How Good is our Memory?
Genealogy Tips by Jeannette Holland Austin
The experts say that we cannot recall anything before the age of 8 years. That is, unless it was a traumatic or emotional experience. The emotions play the role of retaining memory. My daughter fell off a horse when she was two years old and vividly remembers it today. But she did not remember that her father put her in the saddle of a black stallion! That was my memory. I remembered the circumference of the play yard behind our home as being a large baseball-shaped diamond. However, it never was diamond-shaped, or marked as such. That was where we played baseball. After returning to the old home place some forty years later, I discovered that the backyard was a mere narrow strip of land. My memory of it was as I wanted it to be. It will forever be that way. So, when we go and visit relatives and attempt to get information, we must accept that it is not particularly factual. That part of the research hangs on our digging through the records.
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Index to Virginia Wills and Estates. See Names
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