes far more difficult and requires much more thought and consideration.

No one is insisting anyone else is contrary or wrong, right?

TorontoVet...you are clearly missing Elmer's point here. He's stated what he *knows* to be absolutely right, and while he allows that others are entitled to a different point of view (oh thank you, kind sir), he can't possibly imagine why anyone would when it's clearly wrong, especially after he's already *told* us what is correct. See?

No the absurdity was expecting a single year with which a shift would happen in some people's lives. Anyone who has grown up or observed others growing up know that there are many shifts that happen over the years and at different stages. What's important at 10 is not the same as what's important at 30 or 50 or 70. Sometimes those changes happen after physical changes, career changes, personal tragedies, deaths in the family, near death experiences, etc. Those kinds of life shifts can stir an interest in the past in some, understanding what came before, ways of hanging on to fond memories of the past, a need to feel more rooted, and a desire to share what was with those who are just starting out so the love and the appreciation can continue into the future.

When we were younger, my cousins and I never talked about our grandparents and their history, but as we've gotten older, it's become of interest to a number of us and led to many conversations and sharing of artifacts of their lives with one another. That is part of my experience. If it conflicts with yours, too bad. Doesn't make it wrong. My grandparents never lived to see us develop this interest in family history, and you may not live to see it in your family, Elmer, but it doesn't mean it won't happen.

Hmm. Maybe I wasn't sufficiently clear. Communicating with future generations includes me. I feel a part of humanity when I visit a cemetery and read the memorials left for people like me-not the family who knew all that stuff but me the general public generations later. That is what I mean by stones that will last. If you are only interested in marking a spot for present mourners why expensive durable stone? You typically get cheap temporary markers from funeral homes and they will actually last several years. Long enough one would think.

While I have been interested in Cemeteries for most of my life I was not interested in my ancestors until relatively late. It is always the question you never asked when the oldsters were still alive that haunt you. Now I am old and having no children have no one to plague with my lack of information.

Same as you, Patricia, my interest in my ancestors came pretty late in life. My dad died when I was a kid and he was an orphan, but I know a tiny bit of info about his mother; nothing about his father. He was an only child. I knew my maternal grandparents but wasn't interested in their histories until they were gone. My mother died when I was in my 40's and I never really asked her about my dad or what she knew about his family. It's pretty much a dead end for me - now that I have interest.

I have one son who was adopted to another family at birth, but we reunited 30 years ago. I've written everything I know for him and his son, should they ever want it. But since he wasn't raised in my family, he knows none of the older, already passed relatives. When my grandson was very small, like 5 or 6, he always wanted me to take him to a large cemetery we drove past each day so he could read the inscriptions on the memorials and headstones. I have NO idea what sparked that interest in him - but it wasn't that any of his relatives were buried there.

I remember when I first went to a cemetery. It was across the lane from my Grannie's family church. Oddly the cemetery had no connection to the church. We were allowed to walk around looking at the graves while the grown-ups did church business after services. There was one grave I always visited. There was an oval picture of a little boy embedded in the stone which fascinated me even before I could read his name. He had died of blood poisoning. I have a whole mental scenario of how it happened but I have no actual knowledge as it had happened so long before. Still I realized there were real people there with lives and loves. It informs you I think that history is about real people. And that is what I mean by feeling a sense of community with past people like those British stones with all the names tucked in sideways sometimes and dead wives where the name of the husband is carved larger than the deceased woman.

lol, we know one attitude that will never change.

The resident expert-on-all-things-known-to-mankind wrote, "One assignment with one nephew isn't indicative of a groundswell of interest at the level of people younger than a senior citizen. Give me a break."

I do not know to whom you refer, other than I know it's certainly not anyone I know. I didn't ever say to anyone, here at the KT or anywhere else, that I only helped one nephew with one assignment.

This whole thread is rapidly becoming a text book argument for the mantra that "the plural of anecdote is not data." Every viewpoint here is based on personal experience, whether with friends, relatives, students or random strangers. All of that experience is limited. None has any claim to be a definitive assessment of the attitudes of entire generations of Americans from all social and economic backgrounds. That one person's views and experiences are different than another's certainly doesn't invalidate the former. It's all still anecdote.

I tend to think, based on my own experience, that there are people of all generations who have an interest in family history, and others who don't. I don't believe the younger generation is all that different from its elders in that regard: some care, get involved in Ancestry.com, draw up family trees, get DNA tested - and some don't. Kind of like my boomer cousins, some of whom are interested and some of whom couldn't care less. I am not going to extrapolate conversations with the latter to conclude that all boomers lack any interest in family history and I wouldn't extrapolate anything about their respective generations from conversations with our kids or grandkids either.

I also tend to think that interest can be expressed in different ways and about different aspects of family history. Neither of my parents has a grave site, and I've only every visited my grandparents' grave sites once. I have no interest in that, and neither does my sister.

The same applies to most of Mom's possessions: when she passed away, most of her things went to thrift shops or Habitat. My sister and I kept a few items, just as we each have a few things from our maternal grandmother, but for the most part we weren't interested in the furniture or bric a brac.

That doesn't mean either of us lacks interest in the family history, just that it is directed elsewhere. Some of my mother's old photo albums have been donated to a historical society affiliated with a former RCAF base where my mother served during the war, while a few things from my late father have made it to the Maritime Museum and two small Prairie historical societies. I've written up the history of an antique china cabinet I inherited from my great grandmother (for whoever acquires it when I'm gone - and it's the sort of thing that will be treasured by a collector). So, a bit of history lives on.

Bottom line: I think interest in family and heritage can be explored and expressed in different ways. The younger generation may be more interested in Ancestry than in grandma's china, but so what?

"the mantra that "the plural of anecdote is not data.""

I've never understood this phrase, it makes little sense. There's nothing holy or anointed about information being proclaimed to be "data"- there's bad data, invalid data, skewed data, all kinds of types. Also, the singular of data is data, so the etymology and assessment of the pronouncement of something as being "data" is meaningless. An accumulation of anecdotes is itself data - without any assessment needed about whether it's valid data, useful data, misleading data or even truthful data.

You too can wait for a resurgence of interest in these topics, the majority adherents of which today seem to be mostly members of one particular Christian denomination and senior citizens. Wishful thinking or an unwillingness to consider the possibility of changing times and holding a view of a small minority? Along with waiting for the tooth fairy to snatch a tooth from under a pillow, I don't think either is likely to happen but you never know.

The singular of "data" is in fact "datum." Anything else I can help you with?

I am not sure why you think your handful of anecdotes is any more reliable an indicator than any of the anecdotes put forward by all the others who have contributed here. Nor do I understand why you are so convinced that, after millennia of humans memorializing past events and passing them on to later generations, be it through spoken myths, commemorative steles, tombstones, tablets or history books, it should all come to a shuddering halt with the current generation. Do you seriously think that your few, disinterested relatives outweigh the evidence of thousands of years that there have always been humans of all races and societies who do care about these things, and will continue to do so?

Just became aware of this project recently. This thread came to my mind.

I find this fascinating and heartbreaking. I think it explains why what we do with our dearly departed matters.

The Hart Island Project site hartisland.net

I scrolled around a bit on the site and shed a few tears for some people I've never known.

The island has quite a history.

"The singular of "data" is in fact "datum.""

That word is rarely if ever heard in American English, so I believe it is as I described here in the US in common usage. I suspect that's something that you as a foreign born, foreign resident wouldn't necessarily be familiar with.

You're apparently living in Commonwealth county, very directly on point is word usage for collective plural nouns and that may be your reference point that you assume is the case in places you're unfamiliar with. The British treat such words as plural - data are, the team are coming on the field, the faculty are preparing for the ceremony, etc. This contrasts with the American usage of treating such nouns that may be plural as singular - data is, the team is, the faculty is, etc. I suspect it's a follow on to that that may account for data being used as a singular here because there's little usage or sense of it being plural, even when it is.

There are lots of practices that endured over the centuries/millennia that have long since been left behind by the modern world. There are people who cling to some of the worst ones even today and the world is worse off for it. Modern, educated people make far more of their own choices these days without being ritually tied to past practices.

Interesting point of view, Elmer.

Does that go for things like ’ad nauseam’? That is how I learned to spell it.

I’ve seen you use the term ’ad nauseum’ , ironically, over and over. It always makes me wonder about your spelling.

Elmer, you have argued yourself into a hole I am afraid. You are in the minority here in your anecdotal interpretation of what interests people. It doesnt matter either way of course.

That is an amazing video Michele. talk about shallow graves. It would be dangerous for people to walk around. You could fall through a coffin. Maybe that is why they dont allow visitors? they dont want to admit it is not safe?

Foreign words infrequently written, often especially those of latin origin, are hard to keep straight.

It may be different where you are in Canada because of the more significant presence of French speakers, even in anglophone areas, but as someone who studied hard over many years to become a capable French speaker, I'm annoyed when I find (most especially in restaurants) French words misspelled, misused, or mispronounced.

Too many incidents to recall or share but one more amusing one was a lunch at a well regarded French restaurant in my area. After we finished our plates, the waitress approached and said :

"Can I offer you anything for dessert? We have a special item the kitchen made today - it's (I'll spell it phonetically as she said it) apple bay-gun-ettes."

Me- "Can you say that again please">

Her- " Yes, apple bay-gun-ettes"

Me- "Can you describe it"

Her., checking the notes in her little booklet_ " It's a flour dough with apple pieces that's deep fried. It's French, like a doughnut"

Me- "Is it spelled b-e-i-g-n-e-t? That's pronounced Ben-yay. What you're describing would be called beignets aux pommes. I'll have one (and my companion ordered one too)"

Her- "I'm not sure but I'll put in your order,

She came back some minutes later with two plates of beignets and said:

"Here you are, I'm sure you'll enjoy them. I checked with the cook and he said the word is French and is pronounced bay-gun-ette." DUH.

Thank you, Elmer for your explanation.

So the short answer is that you are spelling it incorrectly.

"Elmer, you have argued yourself into a hole I am afraid."

Nah, no problem for me. There's an obvious homogeneity of sorts in the demographic here whose opinions I don't share. I know many disagree with me, that's reality I don't dispute. I don't pretend or speculate that that's not the case as others with different views from mine seem to do.

"That word is rarely if ever heard in American English,"

Actually, I read it frequently in American English language publications (newspapers and magazines), and I've heard people say it aloud too. Particularly since health data has been in the news a lot lately. It's pretty commonly used.

The pandemic has brought many academicians and researchers into the media and the public eye in the last year. I have a number of friends and family with such occupations. Rarely if ever is anything other than data used EXCEPT when technical, academic work or papers are being discussed by those whose occupations involved them. It always sounds like a bit of an affectation of academe but not all talk that way. In any event, such terminology is well outside the daily fare for most of us.

I guess your experiences in Toronto or thereabouts are more relevant than mine as a native Californian

Patriciae, it never occured to me that it was out of concern for anyone’s safety. Isn’t it funny how we all see things and feel things differently?

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

"datum noun

da ·​tum | \ ˈdā-təm  , ˈda-  , ˈdä- \

Definition of datum

1 plural data\ ˈdā-​tə  , ˈda-​  also  ˈdä-​  \ : something given or admitted especially as a basis for reasoning or inference

// an important historical datum

//This enormous expense—and considerable risk—to pick up a datum or two about geriatrics?— Charles Krauthammer"

If "datum" is good enough for the seminal dictionary of American English, I expect it's good enough for any educated American.

In any case, it's interesting that the argument has focussed on "data" vs "datum" and not on whether or why one individual's personal experiences should weigh more heavily than another's in assessing the world around us. The only "obvious homogeneity" I have noticed is that most of us don't assume our own experiences are definitive of what the rest of the world experiences or thinks.

Well keep digging Elmer. Now people who use proper usage are effete?

One of the maintenance jobs in a cemetery is filling in the graves as they collapse. I know this from family experience in grave yard maintenance during the yearly grave yard cleaning (or decoration day in some areas) They would carefully fill in subsidence or cracking on any of the graves that needed it so they did not look neglected no matter who the family. Those graves were the standard six feet. In this video you can see the stacks of boxes which will rot of course are literally a foot or so under the surface. EEK if you are walking over them.

Here's FindAGrave's section on Potter's Field (Hart Island):

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/65710/potters-field/photo

Hahahah! That old expression seem so appropriate here in a number of ways...

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Those who like to argue to argue and have no real personal knowledge or experiences to add, most especially those far nabroad who have no other information to bring but from internet searches, are welcome to continue.

Those who think the population speaks (there's a plural noun treated as singular) like our geeky national treasures Drs Fauci, Osterholm, and others because they've been so prominently seen on TV or on the internet, have at it.

Patricia, I'll reply to you. It's one of those things I've noticed, that I even asked a friend/researcher about one time (Hey, do you often encounter people outside of your cloistered world of academia (a good friend, we spar with one another) who use words you do and as you do and the answer was - No. It's part of our techno-jargon and our way of having fun separating insiders from outsiders)

edited for pointlessness

"Those who like to argue to argue and have no real personal knowledge or experiences to add, most especially those far nabroad (sic) who have no other information to bring but from internet searches, are welcome to continue."

Why thank you, kind sir, for allowing me to continue. That's sarcasm, by the way. I don't actually need your permission to comment.

In any case, I wonder why you feel so entitled to discount the knowledge levels and especially the life experiences of anyone other than yourself? I daresay many of us have at least as wide a range of experience as you do, and possibly much greater. And I daresay as well that some of us consider a verifiable and reputable internet source of information to be at least as reliable as unverifiable citations from unidentified and possibly apocryphal acquaintances. I know I do.

Huh......I think Elmer J. Fudd is a woman, not a man.

LINDSEY, if you want to know more about your ancestry there is a wide bank of date that you can use. You can use Family Search for free.

We dont need gravestones as a record of our ancestry. There are documents of all manner that have been brought online. Gravestones are just one more "document".

You will hit something of a wall with your Italian ancestry but the infor is avaiable to you if you seek it.

I, too , grew up military and never lived near extended family or have a home town or know people that I went to school with. I barely knew my grandparents.

As a grandmother myself now, I am in touch with my grand kids through facetime and always pretty much know what is going on in their life. My grandparents never knew anything much about me, or me about them.

I now know a lot about my ancestry and have questions that I wish I had asked of them before they left this earth.

My two grown adult kids laugh and shut me down when I tell a story about our ancestors. Even after becoming parents themselves, they still claim to have no interest in ancestors. I just dont understand that. It is not as if I am with them a lot and share this a lot.

When I look at my grand children, I think about all of those people who came together to make them and all of what I know about them. I see the faces of the ancestors in their faces, just as it says on the gravestone. Even though my youngest grandson is half Chinese I still see my dad in his face. I am fascinated that their ancestry spans the globe. My dad would never have thought that any of his great grandchildren would have such diverse heritage.

One of the most fascinating first things that I found when my babies were born was to just stare at them and see how many familiar faces were right there in their new face.

I have a friend who is of Italian heritage, as is my husband. She has delved in to her ancestry in a emcompassing manner and has gathered extensive knowledge. Her own two grown kids just dont share her passion, just as my own kids dont. Neither do her two sisters share it.

I felt sorry for her some years ago when she organized a family reunion with the idea that she would share with her extended family what she had learned about them, as a family.

She grew up on a street with all of her cousins because there were three sisters from one family who married three brothers from another family. That is a lot of close family, for sure!

She recieved such a lukewarm reception for that interest. Very few found a way to relate, not all showed up at the rented venue that she paid for. and her own two sisters were in a snit with each other and did not attend, nor did either of them bring their mom who was elderly at the time. She was disappointed, indeed. She even held the reunion back in the hometown area, so no one but her had to travel far to get there. All of that effort and still very little interest!

I think that if I did not have children that I might not be as interested in it as I have been. Seeing myself continue to my children and to their children gives an added dimension to it. I know of an adpopted person who's father has done the ancestry search and I dont understand how that adopted person is expected to care about that beyound the fact that she does care about and love her parents.

i just wanted to add one more thing about ancestry.

And, that is the fact that each of us has twice as many ancestors as do our parents. What a way to keep the gene pool stirred up and prevent it from becoming stagnant. With each new life created, there is a giant mix of genes. It provides an insight into the expression of "the family of man". Indeed, we are all related to one another.

Just try to draw a family tree and you will see that you will run out of space on that paper or that wall chart very , very quickly. It gets top heavy very quickly.

Wednesday morning, it's kind of you to advise Lindsey on researching her family tree, but I thought I'd mention that Lindsey is my genealogy guru. She's super-knowledgeable, and--like you--generous with sharing her knowledge. Of course, there are always things we can learn from one another. I will take your advice and look into Family Search--thanks!

Well, good. I had no idea. My friend who got way into her Italian genealogy also got involved in helping others with theirs. It became somthing of a passion for her.

michele, thanks for posting that about Hart Island. I never knew.

That island has been the setting for nothing but misery, disease and death. Very interesing!