Leaving a Legacy - Sat, 26 Apr 2008

I’m off tomorrow to a five day leadership training course. In preparation for the course, we’re reading the book A Leader’s Legacy. Right off the bat, the book puts you into the thinking of what type of legacy you’d like to leave.

Of course, I immediately turn that into thinking about Behold. Up to now, I’ve thought of Behold as my life’s goal. But that is looking forward, and making Behold the legacy I leave would be an excellent way for me to differentiate what is important to do in Behold and what is not.

The true legacy I want to leave with Behold is really to affect a change in the way genealogists use computers to record and use their data. If, through Behold, I change the thinking of other genealogy programmers to start developing software with on-screen word-processor-like data entry with attached sources, audit trails, and virtual merging, then I will have done my job.

As genealogists, we all already have a goal of leaving a legacy. That legacy is to discover and record and remember our family so that they will always be known, never forgotten, by our future descendants, relatives and friends. Congratulations to you on this!