When my mom passed away last year, all I could think of were all the missed opportunities. The most glaring of all was that she had never met Evan beyond hearing his voice on the phone or seeing his photos and videos online. But there were also so many questions I still wanted to ask my mom about her life – growing up in Chicago after World War II, coming of age in the 60s and 70s, being a mom (and for most of her life a single one at that)… The oral histories of families have been passed down for generations, and in our lifetimes so many tools have been created to help preserve those histories outside the realm of our own memories.
Services like Saving Memories Forever can guide families and friends through the process of creating an oral history. Saving Memories Forever is a two-part service – an app and a website – that allows you to record stories and memories based on prompts from different periods of your (or a family member or friend’s) life. Recordings are uploaded from the app to the website, and using the website you can share the stories with others or attach photos or other documents to enhance the oral version of the story.
Within the app, you can add Storytellers – people you want to be able to add their stories. A free account has up to two Storytellers; the paid account ($3.99 a month or $40 per year) lets you have an unlimited number of Storytellers on the account so your entire family’s stories can be in one place.
Once you select a Storyteller, using the app is simple. There are provided prompts for different periods in a person’s life, and selecting a prompt brings up the recording screen where you can record and then upload your story. The service recommends 5 to 10 minutes for each prompt.
After uploading, all stories appear on the website, where register Storytellers on your account can listen to stories or, on paid accounts, add additional info like photos and documents. The account Manager can add additional Storytellers.
Saving Memories Forever is a great service for preserving the stories and memories of a lifetime. I highly recommend using it and sharing it with those you love as a way to document both the memorable and mundane parts of everyone’s lives.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
What a neat way to record family history! I need to look into it a bit more.
I love the idea of this! Lasting memories are so important.
That’s really neat! I’m going to tell my mom about this! We have recordings of my Pappaw over 20 years old, stories of hunting, war, depression. It would be great to share those stories!
It is very important for every one to start right now building a history of their family. You never know when someone will pass away and leave you wondering why you didn’t do it the first time you thought of it.
I never thought of doing something like this for the sake of preserving an oral history, I really like this idea!
Ok, I’m loving the idea of the personalized voice with the story. Oh the family history you could capture this way. I just love it!
I have this app. It’s great! I need to use it more, though. 🙂
That’s so cool! I’ve never heard of it before – thanks for sharing.
Wow. I wished we’d known about this before my grandmother passed. Perfect way to document history from the older generation who aren’t comfortable writing or typing for long periods.
Love learning about new stuff. Checking this out tomorrow for the kids and I. I would love to save their versions of memories.
This looks like a lot of fun. I just lost my grandpa last month and still have not come to terms with the fact that I no longer have grandparents. I want to do everything I can to savor the memories I have of them!
I am going to check out this app. I have lost 2 grandparents in the last few months and would like to preserve some stories from my Grandmother before she leaves us too.
What a great way to preserve those special moments.
This is such an amazing gift and such a great idea. I’m so sorry about your mother.
I’m definitely going to have to check this out because it looks very cool, thanks!
I never thought of doing something like this but I definitely would love to try it!
This is a great way to make family history accessible
I would love to not only preserve photos of my kids, but also the sounds of their voices. This is great!
This is an awesome way to preserve those memories
That is really a neat app. I’ll have to tell my mom about it so that she can perhaps do it for Violet someday. Also because I don’t want to sit thru having to hear her tell me the same story for the 1398574895th time in a row.
That is a really neat app. My in-laws passed away before we could record a lot of their history and I sure do regret that. I would like to use this app so I can get my parents lives chronicled.
Crazy!! I need to download this now. I love making and preserving memories.
Cool app! Thanks for sharing it. Stopping by from The SITS Girls.