October is Family History Month

      October has been National Family History Month as well as National Archives Month. These two "National Days" raise awareness of the value preserving records of the past that impart genealogy information. Helpful genealogy records encompass a variety required government records to assorted family papers. Scrapbooks, old photographs, or family letters tap memories often pushed aside for the day-to-day routine of busy lives.

      An intriguing addition to family “papers” are family recipes! There is something about the handwriting of a grandmother spelling out the way she made the traditional family favorite Thanksgiving dessert that lends unique information . All of a sudden, you are aware of the aroma of the dining room on holidays. It’s almost as if you can taste the casserole or the slice of that most wonderful cake, the particular dish that became known as “Aunt Rose’s Sweet Potato Casserole” or “Grandma’s Carrot Cake”  The recipe card is splattered with vanilla flavoring, cooking oil, or cake batter. The card looks old and fragile, because it was used over and over, as a testament to the generations of special occasions.

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Do those thoughts conjure up a memory, a picture in your mind of your family's holiday table? The taste and smell of food are strong two-fold experiences.

Medical journals have published articles about the especially strong and immediate connection to the sense of smell to memory. Aromas have a fast-track to the brain. The association made to aroma can last for decades.

A study written up in the April 2024 issue of Harvard Medicine states it this way:
     “The signals make a quick stop in the olfactory bulb before traveling to key areas of the brain involved in learning, emotion, and memory: the olfactory, or piriform cortex, which identifies smells; the amygdala, which is involved in generating emotion; and the hippocampus, which stores and organizes memories. If the hippocampus deems the smell important — if it were connected with a particularly emotional moment, for example — it can file the information and store it indefinitely. Even decades later, the same scent can bring the memory and emotional salience of the moment flooding back.”  You can read the article here.

      Tennessee Room librarian Emily Tupa and I will be presenting a program on compiling a family cookbook with "just a pinch" of genealogy in the pages. That means it can include anecdotes about the cook, the family occasions and traditions when it was served, or explanations of the family "branch" that make up the family tree.  Join us on October 29 at 3:00 p.m. to get ideas for gathering original recipes, transcribing them (if needed), and recording a memory or family story related to that dish.

Join us:
October 29
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Jackson Madison County Library Program Center

We'd like participants to bring an favorite old family recipe to be scanned. We'll be compiling a small, compact booklet that will serve as an example to add many more!

With coming up soon, Emily and I hope you see the upcoming holiday gatherings as opportunities. The holidays may the the largest gathering of extended family you will see for another year. Collect information, ask questions of older generations, listen to reminiscences. Capture the memories, compile information, and pass them along.