How One Family Is Using the WorkStory and Family History Tools

The Davis Family of Long Beach is the first family to adopt the two tools, WorkStory and Family History, to its family.

The WorkStories of all of the members of the eldest generation in the family, and the Family History, were developed and compiled in a binder.  This collection was then made available to all family members.

Below is the Foreword to that collection.  It is shown here to illustrate the specific application of the two tools within a family.

Foreword

This is the inaugural edition of the Legacies: Davis Family in Long Beach. Future editions will be published as changes, corrections, additions, or expansions are made. This is not a book, but a work-in-process journal, with future contributions to it from any and all members of the Davis Family in Long Beach.

The Legacies editions contain the workstories of the elder generation of the Davis family in Long Beach. This generation consists of the 12 children of Omega Gray Davis and Therman Willis Davis, Sr. It also includes the three children of Therman's brother, Raymond Davis, and his wife Doris Benson Davis.

The editions also contain the family history, focusing on the family's migration from Louisiana to Long Beach in 1945. Creating the story of this history is a work-in-process, since the opportunity to write the story directly from our parents' and their siblings' first-hand points of view passed with the passing of our parents and their siblings.

It is anticipated by the editors of this edition that other editions will be developed from the families of all 15 of our mother's siblings' children (all of our Gray cousins); and from the families of all 8 of of our father's siblings' children (all of our Davis cousins).

For instance, it is anticipated that the three children of our mother's sister, Aunt Lucinda, will agree to work with the Legacies editors to develop a Legacies: Grant Family in San Francisco. Likewise with the other families. In this way, each family will have their own Legacies editions to share with their younger generations (children and grandchildren) and pass on to future generations, providing them all with a more concrete sense of their family identity and history.