Women's Legacy Project

Our Lives Change The World

questions to answer

Who Constructs the Ws of Legacy Tools

A to Z of Legacy 2016

The letter W made from public domain, out-of-copyright "The Language of Flowers for The Women's Legacy Project, Legacy Tools, for the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge
 
 
We recently covered the Who of Legacy Tools as a thinly disguised U for Users.  There are more Ws in the Legacy tool kit.  The classic 5 Ws of inquiry also include what, when, where, and why, in addition to the who.

My Story, Told By Others

No matter what, legacy is largely a story told by others.  The who of legacy is many.
As I said in the earlier article,

If you are truly living life to the fullest and taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way, you will not have time record your escapades.  And that may be okay if you truly do not care about any other person’s reality after you are gone.  Do what you can to maximize or exemplify what you care about.  Or you may just want to tell amazing stories to your kids, grand kids, or younger people you care about through the grand tradition of oral history.  Tell lots of stories. Let others remember, or retell, them – if they are so moved.

Who

The who of the past is manifold.
Genetics and genealogy provide the packing material for all the “who” about whom you research and tell stories when you do family or community history.  That is the first whom.
The second whom is you in the here and now.  Others may have imagined you in the past.  That is why they recorded their histories in the family Bible or other registry.  And you are the stuff of future genetics and genealogies.
hipster-839803_640Third you is the you that others will imagine when, at some time in the future, your name, something you have written or recorded, or the legend that surrounds your spot in history is invoked.
Who was or will be cannot really be known.
 

What

What is legacy?  You can shape the what of your legacy by determining if you are leaving things such as pictures, furniture, art, books, and the life, or if you are leaving stories.  Or perhaps the what of your legacy is found in full tummies of grandchildren  that are filled with cookies from your recipe collection.  That sense of well-being, or love, may be all you really want or need to create.

When

When will your information be used?  In twenty years?  In 200 years?
When will your book, recording, or video be considered?  In 25 years will it be Grandma’s Book ?  Or in 100 years will it be a chapter compiled at some future point into Early Understanding of the Coming World Shift by an Early 21st Century Women?

Where

Are people talking about your information at a country tea party?  Does a library house your tome?  Is it in a personal library of a descendant?  These are questions that, if answered, may shape the format, media, and presentation of your information.

Why

“Why?” is question that cannot be answered for anyone but yourself.  Of course you may note why you are doing what you are doing in the thing that you are creating.  This will be one of many motivations ascribed to your legacy-making.  Why did she do that?  Those who answer will see motivations for your actions that you may not see.  They may be present in you or not.  All you can do is leave enough context for informed inferences to be made.

Research Essentials

Autoethnography, CURATE, Information

When we, as women, want to create something, anything, we often feel we have to deal with what has come before, even more than men, who are trained to act as a reaction or in response to a command.

There are personal paths we walk that sometimes require an examination of previous steps we have taken.  It is good to understand that the past has brought us to where we are.  It is good to realize that there can be more than one interpretation of almost everything.  We do not have to agree with those interpretations.  We do not have to understand why those interpretations were created in the way they were.

We do have to determine if they were created from reason and are the sort of thing we want to teach our children and all children of the future.


Three ways of viewing what we do in the here and now in relation to what has come before are restoration, revisionism, and reframing.

  • restoration involves evoking a sense of the past
  • revisionism involves changing the interpretation of the past
  • reframing involves changing how an individual relates to past occurrences

It is research that allows you to identify and work with these ways of interacting with elements of the past.  No matter what research you have done on a topic, you should document these aspects of how you conducted your research.

  1. How do you know what you know?
  2. How long have you known it?
  3. Where did you find it or find out about it?
  4. Who else knows this?
  5. How is it documented?
  6. How will you reference this information?
  7. Does the information need to be preserved?

If you can answer all these questions, you have done your basic research.  Research is rarely just for yourself.  Most often what you are documenting in your own life or another person’s life will be accessed and probably referred to by other people.

You will probably want to be skeptical of undocumented information, or assertions that are made without original documents supporting the assertions. When you create original documents try to include as much information as possible including who is documenting it, what the date is, and where you are documenting it.  Your reason for writing is also important.

Answering these questions will allow you and others to know whether secondary acts such as restoration, revision, or reframing were used in creating a narrative.
We will have more information about research and documentation as this site develops.