Tuesday, March 2, 2010

1000 Years of Family History in 37 Minutes?

The Mormon Times website has an article today titled A thousand years of family history in 37 minutes by Emily Schmul. The article highlights a 37 minute YouTube video (in four parts) put together by Clayton Brough, the current President of the Richard Brough Family Organization.

There is a transcript of the video on the Richard Brough Family Organization on their website.

I am genea-smacked by two things about this organization and the video created by it.

1) Look at the Richard Brough Family Organization website. What a wonderful tribute and work of family history by a group of family historians. Absolutely wonderful. What a great example of what can be done when a family organization works together.

2) The video and script are absolutely beautiful! What a story to be able to hand to their children, grandchildren and future generations.

I admit to being impressed by family history efforts such as this. Are there other works similar to this one? There are many family history associations and organizations available for membership and participation - but I fear that their activities are not as well attended or supported as they were in the past, before the Internet explosion of genealogy.

Hat tip to Dianne Simpson @FamilyTree101 who posted about this on Twitter this morning. Nice find!

2 comments:

Martin said...

Sorry to say, but I read the transcript and the first five hundreds is not true. Any family in England, not in the aristocracy can only go back to about 1500 when lucky, 1450 when extremely lucky. The nonsense of changing names and coming with the conqueror is myth. Delightful, but untrue. So, it the Brough history for 500 years. Still wonderful. Why do family historians have to gild the lily? Do they realize how few people can document 500 years of family history? It's such an accomplishment and completely ruined (in my eyes) by the shoddy scholarship in trying to extend it beyond what is truly known. Sigh.

Rob Dunford said...

Our own family organization is undertaking a video documentary of our family's history as we speak. It will cost much more than the $3,000 they spent. I am impressed with their resourcefulness. A great example of what a family can do once they get organized!