Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega grapples with a genealogical dilemma: do we keep everything, even childhood diaries? Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”

As family historians we gather and store so much family history. This includes photocopies, original records, newspaper articles, photographs, and heirlooms. Family history is more than the study of those who preceded us generations ago. It’s the story of our family – and that includes our story.

Perhaps, like me, you have items that tell your personal story. I have scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, photographs and diaries. I’ve never been a dedicated journal writer, but I do have five books of my diary writings that start when I was 8 years old and end when I was in college.

There’s no doubt that my later diaries have valuable family history information including vital record-type mentions, but what about the diaries from my childhood? Could information I wrote when I was 8 years old be of any use? Most importantly, is it more of an embarrassment than something of value? Should my diaries be destroyed?

Yes, I said it. Should I destroy my diaries? I remember years ago talking to a gentleman who had a series of journals he wrote while on a religious mission. He told me he was going to throw them away because he did not have biological children and no one would want to read what he wrote. At the time I encouraged him not to do that. I do believe that we need to preserve and study materials – and that includes people who do not have descendants. That gentleman’s story is part of a larger story, and it needs to be preserved.

But what about my locking blue hippos one-year dairy circa 1979? Though there are some detailed entries that might be useful, the majority are one sentence updates like:

“Dear Diary. I had another nice day at school.”

Or my favorite, from 4 January 1979:

“Dear Diary, Today I hardly did anything!”

Now to be fair, there are mentions of family members in that diary, and I recount visiting my grandmother’s home during the summer. I also found a list of family birthdays. So, it’s not all brief mentions about nothing, but it largely is pretty minor stuff.

But do I keep that diary? That question continues as I look at my Hello Kitty diary I kept when I was 10-12 years old. While these entries have more text, much of it concerns boys I had crushes on. Today, reading these is more embarrassing than informative.

What’s the Purpose?

If you asked me if I’d want to see the childhood diary of my grandmother I would reply with an enthusiastic “yes!” But as I look at my childhood diaries, I’m more ambivalent. Their original purpose was a place to record my thoughts. I’m not sure I assumed those thoughts would be read by other generations (if so, I should have written more of substance). I want my descendants to value the important pieces of our family archive. I know that the younger generation doesn’t want to inherit a lot of “stuff” (they don’t even want items I think are important or that I care about). So, I’m mindful of what they may want versus what will be thrown away. With that in mind, what do I do? What do you do if you are faced with the same decision?

Some choices might be:

• Keep the diaries as they are, perhaps store them in an archival box.
• Keep the diaries as they are and include a note that they should be destroyed (just in case someone wants to read them when I’m gone), thus removing any guilt someone may feel about not wanting to keep them.
• Digitize important entries and throw away the books.
• Rip out pages of importance and throw away the rest.

Unless some archive wants the nonsensical ramblings of a young girl in the 1970s-1980s, this record is not something that would be donated, even if some of my saved family documents are. My diary is different and has less value than if I owned my ancestor’s Civil War-era diary.

These diaries have some family history value since they at the very least are proof I existed, but they also mention my parents, sibling, grandparents and even my great-grandfather’s birthdate though he died when I was 2 years old.

Family historians hate throwing out “stuff.” I also hate throwing away items that have genealogical value, but when I think of what I want my descendants to keep, these are low on my list. Right now, I’m leaning toward taking photos of the physical items, digitizing important pages, and destroying them. But I have a question:

What would you do? Have you faced this type of dilemma? What did you do? Share with us in the comments below.

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Note on the header image: child’s diary. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.