An Online Legacy?

We’re estate planners. We sit down with each of our clients and discuss their worldly assets and how they want them distributed to their families if they die. Until last week, I had never thought about what happens to your email account if you die. I don’t know about you, but I have accumulated thousands of emails over the sixteen years I have been using the internet. Much like our ancestors’ letters are part of their legacy to us (think John Adams and Thomas Jefferson), our emails and online communications whether through Twitter, Facebook or email, are part of our legacy. I learned through a couple of stories I’ve heard recently that when someone dies, the family can have a very difficult time getting control of online accounts. Last week, I learned about a solution.

Legacy Locker is essentially an online safety deposit box, serving as a secure repository for your digital property. It lets you grant access to online assets for friends and loved ones in the event of death or disability by naming them as beneficiaries. The service came out of an experience of one of the founders, Jeremy Toeman. When his grandmother passed away at the age of 94, the family could not access her email accounts and respond to the continuing emails that she was receiving. Jeremy also had the experience of having a new child born and went through the process of doing some estate planning. While the attorney covered all of the physical assets of the family and how they should be distributed, the online assets were not covered. These two experiences led Jeremy to come up with the idea for legacylocker.com.

I think that protecting these online assets are almost as important as the rest of what we do as estate planners. Our society is moving increasingly online, and during our lifetimes, we will accumulate quite a trail of digital “life”. In order to protect that legacy and to pass it on to our families, it will be important to have a service like legacylocker.com. Oddly enough, the idea seems to be gaining some legs. I talked about legacylocker.com on our radio show on Saturday (neversettleforless.net) and on Monday, CNN had a story about Legacy Locker. I guess I scooped CNN. Anyway, we are going to be rolling out this service to our clients in the near future and I suggest you check it out at legacylocker.com.

The Most Important Things in Life Aren’t Things

NOTE:

There is good information in this post for everyone. In addition, however, there is A LIMITED-TIME OPPORTUNITY HERE FOR PEOPLE IN THE SAVANNAH, GA AREA FROM THE DATE OF THIS POST THROUGH FEBRUARY 21, 2009. DON’T MISS OUT!

The most important things in life aren’t things.

Most of us have heard, or even given voice to, this sentiment from time to time. How many of us prove our belief in this profound, but simple, idea by taking action?

How often have you sat with a family member around the table for a holiday dinner and heard those stories that make you laugh, cry, or lose yourself in reverie (if only for a moment)? Fleetingly you think, “I should really write this down,” or, “I should be recording this!” Sadly, we almost never do.

Well, since 2003, the good people at StoryCorps® have been making this easier to do. Some of the follow description comes pretty closely (but is not lifted directly) from a StoryCorps® flier I came across. Instead of fiddling around with flowery language, I wanted to get the word out to our reading public as quickly as possible.

You can learn more about StoryCorps® here , see their blog here, and listen to samples of their work here. The gist is that you get an opportunity to sit down with a loved-one for a 40 minute session and ask them questions about themselves, their lives, their memories – in a studio-quality environment.

The session is, of course, recorded. You then get a free CD to keep and share and the conversation will be preserved at the Library of Congress as part of the StoryCorps® project.

StoryCorps® advances the idea that everybody’s story matters and every life counts. Theirs is the largest oral history project of its kind – an attempt to preserve a picture of who we are as a nation.

FOR PEOPLE IN AND AROUND THE SAVANNAH AREA AT THE TIME OF THIS POST THROUGH 2/21/09:

The StoryCorps® MobileBooth (mobile, airstream-type studio) is in Savannah, next to the Telfair Museum of Art at the corner of President & Barnard Streets, just off of the square until 2/21/09. You can participate in this great project by clicking here to make your reservation.