[runj__]

My grandfather left five moving cartons of diaries written by typewriter, every single day of his adult life documented, an achievement, to be sure. When he passed away he left them to my mother to be scanned, transcribed and moved online, something that weighed her down for the last 15 years of her life.

When he died there was no way of transcribing them automatically (there still isn't really). The boxes stood in my mothers already cramped attic for 13 years, then she got cancer, and she felt a need to finish up things, so she got a scanner and started just scanning.

When my mother died she had scanned about a thousand pages, not transcribed, not anything.

The text in the diaries were fun at times, sometimes depressing, seeing how little he cared about my mother and his family was crushing.

My brother wanted to continue the scanning but I told him that I wanted to throw the diaries away. He kept half a year of writing around his birth (there's at least a sentence) and my uncle did the same, then we just watched it all burn (not literally, we threw it away at the recycling centre).

Not everything needs to be preserved. I'm happy some parts is preserved. I'm happy that those diaries are ash.

[wdrw]

I understand there may be an emotional desire to get rid of something unpleasant, but some descendants e.g. 5 generations down the line may feel very differently about this. Given how easy scanning is these days (there are literally companies that will do it for you if you send them a box), and given how good the technology for sifting through mountains of text is becoming, and given that it's literally irreplaceable text, I can't imagine doing this to family records that one of my ancestors specifically wanted to be preserved. Not criticizing your personal decision of course, but just offering a different perspective, i.e. for me it would be unimaginable to do this.

[bonoboTP]

No, the dead can't exert such influence from the grave. You're dead. It's the next generation's turn. If you were the kind of person whose diary the kids or grandkids want to see thrown in the trash, then that's how it is. You had your time on the face of the earth, you don't get to haunt the descendants. You got erased, that's it. Or your story gets retold in filtered ways in the fog of the past.

Im perfectly content knowing just vague information about individual ancestors 3-4 levels up, and basically nothing on level 5, except the odd church record of births, marriages and deaths giving a rough indication of where some of them lived.

The people 5 generations back deserve much less thought space than the community you cultivate around yourself today (including living family).

[Breza]

Preserving the past is how we learn, adapt, and grow.

I got into family history fifteen years ago. As a history buff, it was a fun hobby. I even put together family trees for several friends. When I read old newspapers, it's incredible how similar many problems seem to what we face today.

There's also a practical aspect. Last year the Canadian government declared that I can get a Canadian passport if I can prove my links to that country. Now I've reactivated my Ancestry account and would love it if I had a box of personal diaries to sift through for evidence of my heritage.

[T-RN-R]

This is frankly a selfish take. Society is a compact between the dead, the living and the yet to be born. Having a piece of someone’s deepest thoughts is a treasure for future generations. By deciding to destroy, you choose to destroy the past that the future generations might value.

[bonoboTP]

No, its the natural cycle. What passes away fades away. Anything that is kept up needs to be kept up actively by the generations. That which is valued needs to be preserved, such as wisdom, knowledge, art, science etc. All your drama and idle musings, maybe not. Unless you're deemed worthy by the next ones. I understand that this is a scary thought but our impact is only kept if we act such that the next generations want to preserve it. 5 generations down even your genetic impact is people who share 3% genes with you and 97% other people. Imagine a classroom with 32 people. For each of your descendants 5 generations down (which can be zero or many, the count varying greatly based on choices made by not-you), you're one person out of that classroomful of ancestors.

Sure it's kinda cool to see some fragments here and there. But would I want it to be the standard that we keep all the emails, chat messages, phone camera roll, GPS logs etc of people... Hell no. I'm not advocating for absolutely forgetting everything. But we have to filter.

[Breza]

I disagree strongly with your broader point. We now have the technology to sort through the minutia of the past and learn deep things. Here's one tiny example. I was able to find out where one of my ancestors lived because someone sent him a letter via General Delivery around 1900 that he didn't pick up. The Post Office listed everyone with letters waiting for them. The smallest detail, but it proved useful for me in tracing my family's origins across the Wild West.

[rapnie]

Deeply agree. I think it is the other way round and it is selfish to expect those that come after you to carry that burden. The OP says it is "something that weighed her down for the last 15 years of her life", and that she felt the duty to scan the diaries even after the diagnosis of cancer. Wow, now that sacrifice is a beautiful precious gift, and anyone expecting such gift is utterly selfish imho.

[Swizec]

> Society is a compact between the dead, the living and the yet to be born. Having a piece of someone’s deepest thoughts is a treasure for future generations

If you want to be remembered, live a life worth remembering.

[runj__]

I totally understand your way of thinking but there's just so much _stuff_, we already kept most of his paintings which takes up a lot of my limited storage space (I do appreciate them though, but it's possible to have conflicted feelings).

It would cost around $3000 to have the diaries scanned today, this number was way higher a few years ago (which my mother didn't have). I know Americans have a lot more storage space in their houses and use storage facilities for a lot of things but there has to be a cutoff point. I have about 6m3 of (already filled) extra storage space in central Stockholm and wouldn't want that much more. Throwing shit away is a part of life.

[asdefghyk]

Pages could have been cut ( if written in a bound book) with a small guillotine type machine.

A few years ago , There are auto sheet scanners that scan both sides of pages relatively quickly , like 1 or 2 seconds a sheet, and can do at least 50 pages at once.

[frakt0x90]

I agree. When my mother died I got access to her emails, diaries etc. I read some and as you would expect there are a whole range of emotions and opinions in there, many of which I did not care to engage with. So I asked my wife to read some and she said said she thought it was worth keeping so we do. I will not read it, but perhaps someone else will get some value from it someday. It's no effort to keep (no boxes or terabytes of data).

[NewsaHackO]

I feel the same way, but I think my feelings may change if I didn't actually think the person was a good enough person that deserves to have their writing immortalized, like in this case. Of course, we only have his side, but the GP doesn't seem to think his dad was a good person and wrote some hurtful things in the diary about someone they cared about, which I feel as though is justification for their actions.

[Rooster61]

Friendly spelling correction. Diaries, not dairies. Dairies are where one produces dairy products.

And I'm sorry your mom experienced that weight towards the end of her life. That sounds like a significant thing to grapple with, especially considering some of the not so pleasant content mentioned.

[maltris]

You inherited, its your choice. Thats alright.

But you basically ripped out a partial root grounding your family, your kids, their kids. Sometimes these roots give strength in difficult times. Thats just my opinion and self-observation.

Whats done is done. But I could not imagine myself doing that.

[jrmyphlmn]

sometimes the act of keeping something alive can become its own burden, I'm sorry your mother had to endure that