My Grandfather on my mother's side was born in 1900. In the 90 years he was alive he went from living without electricity and having ice delivered by horse drawn wagon (which he also drove when he was in his early 20's) to watching a man walk on the moon in real time. He lived through 2 World Wars, Prohibition,The Great Depression, Korea, Vietnam, the 60's and the 80's. He had such wonderful stories that I try to tell my children now, but I don't always remember everything, making it hard for them to understand. If I had recorded his stories I could have played them for the kids and they would have heard it just like I did.
There is a website now that can do just that. Saving Memories Forever www.savingmemoriesforever.com, was created by Harvey and Jane Baker after they created a wonderful family tree chart and realized that they knew their relatives' names, but not who they really were.
Saving Memories Forever is available in an app for both Apple and Android. It can also be used on the website. Start by going to the website and linking to the apps. I put the app on my IPad and used the webpage. The first thing you need to do is register. It is very easy to do, free and secure. After you have registered you can start recording. There are 6 life categories to choose from, divided by age, along with the more general categories of jokes, religion, philosophy and other stories and songs. When you click on a category it takes you to a list of prompts to help direct your stories. These are open ended questions like: "What was your first "real" job?", "What kind of technology did you use?" and "What do you wish you could change?". You click on the question you want to answer and you are taken to the recording screen. This is a simple push to record set up so it is easily used by even the least technosavy person. The suggested length of a recording is 5 minutes, but the program can accommodate up to 10 minutes of recording. You can play back your recording to make sure you are happy with it and rerecord it if you want to before uploading it to the site for permanent storage. You can also upload MP3 files that weren't recorded through the app or on the site. For example, if we had recorded my son making his speech at his Eagle Court of Honor last year we could have uploaded it under his storyteller profile.
There are two options for membership in the site, free and fee paid. The biggest differences are in the number of storytellers available per account and the ease of organization of the files. If you are looking to do a lot of stories or have more than a couple of people you would like to include, the paid subscription, $3.99 per month or $40 a year, is well worth it.
Historians look to primary sources when they are studying a time period in history. Many of those sources are stories told and written by ordinary people living in those times. We as a society don't write in diaries or in letters like we used to, but we still love to tell stories. I would definitely recommend Saving Memories Forever to help your family save those treasured stories.
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