Back in the old days of America, families kept histories of their lives, perhaps not in formal formats but in collections of letters, notes in the big old family bible. With keepsakes that told a story, with brown sepia-toned photos or perhaps if the family had an artist, drawings. My family had musical instruments (I remember trying to figure out how to play that old banjo in the attic) including a player piano where the six of us would sometimes gather and sing along with the paper rolls which played the piano.But formal letter writing seems to have diminished of …