Rootstech 2023 is around the corner, and I’m trying to put all the ducks in a row so we can make a good impression.

I catch myself thinking, what is this really all about?  We, the “aging” generation (I’m 55) along with our parents have been blessed with wonderful life experiences.  We all know it, we are grateful for those experiences and we want to do more than just be buried with them. I feel a certain obligation to preserve and share what I’ve experienced, what I’ve learned. I feel that by doing so, I will be able to strengthen my own connection to my family; they will see me as a whole person, not just their “dad”, and I am convinced they might learn a thing or two from my experiences and the goodness of God that I have experienced. And that’s why I “rememberize”.

Here is what I think we need to do with our life stories.

1. Capture them. Write them down or record them.
That is a great and necessary start, but that’s all it is, a start. There are help-books, writing guides, and services that provide story prompts available to help you with this. At Rememberize, we have created a library of story prompts, grouped by topic, that we believe will help you write meaningful life stories. Writing prompts are nice, but quite often they don’t go deep enough. I always thing a good story should have some message or purpose. I always ask myself, would my children actually want to read this and why?

2. Share them. Present them in a way that your target audience (i.e. my children and soon grandchildren) will want to read, listen, or watch them.
Printing a nicely bound, usually rather big, book and giving it to (select) family members is definitely a good thing. These personal histories are usually treasured. But they are often too voluminous and end up collecting dust in a revered space on a shelf. That’s not what your life experiences or those of your parents or grandparents deserve. At Rememberize, we believe it’s important to dust off some of those stories from time to time and present them in a new, fresh way, much like a museum curates exhibits. Printed (smaller) books with lots of pictures are wonderful. My children have loved QR codes to family videos we’ve included. New in 2023 we are launching Rememberize Web Books. Why not put our stories on their phones? They love to scroll and digest information on their phones.

3. Preserve them. Place a copy of your life stories into a permanent archive.
Nothing seems to be permanent these days, websites go down, companies go under, books get destroyed in floods and fires.  At Rememberize, we believe a good strategy is to create multiple copies of your stories and to distribute them. One place to store a copy should be Family Search. Not only is it free, but it’s backed by the resources of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We also like the Swiss storage provider pCloud. They offer affordable, life-time online storage and serve our Rememberize Web Books, calendars, photo-albums, etc.

Well, so much for my fundamental musings on the topic of what we should do with our memories. If you are at Rootstech in Salt Lake City in March, please stop by our booth.