Did you see the series of tweets about the found photos on Saturday Dec. 11th?
The tweeter and others woke up Saturday morning to find family photos that had been carried by the tornadic storms from Kentucky into Indiana. By posting his find on social media, he was able to connect with the owners of the photos. The TV station, KFVS 12, shared the story: Family Keepsakes from western Kentucky blown hundreds of miles into Wave County.
Thankfully, at least some of the families impacted by the tornadoes are getting their family pictures back.
While the saga of the pictures was playing out on Twitter, a discussion about the value of the the FamilySearch family tree was occurring on Facebook. In response to the original post, I had commented that I uploaded the audio files from interviews with my dad in hopes that they would be preserved into the future. Another FB user replied to my comment that she is encouraging others to add family photos and other family documents to the Memories part of the tree as a form of disaster prevention.
Although I have uploaded many of the family pictures I inherited from my grandmothers as a means of sharing them with distant cousins, I had not considered uploading Memories as a means of disaster planning. Thinking about the response to my comment and the devastation from last weekend’s tornadoes, I now think that I need to consider adding this to my list of goals for 2022.