Excluding royal families (too easy) what are some of the oldest items that have been passed down to the present in a single family? (Thinking of personal property rather than estates.) Are there any instances of something having being passed down from heir to heir that dates from Roman times, for example? To keep the conversation going, what’s the item that has been in your family the longest?
Biden was sworn in on a family Bible from 1893.
Oldest heirloom in my possession is a 1930s Bulova wristwatch, which still works.
My grandpa was not the oldest son so none of the family heirlooms, including the family farm, made their way to him. The watch was his mother’s, and why he ended up with it is unknown to me. I have a photo of her wearing it.
I have a book from 1856 that has been passed down through my mother’s family down to me.
I’m sure there are families out there that have far older heirlooms than that.
I have a marble bust of Homer that was brought to the U.S. from Italy in 1910 by my great grandfather. How long it had been in the family before then I have no idea.
I think that’s the oldest family heirloom I have. My wife has some Christmas ornaments that her grandmoter had when she was a child in the mid 1930’s.
I own my grandfather’s grandfather clock originally purchased in 1911. My son has a pocket watch from me, from my father, from my grandfather, but I’m not sure if it goes further back or when it was originally purchased.
Two keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem have been passed down by the Joudeh and Nuseibeh families since 1187.
Hōshi Ryokan is a family hotel business that has been passed down since 718 through 46 generations.
I own my 3x great grandfather’s gunpower flask, which he carried during the Civil War (Union, Illinois, Teamster). From a different 3xG grandfather I have the family bible, mid 1800’s. Neither are all that old, but I cherish them. I’ve a few tintype style photos of ancestors from the mid 1800’s also.
I have my great grandfather’s Bible from 1861, along with a photograph of him taken the same year at Alfred University, just before he marched off to war. I also have silver spoons that date at least to the 1800s that have been in the family since they were first purchased. The oldest is a child-sized spoon that has the initials of a great-great grandmother who lived from 1789 to 1875. No idea when it was purchased, but since it has her maiden name initials and is so small (complete with tooth marks), it may have been purchased for her at birth.
The oldest heirloom in my family is my grandmother’s baptismal certificate from 1893. A large part of it has crumbled into dust, and when I die it won’t survive being sent to another family member.