The Importance of the Physical Connection
April 23, 2010
ShareLast night, The Ancestry Project team presented in front of a group of Digital Media students and faculty. Finding Kesler was premiered, as well as our vision of the future and our goals for The Ancestry Project. Among those goals is a continued focus on uncovering the stories of anyone’s ancestors that need to be untold and tell them through visiting the locations important to those ancestors. Actually visiting something in person, or listening to someone speak right in front of you, creates a physical connection, a link that is much stronger than it would be in the online space.
Case-in-point: Over the past several weeks, we had amassed 336 Facebook fans (I will continue to call them fans until I can think of something better to call them), but new fans were barely trickling in. Then yesterday, since the showcase, our number of fans have jumped to 350. I am sure it is because of the presentation. It’s because we were able to make that physical, personal connection.
So what’s the point? Taylor Van Sickle’s life has been inalterably affected because of the physical connection he made with his 5th great-grandfather as he explored some of the locations important to him. Likewise, as you venture out and make physical connections with your story, your life will be affected, and who knows how many other lives you will affect.
