People - oh there are so many.

It always seems poignant to visit a graveyard and view the memorials. 'Always in our thoughts'. 'Never forgotten'. The phrases seem poignant on overgrown gravestones. Of course for the majority of people, they (we) are forgotten within two generations. Many children have very scant memories of their grandparents.

Many a war memorial has the inscription 'Their name liveth for evermore'. Indeed they do, but for many of the names they were, until the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 at least, merely that, names. One of the good things about the WW1 commemorations was the number of community projects researching the people behind the names on the memorials.

Another example is datestones. Many builders left their mark, or that of their patrons, in datestones in their buildings. A local historian (John B Taylor, 'Stories in Stone') did a sterling job in identifying, researching and documenting local stone inscriptions but for many places the initials in the wall point to a builder long departed and whose identity may not be identifiable.

In the future digital records may help preserve the memory of departed individuals. Or they may languish in an inaccessible cyberspace. Who knows.