Contemporary research into the relationship between material culture and the formation of personal and family identities has emphasized the idealized symbolic role of inherited objects and 'things'. In the following research, oral history interviews were recorded with 12 multigenerational families in Devon and Cornwall about memories and stories from the family's past. Within this oral history cohort, the eldest member in four families identified objects that did not fit the model of positive, affective resonance. These material things symbolized a calamitous or difficult key turning point in family history and generated counterfactual thinking about the family trajectory over time. In this form of family memory, personal identities could be grounded in the lives of earlier generations prior to the pivotal event.
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