Prioritize What You Want Future Generations to Keep with a 'Family Keepers List'

Your children may not care about the stuff you leave behind – at least not yet – so help them prioritize what they should keep by preparing a “Family Keepers List” for them.

Minnesota’s Star Tribune newspaper published an article April 20, 2013 reporting that family possessions are being shed due to the next generation’s disinterest and/or lack of space.

While it may be inevitable that your children and grandchildren may not treasure the same things that you treasure, it is also likely that your children’s sentiments about heirlooms may change over time. To keep them from having remorse years later over shedding certain of your items, help guide them with a Family Keepers List.

To create your Family Keepers List, use your life experience, heart and wisdom to select items that you most think will have meaning to future generations. Then keep one copy of your Family Keepers List with your estate planning documents. Keep another copy in the proverbial kitchen drawer or other location where your children are likely to spot it in the event that you are incapacitated at the time your possessions are being removed.

You might want to consider creating a tiered Family Keepers List such that you have a “first priority” group and then a “second priority” group (just in case your “first priority” list is a bit long and future generations have a serious space shortage).

The criteria that you use to determine which items make the list are up to you. Monetary value could be a factor, but items of sentimental and/or historic value are more likely to stand the test of time. As the Star Tribune article pointed out, what held monetary value in your lifetime may be entirely different in the lifetime of your children.

Items with family history are among the most likely to stand the test of time. Of course, keep any genealogy research on your family that has been compiled, and any notebook of “family stories” about your family’s life experiences.

Even those old photo albums from the 1890s containing pictures of relatives whose names you don’t know (because the photos aren’t labeled) may be valuable to the genealogy researchers of future generations.

Future generations might be able to figure out the identity of the persons in those old photographs. (It’s worked for me (sometimes)!) And it is a lot of fun to study and compare the current generation’s physical features with those of our ancestors!  It’s one thing to know that your great-great-great grandfather and grandmother were named Karl and Wilhelmina, but it’s quite another thrill to actually see photos of them.

And those wooden kitchen spoons carved by hand by your great grandmother might be one day particularly treasured by your children as a sort of “physical connection” between generations who never knew each other.

Keep in mind, too, that your children may treasure items that you would never have guessed that they’d care about. I carry in my billfold a horseshoe shaped metal piece, wrapped around a penny, on which is written: “Keep me and you’ll never go broke”. Why? I remember my long-deceased, mischievous grandfather pulling it out of his coin purse on multiple occasions to show it to me as a young child.  He did so with a smile and a twinkle, of course. Every time I see it, I think of him and smile back.

©2013 Wittenburg Law Office, PLLC. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: This Blog is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice. If you have questions, please seek the advice of an attorney.  An attorney-client relationship is not formed by reading this Blog. If you are interested in Wittenburg Law’s representation of you, you must contact Wittenburg Law for a determination of whether your matter is one for which Wittenburg Law is willing and able to accept representation of you.

Bonnie Wittenburg, lawyer, Wittenburg Law Office, PLLC, 601 Carlson Parkway, Suite 1050, Minnetonka, MN 55305,  952-649-9771  www.bwittenburglaw.com   bonnie@bwittenburglaw.com