My contribution to my family's genealogy collection is to manage a website of family photos, which gives family members access to scads of photos by family line without the expense of making individual copies. I also try to provide something of a biography for each ancestor where information is available, to make it more interesting for those with a casual interest in genealogy. The website has been favorably received by those family members with Internet access; my task now is to get the rest of the family online!

I've frequently wondered about the personalities and motivations of the ancestors whose images I work with. What made them move from here to there? Why did this ancestor become an artist or a writer when all of his/her siblings became farmers? The answers aren't always apparent from regional or local history, and eccentric family members may have been viewed as an embarrassment, or as someone "we don't talk about."

A gift you can give to future generations is a professional assessment of yourself and the way you think. Tools available at websites such as www.assessment.com are usually employed by job seekers trying to identify their motivational interests and strengths. The participant is presented with a series of about seventy-five questions. Based on the way you answer those questions, your resulting narrative will describe everything from the way you like to work to the way you relate to others.

I recently took the assessment myself, and I realized that, just as it helped me get a better idea of what I was truly motivated to do for a career, it would also help my descendants better understand me and why I made some of the decisions I've made.

Karen White
Corinth, Texas

Thanks to Karen for today’s Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to: mailto:ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

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