Immortality - how can a person's story live on after death.

[i-need-a-martini]

My dad is in his late 70's and is contemplating the end. He thinks because he has lived an average life and did nothing exciting that no-one will remember him a decade after death.

Anyway, he wants his name to 'live on' somewhere so his story lives on somewhere.

This week he is going to register for the Welcome Wall at the National Maritime Museum but he is disappointed that the wall only has his name and no other details other than 100 words he can add to a data base.

Can anyone think of anything else he could do? 

Or do you have things you remember your grandparents/ancestors by?

Or maybe you have already thought about what legacy you will leave your kids/grandkids etc?

All ideas welcome. Note he doesn't have any money to leave and English is his second language.

[cherry*135]

Does he want to be remembered by his descendants only (not general public?). If so, I think he or  someone else in the family does need to put his family tree and his history (where he was born, how he got to Aust, where he worked etc not really personal stuff  although memories of events etc which be good) down in writing (with photos if available).

Could be made into a small book (bound pages) and given to his children, and they in turn can pass it on to their children. 

Personally, I don't think we should worry about what goes on after we are gone.

[j*oono]

I think he is a little bit misguided.  My grandparents I suppose lived average lives and they died a good while ago.  We still remember them very well and talk about them occasionally. 

Even now I am building a miniature garden that resembles their two gardens.  So many memories!

[izabsmiling]

Hi Martini, 

Get him to write it down or someone to do it for him...make copies for all the family members.

Record him and/or film him talking about his life.

Start a tree online including all the details of his life,his parents lives, memories..good and bad ,special events ,his hopes and dreams etc ...these things are special and a real treasure for family members to have now and down the line.

Some people open a fb memorial page 

[katydidthat]

When my Dad started to suffer from Alzheimers, I asked him to write to me (I was in Australia, he was in Wales) about his childhood and young manhood.  I got pages and pages of memories from a time and a place that I didn't know.  

I should give that to my son, one of these days, and maybe my brothers and their children ... 

Martini, what we have now is the internet where you can share his information in lots of ways ... a PhotoBucket story, a blog, a family website (with other family members contributing), there is ancestors.com, you can do so much now that wasn't possible even ten years ago.  

Scrapbooking, electronic photo albums ... are other ideas.  

Does he have family alive in his birth country?  Would they like to be involved?  

[punch*drunk]

My grandfather has written his life story, several times. He keeps adding to it as the years go on, i dont think he ever expected to live as long as he has. There are also many in the family that have worked on the family history, strangely enough, he's not at all interested in the ancestry stuff.

Is it possible you can get your father to write down, with your help maybe, as much as he can remember and start doing a family tree or a life story yourself?

Perhaps you could start by finding the record of his arrival to Australia?

[izabsmiling]

Make scrapbooks ? or what do they call it ? a memory picture/box frame thingy 

[punch*drunk]

Martini, feel free to message me and I'll see what information I can find. Maybe if you show him whats available and that you can scrapbook it or something, he'll become more interested and take the time to diarise some stuff.

Is he in ill health?

[twyngwyn]

katydidthat  where in Wales, if you don't mind me asking?

[cherry*135]

Iza's suggestion of video recording him talking about his life is a good one.. makes the person more real... to anyone reading/learning about them.

We have a short video clip of my Grandmother, made years and years ago.. saw it for the first time at a family reunion a year or 2 ago.. it was put on a disc with other reunion stuff and sent out to family who attended the reunion.

[**meep**]

Could you help him to write his autobiography and have it published? 

http://www.ehow.com/how_6583935_diy-publish-autobiography-book.html

apart from that,  i really have no idea.