Just as businesses, it’s also important for families to document and share their stories. A family will have many memorable moments such as vacation pictures with cousins, photos of grandfathers and grandmothers, childhood videos, family marriage functions, birthday occasions, places where your parents were raised, lived or liked to spend time, and so on. Preserving these stories and memories for the current and future generations helps them realize the richness and depth of their family’s history. Instead of storing as printed versions or hard copies, it is safer to preserve such documents, photos, and slides by converting them into electronic format and storing the files in your computer or the cloud. You can also use scanners to scan those hard copies and save them digitally. Document scanning services provided by experienced business process outsourcing companies can help scan bulk documents and convert them into the required formats.
Top 5 tools to preserve family stories are –
- StoryWorth
This tool helps to collect your favorite family stories and memories and preserve them in a beautifully bound book. Once the users sign up for the company’s one year of storytelling and invite their family members to join, their loved ones will receive a weekly question or writing prompt. The family members can respond to the prompt. These questions aim at stirring up long-buried, precious memories that are previously unknown and even hard to talk about – over the course of one year.
Some sample prompts are like – “How did you get your first job?”, “What is one of your favorite children’s stories?” and more. By the end of the year, all the stories are collected into one handsome hardcover book, complete with photos and captions. Users can choose between 5 professionally designed cover styles, adjust the colors of each design and customize them with a photo and a title.
- FamilySearch
FamilySearch helps discover one’s family story and even search for a specific ancestor, through historical records. Bring to life your family’s history by exploring the lives of those that came before you. This international nonprofit organization was originally intended for Church members. FamilySearch Family Tree is the world’s largest online family tree, with information about more than 1.2 billion ancestors. It is dedicated to help millions of people around the world discover their heritage and connect with family members.
FamilySearch Memories helps users preserve the photos, stories, documents, and audio file recordings about their ancestors. Members can use memories on the FamilySearch website, in the Family Tree, and in the FamilySearch mobile apps. To create a family tree, users can create a free account, add what they know about their family, and then connect to FamilySearch’s vast database of information.
- WeRelate
Different from most family tree websites, WeRelate is a free public-service wiki for genealogy. Sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, in partnership with the Allen County Public Library, it provides genealogy tools and data. As per their January 2014 report, WeRelate had over 2.5 million person pages, over 930,000 source pages and 44,000 images. Its information is free, and the site is non-commercial and nonsectarian. Source pages provide space for review and research tips, and contain reference and access information along with relevant links.
Here, users can link Person and Family pages to any relevant source pages. Users can also create MySource pages for references relevant to their research – family bibles, birth, death, marriage certificates and more. Scanned documents may be attached to any relevant page. These pages also include timelines, population history, contained places, history, research tips and images.
- Find a Grave
Cemetery records can also help in finding family histories. Find a Grave is an American website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It offers the world’s largest gravesite collection and has over 190 million memorials created by the community since 1995. This website allows users to find the graves of ancestors, create virtual memorials or add photos, virtual flowers and add a note to their loved one’s memorial.
It offers an expansive family history database of records, and users can get a virtual cemetery experience, with images from the world’s cemeteries. Users can get access to photos, biographies, and other details uploaded by volunteers and may find obituaries and links to other family members included as well.
- StoryCorps
This independently funded 501(c)(3) organization works with the mission to preserve and share humanity’s stories, which help build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. Since its start in 2003, more than half a million people have recorded their stories here. Its free mobile app allows recording and archiving meaningful conversation with anyone, anywhere. This app preserves family stories through smartphone audio recordings, by providing tips and prompts for interviewing family members. Completed interviews can be uploaded to the StoryCorps website or to the digital family tree.
This app’s easy-to-use tools help users prepare interview questions, record high-quality conversations on mobile device, and upload the audio to the Library of Congress and to new StoryCorps Archive platform.
Anyone can use these tools to capture the richness of family stories with all their vitality and uniqueness. Many families have legendary tales, which can be preserved for future generations using such tools. Professional image scanning services are available to convert the original photo or its film negative to digital format. Even old manual documents can be converted into electronic files for safe storage.
