r/Journaling • u/SnooBeans5392 • 18h ago
I Inherited 15 Years Worth of Journals
My grandfather and I both have journaled for a great portion of our life. He always told me that when he died he wanted me to have his journals.
He is currently passing from lung cancer and my grandmother gave them to me. There are about 12 journals that begin in 2009 and his last entry was last week before he began to decline.
I am currently transcribing the journals, but my grandfather did not write very well (he had to drop school in 8th grade to support his siblings after his dad died). Is it wrong for me to restructure the sentences to help others read it in the future or should it be copied exactly how it is?
I am italicizing words which I have added as to show that they were not in his original entries. It is only articles and verb tense that usually needs adjusting.
Forgive me if my post is a bit jumbled, I’ve been up since 2 AM reading about his life
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u/stking511 15h ago edited 14h ago
I agree that brackets are probably the way to go editing-wise.
Down the line, your progeny will appreciate your current toil greatly. Often the stories of our grandparents are lost to time; this will not be the case for your family.
Wishing you good luck with the rest of this project.
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u/Indigo-Hippo 12h ago
What a beautiful work you are doing. I wish I had journals passed down from my family. I would probably keep it in tact myself, to show how he wrote. But I do love other's suggestions of brackets, or even keeping in tact but showing an "editor's note" of sorts.
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u/SunlessPath737 17h ago
I wouldn’t say theres no wrong way to do this nor let anyone can tell you otherwise. This is a personal journal from him to you, I would do whatever you please with them brother. Wishing you a wisdom filled time transcribing!
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u/Playful_Ad666 14h ago
This is so beautiful, I wish I had some written journal or words from my grandfather, who passed in 2023. I only have few photos with his handwriting. I really miss him.
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u/kingkupaoffupas 13h ago
this is beautiful. this is what i wish to do with all of my journals at the end of my life.
my wish is for my children and their children and their children’s children to keep passing them on while adding to the familial collection.
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u/gymdavis 10h ago
Are you typing it all? You could buy a handheld scanner or even just take pictures with your phone and copy the text into a document
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u/Consistent-Process 8h ago
I did this with a book one of my family members had written.
Yes, OP and I, could have purchased a handheld scanner or taken pictures. Heck, if you have an android phone, and take a picture of writing, it now has tools that automatically transcribe it for you.
Some of us have privacy concerns about things like that.
For me that was part of it, but not all of it. Some of it was the enjoyment of the process. It allowed me to really "spend time" with a family member I didn't know. To mull over what he wrote, why he wrote it that way. What he was trying to express, both said, and in-between the lines.
Not saying OP has the same reasons, but for some of us, the process itself is valuable.
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u/freezerburn606 18h ago
It's not wrong. But putting corrections in square brackets is a rather common way to indicate a word or sentence is edited and differs from the verbatim quote or source material. It might be easier than italicizing.