My online past

When it comes to dishing the dirt on my family, I'm no Róisín Ingle. Yes, I've written one or two things about my parents, mentioned the odd sibling, yet not in a way that might bring about a Cain-and-Abel situation.

I have been instructed that, on pain of divorce, I must never put finger to keyboard on the subject of my in-laws. So there's just one family member I can safely discredit in print: my pre-literate child.

Lots of journalists seem to consider their toddlers fair game as newsprint fodder. In the good old days this was fine. Young parents, swelling with pride, banged on happily about their beautiful children, had them photographed to illustrate articles on breastfeeding and disposable nappies and then, just before the child learned to spell "exploitation", quit writing about them.

But technology has upset this cosy arrangement. When I was writing about my daughter, it somehow never occurred to me that, long after I have stopped, the articles will remain floating about in cyberpspace in a great electronic archive. In her teens, or 20s, or 70s, she'll be able to log on to ireland.com and read her father's musings on her first birthday party or her foul-mouthed early utterances. Shudder. Not to mention the photographs. I once supplied a picture of her to illustrate an article on genetically programmed babies, and last winter I made her march around a photo studio one afternoon for a feature on Christmas toys.

Although I thought it was okay for her to cavort around in her nappy for the cameras, justifying it to a teen-queen in 10 years' time might be a challenge. "Darling. Honeybun. Poppet. Daddy wants to talk to you about something. It's, em, you know how Daddy used to be a journalist before he was a multimillionaire business tycoon? Well, I sometimes used to write articles in a newspaper. And some of them were about, well, actually they were about you, about my little girl, ha-ha-ha. And now, of course, I really wish I'd never written them, but, well, I needed the money, and your mother and I had a 100 per cent mortgage and . . . Now don't be like that about it. I'm sorry, baby. Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? I couldn't think of anything else to write. Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Come ba-ack."

She might someday overcome the shame. But when her children reach the stage of life when they become curious about their deceased relatives, these articles will probably still be accessible to them and, likewise, to their children and their children's children.

It's just one example of the abundance of electronically stored material that will be at the fingertips of future generations. They will be able to learn about themselves and their forebears not only through newspaper articles but also through e-mails, MP3 files, old CVs and a considerable amount of digital video.

Currently, people looking for information about their ancestors have limited sources. Some personal memories and a few photographs, probably. If they're lucky, there might be a voice recording or some Super 8 film.

A few years ago my father tried to learn more about a grandfather he had never met by examining a few of his belongings: two books, a piece of sheet music, a teapot with an inscription and some battered photos. From these he learned a surprising amount about his grandfather's life: that he had married twice, belonged to a local club, was interested in history and liked to sing. But with such limited data even Sherlock Holmes couldn't paint a complete, rounded picture of a person's character.

If my grandchildren were to attempt the same thing, what might they conclude? Well, they'd say, let's take a look at Grandpa Goodman's account with Indigo Go Free (the old skinflint). Then, noting the junk mail in my inbox, they'd cry: Whoa! Every second message he gets is about penis enlargements. What a perv. And nearly every other one is about Viagra. We're lucky to be here at all. And his CV? Says he was into archery and spoke fluent Chinese. Suddenly, I'm a miserly, sexually dysfunctional sinophile. Some of which just isn't true.

Would you be happy for your online self to serve as a character reference? If not, better get your own story out there. Write a personal memoir, giving your definitive account of your time on earth. It's an opportunity to think up a credible excuse for your questionable internet history.

So, from now on, as you write your personal e-mails, imagine there's a big Hutton inquiry just around the corner. Every word to be picked over by some future personal historian, a revisionist intent on proving their ancestor was a McCreevean capitalist, a waster of natural resources or a practitioner of some habit that's perfectly acceptable today but will become anathema. The future is not what it used to be.

Róisín Ingle is on holidays