Generation Y documents everything about itself.

Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, the repositories of that generation are endless. My generation has some documentation; we’ve got home movies, videos, pictures, but nothing close to what the children of Gen Y will have as they age. Most people of my generation are lucky if they know anything about more than their grandparents and maybe their great grandparents. My family did a poor job of documenting us. I have very few pictures of us as a children, few of my parents at any age, and almost no pictures of my grandparents. There were no home movies or videos. Compared to most families, there is not much of the kid either.

I got in the mail today from my mother a handful of pictures of my grandmother. I don’t know anyone in the pictures other than her. I can speculate about the others. I knew she had a brother she visited regularly in California. I knew she had another brother who died, in “the war.” We are to remember him on Memorial Day. (Remember Uncle Jerry.) Not sure. I know my mother called her grandmother “Grandma Baba,” a Jewish tradition. I know they were Polish immigrants, but I don’t know what generation. Once, I interviewed my grandmother to learn about this history, but she was old and forgetful and she slipped in and out of the narrative incoherently. I know my grandmother’s maiden name was Safir. That is all I know.

Some people are obsessed with genealogy. I am not, not really. But at least I have this picture. It is something.

The Safir Family
The Safir Family

 

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