Notes written to myself show up in the most unexpected places, and at times when I least would expect them to remain pertinent. One scrap of paper, retrieved from a cranny where I was searching for something else, provided a timely reminder—yet, given the passing of time, taunted me and caused me to ponder what's left in the discovery's wake.
I had first written out the note—ironically on some scrap paper printed with the statement, "The greatest casualty is being forgotten"—during a class I was taking at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. The instructor had shared a quote gleaned from a volume of British history, which he felt was also applicable to the use of computerized research tools we were then accessing to trace our family history. I thought it was pertinent to what was unfolding in my own life and research.
The quote made such an impact on me that I later wove it into a post here at A Family Tapestry. It was a simple, straightforward observation:
Because so much less time is spent searching...for relevant material, more time can be spent assessing the meaning of the content.
And finding that note here, after spending a solid month not finding the details I had sought on Anna Flanagan Malloy's origin in County Limerick, Ireland, I realize this quote needs an addendum: the time spent searching is relational to the amount of relevant material still in existence and accessible. For those records never preserved—or the ones now facing the possibility of no longer being valued—no amount of dedicated search time will uncover their existence. We can only find what is already there to be found. The search prowess of technology is only as meaningfully valuable as the material it can surface for those wanting to know.
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