Digital Legacy Plan: A guide to the personal and practical elements of your digital life before you die

by Angela Crocker, Vicki McLeod

When you die, what will your digital legacy be? What will be left about you online? How will your online accounts be accessed and handled and how will you be remembered for posterity (given that there’s no real erasing of the Internet)?Angela Crocker and Vicki Mcleod team up to give us ideas and tips on how to handle our digital legacies. Vicki focuses on the personal aspects of legacy, while Angela brings it down to earth with the practical, how-to aspects.One hundred years from now, there will be one billion dead people on Facebook. That’s a sobering thought for each of us as we consider our own mortality. And while it can be uncomfortable to talk about death, it’s important to prepare the personal and practical elements of your digital life before death. In this guide, co-authors Angela Crocker and Vicki McLeod offer solutions for the practical, social, emotional, and technical aspects of your digital legacy. They include best practices for online memorials, social media and mourning, and digital etiquette in death. Tools and resources are included throughout the book to help your digital estate planning and empower your estate’s executor.From online banking to decades worth of digital family photos, copious creative or intellectual property, or personal history documented on social media, everyone has a widespread digital footprint that tells the story of our lives. How much of that story remains online after we’re gone? Who has access to banking, passwords, and important digital records? What about painful or deeply personal elements of your personal or professional legacy? In life, you have the opportunity to make choices about your digital legacy. If you don’t, you risk your legacy being misinterpreted, lost, or simply becoming digital litter. It’s time for a digital legacy plan.

134 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2019

Reviews

[Jan Carroza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vicki McLeod and Angela Crocker deal with the sticky topic of what happens to your online persona when you die. This book should be part of every estate planning project. Complete with templates to start your lists to share with your chosen Digital Legacy contact, someone savvy enough that you trust to handle and transfer your digital assets the way you want.

This topic is so important that I shared this book and other resources in a blog post "Who Will Grant Your Last Wishes?".

You have choices to make. Do you want a Memorialization Page? You have settings for those assignments.

Take the first step by reading the book and breaking out the spreadsheets. You'll be glad you did and family will be grateful for your direction.