Unsurprisingly, the weekend was a trip down memory lane. We sifted through boxes of files and crates of knick-knacks. We perused old photographs, flyers, newspaper clippings and notebooks. We flipped through late 60s yearbooks, marveling at the afros and beehives, and debated throwing out Consumer Reports magazines from 1982. Most of the momentos were from or about my parents. But some stretched back another generation, even two.

The oldest artifact survived from 1905 — a small, yellowing notebook bearing a cover price of 5¢ and the name “Hattie Nelson” — my maternal, maternal great-grandmother’s maiden name. Inside, repetitive lines of her tight, measured handwriting filled the fragile pages. The content revealed nothing — just grammar exercises, not at all personal or creative — but the style evoked a fading, past America that my generation can only know through legend.

Looking at the notebook, I wondered what Great Grandma Hattie looked like. And what her mother had looked like, and her mother before. Chances are, somewhere in some family vault lie photographs of at least five generations of my ancestors. Maybe six. Before that, photography was inaccessible to the masses, and I doubt any of my forefathers were rich enough to commission painted portraits. If I’m lucky to find that vault, I might be able to show my kids images of their great, great, great grandparents. Like Wolf Hausman, Lincoln’s middle-namesake, or William Flood, Evelyn’s middle-namesake. What a treat!

But what will happen if that vault goes undiscovered? Or its contents are lost, destroyed, thrown out? As my weekend of purging Dad’s house proved, material possessions can’t last forever. Eventually, all the physical photographs will disappear. All photos from my grandparents generation, my parents’ generation, even the photos of me as a kid — lost to an unrecorded past.

Not so, for Lincoln and Evelyn. They’ve been born in the age of digital — digital photography, digital video, digital mail, digital telephones, digital everything. Freed from the constraints of physical film and paper and ink, their photographs (and video, etc) exist only as data. And that data is indestructible, because it is nowhere and everywhere. It lives in the cloud of the Internet, stored on distributed and duplicated servers, unthreatened by physical realities. Its colors never fade.

In fact, Linc and Evie may be the first generation whose entire lives, from their moments of birth, will be documented and preserved for eternity. As in, forever. Or at least until the end of society as we know it. The cost of storing digital data is so low, why would any future generation throw out Lincoln’s “007 lbs” video? The task of finding digital data is so easy, how could any future generation lose Evelyn’s “Coming Home” movie? Though our digital storage technologies may (will) change, it seems unlikely that they’ll change enough to obviate early digital data. A thousand generations from now, Linc and Evie’s descendants will be able to know exactly what their great-to-the-thousandth-power-grandparents looked like — and whether they liked sweet potatoes, survived Hollywood fame, or tortured their adorable pets.

This seems like a profound historical shift. From my kids’ generation on, ancestors will never be lost. They will be searchable. And, quite likely, they will be overwhelmingly documented. Every photograph, video, email, text, IM, tweet, blog post and a zillion other digital data points will paint a robust picture of who they were. Their stories will live for a digital eternity.

How bizarre!

To be clear, Evelyn actually came home on Friday, May 14. But I didn’t get this video together and post it until today because, well, I’ve been a little busy. Her health is excellent, and she’s packing on the ounces. On Monday, she was 4 lbs 9 oz, up from 4 lbs 1 oz on Friday. That’s 2 ounces a day of growth. Woo hoo!

Let’s hope that Lincoln can survive the competition from another super-cutie.

After 14 months, Lincoln has become mobile. Naturally, this has led to another movie — a baby buddy road trip movie, called “Low Rider,” starring Lincoln, Sake the Pug, and a Radio Flyer wagon.

Trust me, a baby pushing a pug in a wagon is really, really cute.

Check out the segment on YouTube:

If you haven’t seen the latest Lincoln Wolf video …

… don’t walk

… RUN

to see it on YouTube!

Film buffs will remember that young Lincoln Wolf teamed up with director-of-the-month Judd Apatow to produce this instant classic adult comedy. Apatow later adapted the dialogue for the similarly themed “40 Year Old Virgin.” Co-starring Miller Schwarzschild as Seth Rogen, Quentin as Romany Malco, and Sake The Pug as Paul Rudd.

Ten weeks after the breakthrough success of his first film, “What Rhymes with Lincoln?”, the precocious writer / director / star has released another family-oriented comedy called “Lincoln’s Favorite Jokes.” Drawing on a wide range of inspirations – from 1920s Parisian cabaret to the pre-Superbad Aptow canon – Lincoln Wolf’s emotional range and Chaplin-esque timing will leave audiences hungry for more.

- A. O. Scott, New York Times

As searing a dramatic achievement as it is an uproarious comic tour-de-force. Shortlisted for the Oscars or the Academy has lost its mind.

- Michael Norbeck, film enthusiast

Very cute! Watch out though, Lincoln may be sharing these videos with his therapist when he’s older. ha.

- Elektra Rose, officemate with awesome name

I just witnessed the greatest production of talent, not only of the principal actor but the brilliant script and voice-over of the producer. Of course, the main and original producer was Shawna, the mother of the brilliant actor. One has to give the award to all three.

- Marie Hausman, Lincoln’s great grandmother

For when he gets a little older: www.oldjewstellingjokes.com

- David Sampliner, not-yet-old Jew

Brilliant! Already conveys such a range of emotion that far exceeds any of his 25 and under competition. The next Jewish Paul Newman!

- Russ Agdern, even-younger-than-David Jew

And then I’ll stop posting video of my kid, I swear. But its an understandable compulsion, right? He’s really frickin’ cute.

I post this mostly to show off my ridonculously cute kid, but also to prove the immediate intimacy of web video. It took me 2 minutes to film, 5 minutes to upload to YouTube, and 5 minutes to write this post. 12 minutes, and now my friends on the other side of the globe can immediately see their gift in action. Pretty powerful!