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Video journals recording the family story are becoming more popular as adjuncts to estate plans. "Once it’s digital, it’s there forever," says Thomas  Handler, a trust and estate attorney with Handler, Thayer & Duggan in Chicago, who believes that future generations should hear in the patriarchs’ or matriarchs’ own words the vision, wishes, or even sense of family they hope to pass on. "It’s something that goes beyond the language of the will. It can give a sense of who they are, and that’s powerful stuff."
He cites the example of a fifth-generation family in Napa Valley, Calif. The family recently contemplated a sale of their vineyard, but through the course of the sale,
discovered their lost family history. The vineyard was begun with grape vines that their great-great-great-grandfather brought over from Italy. "When it got down to it, they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t sell," Handler recalls. "That made them part of something."
The family culture is something that can be articulated directly to heirs through the video, a journal, or a book. Handler notes, too, the personal statements can be formally added as an adjunct letter to an estate plan. A set of family bylaws or constitution also can be created. This, Handler says, sets the framework for the structure utilized in the estate plan: family office, dynasty trust,
family limited partnership, family limited liability corporation, family foundation, or offshore trust.
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