I"m forced to stay inside today because of the smoke from the fires in East Gippsland and Tasmania, (asthma). Thoughts are with those who are living through the loss of homes and livelihoods; heart breaking for the animals. 

A member of the University of Tasmania Diploma of Family History alumni group (FB) posted today that she lost all her family's antiques in the fires. Just like that, part of a family's story lost. There is nothing to be done about the loss of the physical items except try to salvage as much as possible, and claim insurance on the rest. But the family's stories won't be lost, because she understands the value of recording and telling those stories.

Don't put off writing up your family's sagas. Save the information on your computer and separate from it. I save on a portable hard drive, on Microsoft's OneDrive, Google Drive and sometimes Dropbox. Heaven forbid anything should happen to the house, but computers are fickle beasts and I don't want to risk losing all my years of research and writing.