To many people, the question of how we preserve and remember our heritage, then inform others about it, probably brings to mind museums, history books, old buildings and documentary films. Important events in our collective past are the focus.

But there is much more to heritage. The local Wheeling Heritage organization wants to know how you feel about it.

As we have reported, Wheeling Heritage is conducting an online survey on the subject. It can be found at wheelingheritage.org/heritage. Just two questions are asked:

What does heritage mean to you?

How does heritage play a role in your life?

Survey participants also are given the opportunity to share stories about how heritage has played a role in their lives.

This is important — for the future. It will aid Wheeling Heritage in planning its own programming. It may help plan a new museum envisioned for the city.

Heritage is, partly, the story of our collective past. But it also is the story of individual lives and how events and environments shaped — and were shaped — by them.

We encourage you, then, to participate in the survey, so those stories can be told.