estate planning

I have spent some significant time this summer pondering this question: If I get abducted by aliens tomorrow, what will happen to my genealogy?

Ricktails, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Seriously, estate planning has been on my mind lately, ever since losing some family and some dear friends in the past year. I’ve started to develop my own estate plan, and I’m finding the genealogy piece of the puzzle one of the more complicated parts.

I don’t have a finished plan, but I’ll share my strategy today.

Step 1. Classify everything as either tangible (mostly non-digital) or intangible (mostly digital), and then inventory it. Initially, the inventory is very high-level: a broad description and where it is located. For example, in the tangible column, I may have

• genealogy books and magazines – on the bookshelves in my office
• old photos – in the tub marked B&W photos in the loft.

At any given point, the inventory item may become subdivided, as you’ll see illustrated in the next step.

Step 2. Document what will most likely happen to it if I am abducted by aliens tomorrow. For example,

• Genealogy books – my family already has instructions to donate any books they don’t want to the public library for resale
• Genealogy magazines – my family would likely dump them in the recycling bin

Step 3. Note whether each expected outcome is ideal, acceptable, or unacceptable.

Step 4. If ideal, great! If not, what is the ideal outcome? Seriously think through what that outcome might be and document how to accomplish it. For example, maybe I would prefer

• Genealogy books (non-DNA-related) – family donates to public library: ideal; no further analysis needed
• Genealogy books (DNA-related) – donate to the Central Indiana DNA Interest Group; perhaps they would like to raffle them off, or give them away as door prizes at events. HOW TO ACCOMPLISH THIS: [open action item to document]  Note to self: if “ideal” ends up too impractical; “acceptable” outcome is to have the family donate to library.

Step 5. Document all of this where your family/executor can access it, and make sure they understand the instructions and are willing to follow them.

Estate Planning by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free.org

The genealogy books example was a simple one. I am still working on the process for the actual artifacts and research. It’s not enough to say sometime like “donate my research to the Allen County Public Library”. At the Midwestern Roots conference this summer, ACPL’s Curt Witcher explained that they do accept family history research, but there is also a likelihood that it will remain in a warehouse, uncatalogued and inaccessible to the public for years/indefinitely. It takes more effort to ensure a different result.

What about my Intangible (mostly digital) genealogy?

Same steps; different examples.

Step 1. Classify everything as tangible (mostly non-digital) or intangible (mostly digital), and then inventory it. Initially, the inventory is very high-level, a broad description and where it is located. For example, in the intangible column, I may have

• Online trees (Ancestry. Other places?)
• Commitments to deliver something (a presentation, a client report, my blog, volunteer work – where can my family find all this?)
• Subscriptions like Ancestry, newspapers.com
• DNA test results (Ancestry, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, LivingDNA, gedmatch, etc.)

Again, at any given point, the inventory item may become subdivided.

Step 2. Document what will most likely happen to it if I am abducted by aliens tomorrow. For example,

• Online trees : on Ancestry, they will remain as is, but no-one will be able to update them.
• Commitments to deliver something (a presentation, a client report, my blog, volunteer work) : how will my family know if I have any such commitments? Does this need to be subdivided, based on expected outcomes?

Step 3. Note whether each expected outcome is ideal, acceptable, or unacceptable.

• Online trees : on Ancestry, they will remain as is, but no-one will be able to update them. Maybe that’s acceptable for my public tree but not ideal, and unacceptable for my private, speculative trees that should be deleted.

Step 4. If ideal, great! If not, what is the ideal outcome? Seriously think through what that outcome might be and document how to accomplish it.

• Online trees : Maybe an ideal outcome would be if I have a family member interested in continuing my genealogy, and I could give them access to my online tree, even now. Or if no-one is interested now, but a grandkid might be in a few years, is this something that can be accomplished after I am gone?  How? Meanwhile, note if the less-than-ideal-outcome is acceptable (yes on my public tree) and what to do about the unacceptable outcome (delete the private trees: either now or have my digital executor do so after I’m gone.)

Step 5. Document all of this where your family/executor can access it, and make sure they understand the instructions and are willing to follow them. (For the digital actions, they may need detailed steps.)

I still have a lot of work to do, but at least I have a strategy and have begun. As I make progress, maybe I’ll blog about this again.

Anyone have any tips they’d like to share? (c) Aug 2022, Ann Raymont, CG^®