February 4, 2009
Story of My Life – website review
I always put my “grandparent glasses” on as I review websites, to see how they can enable us as grandparents to connect with our grandchildren in fun new ways. Today, I’m delighted to help you discover StoryOfMyLife.com. Story of My Life is a place where people can write and store their life story, forever, for free!
The Story of My Life website “features one fascinating person per day.” They have given Grammy Tanda and me the honor of featuring each of us in a set of stories written by professional storyteller Sarah Peppel. My story is featured on the site today (Feb. 4, 2009), and Tanda’s story on Feb. 5, 2009.
I’m sure you’ll agree that there is nothing in life that compares with the wonderful feeling of being surrounded by our family and grandchildren. We want to feel connected. We want to share our legacy, our stories with our posterity. Family history is important.
The history of our grandparents is remembered, not with rose petals, but in the laughter and tears of their children and their children’s children. It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone. It is in us that their history becomes a future. ~Charles and Ann Morse
Have you ever felt the excitement of finding a letter or journal from a grandparent or ancestor? Something that paints a picture of their personality and life. Remember (or imagine) as you read it, how you seemed to connect and bond with them?
Now I want you to ask yourself this soul-searching question: Wouldn’t you want your grandchildren and posterity to have the same experience, to feel the same love and bonding with you after your gone? Sure you would!
So, what do you need to do to make that happen for them? You need to write the story of your life! Our grandkids deserve to get to know us. They will cherish the memories that we share with them in person. Through our stories, they will come to love and admire us for the good in our hearts, as well as for our struggles and trials. It’s all part of life.
Now, thanks to modern technology, writing your life story is easier than you might think. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Story of My Life all the tools you need to record your life stories, one slice at a time. It has been engineered to bring all the pieces together in a coherent, finished compilation; with chapters and categories. You simply write short stories about an era of your life; about specific events that shaped your character.
They have a rich help system, complete with FAQs, glossary, a writer’s forum, etc. The writer’s forum includes help to get you started, overcome reservations you may have, and tips and links on storytelling. One of the most powerful aids in the writer’s forum, is a set of inspirational questions to ask yourself to help trigger memories. These questions are organized into three stages of life, each with categories and events that provide you with a suggested outline for chapters in your life story.
There is a Getting Started section that encourages you to “start with computer, and simply begin writing.” It explains “the website makes it so easy for you to start slowly and build your Stories on top of each other. You select a time frame and the system will automatically sort things chronologically.”
About Story of My Life
CEO Patrick Tardif is the mastermind of Story of My Life. He describes Story of My Life as a collection of “people’s life stories” that categorizes “important things about people to share through the generations. Story of My Life is a place where you leave your legacy; place secrets in a time capsule, and transfer your stories to your next generation.”
StoryOfMyLife.com has over 100,000 stories at this time. Most of them are private, but many are public so anyone can read them. There are three types of networks: family, friends, and interest groups. So you can invite people to your networks, and request to join other’s networks.
When I talked with Kristen Kuhns, COO of Story of My Life, she suggested their site differs from other social networking sites by using this metaphor: “If LinkedIn is the office, Facebook is the school reunion, MySpace is the concert/club, Twitter is the conversation at the water cooler, then Story of My Life is the family backyard BBQ!”
The Story of My Life Foundation™ is a not-for-profit entity who manages the content related to the Story of My Life website. The foundation has a “Forever Promise” to store and safeguard your life story forever.
May I offer you a couple of tips?
- When you set up your account, choose a username (ID) that’s readable, and capitalize each name or word. For example: ShaynePacker, not shaynepacker. GrandmaWebb, not grandmawebb. I usually advise people to use their real name and photo. The same for any social network, such as Facebook and twitter. (See my Twitter quick start checklist.)
- As you write your personal history, ask yourself these two very important questions: 1. “What do I want my grandchildren to know about me, my personality and character traits, about my life?” 2. “What do I want my grandchildren to know about life? What counsel can I offer them? Advice, tips, warnings?”
So go look it over and give it a try. Then invite your family and friends to take a look once you’ve got started. You don’t need to be completely finished before you start sharing your stories with others. Hey, it’s a work in progress. Think of it like building a house. You want to share your enthusiasm by inviting folks to follow your progress. And don’t worry if there might be some construction rubble lying around. 
I encourage you to start today. Sign up for an account. (It’s free.) Then, while your over there at StoryOfMyLife.com, we would be honored if you would read Tanda’s and my featured story and leave a comment there.
What next?
- Read “Eyeing Technology Through Grandparent Glasses” – Grandpa Shayne’s story on StoryOfMyLife.com.
- Read “That’s Where Tradition Stops, Buddy!” – Grammy Tanda’s story on StoryOfMyLife.com.
- Sign up for free a free account on StoryOfMyLife.com.
- Please go back to mine and Tanda’s stories and write a comment.
- Go to the Story of My Life home page and click on the orange “Take a Tour” button. Explore their site. Read some of the stories.
- Explore their help section, especially the Writer’s Forum. (Click the life preserver icon at the top of any page, then click the Writer’s Forum tab.)
- Start writing your own life story. Have fun. Share it with those you love.
- Shayne Packer
We welcome your comments. Tell us how your life story project is coming. Once you have a profile set up on StoryOfMyLife.com, let us know your username or your Story URL so we can come read the story of your life.
Related post: The TLC in Grandparenting
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Filed under Cool Websites, Stories by Grandpa Shayne
Comments on Story of My Life – website review »
Shayne – it was a pleasure working with you both! Great review of the site! I learned a few things myself. Thanks again. See you at the water cooler (twitter, that is!)
http://www.twitter.com/GenMom
Hey Dad!
That is a great story about you. But no mention of your cute and creative daughters??? Just kidding! I look forward to reading about Mom’s tomorrow.
Shayne,
What a great post and lovely write up about you! I can’t wait to read the one tomorrow. The website StoryofMyLife.com looks like an easy website for families to use, but especially grandparents.
Capturing our family stories is so important, but too many people tend to wait too long to get started. With tools like this, maybe more of us will be inclined to start before it is too late.
Beth LaMie
Super write up about Story of My Life web site. I feel exactly the same about this site and that all of us should take advantage of this gift. I am so excited about how well my story “GramaBarb: A Grandmother for the 21st Century” is doing and hopefully it will motivate many more Grandparents to share their story online.
My daughter-in-law is so happy about my story that she has already printed it and put it in a special ‘memory box’ she has for my grandson. It contains important highlights in his life for him to share with his family someday. I thought that was so special!
Thanks Shayne for writing this excellent article.
@Sarah – Thank you for writing such a positive story about my life. You truly are a master storyteller!
@Kristi – You are indeed a cute and creative daughter! I am impressed with how fast you are learning the art of oil painting. And I am proud of the positive way you are raising your children.
@Beth – You bring up an important point. Sometimes personal histories are left untold. That is why I encourage parents and grandchildren to help senior grandparents tell their story. A video recorder is a great tool to capture those stories. But an audio recorder will do the job too.
@GramaBarb – My high-tech friend.
You are an inspiration and a role model to senior grandparents. I am impressed by how many people have read your featured story on Story of My Life. For anyone that hasn’t read it yet, here’s the link: GramaBarb: A Grandmother for the 21st Century
Wow Grandpa Shayne… what an honor. I enjoyed reading all about you and I’m looking forward to reading about Tanda tomorrow. I’ve neglected my personal story…I’m much encouraged now.
Thanks for sharing.
we were so happy when Shayne, Tanda (and GramaBarb!) agreed to let us feature them. Sarah had fun interviewing and I got to spend some very interesting quality discussion time with Shayne, learning more about his hopes & dreams and also some of the problems we’re all facing on these issues.
The site is always a work-in-progress (i.e. we’re always looking to improve it).
The next coming months we’ll be simplifying some of the steps to break it down more easily & streamline things.
Many of you are right – one of the saddest things that I hear all too often in my job is “Oh I wish that I had turned the microphone on grandma/grandapa/ mom/dad/ sister/brother before it was too late. This regret is awful to hear, so the site does try to break it down into easier to use pieces. It’s meant to be an ongoing place to visit – to through your life continue to record stories, photos, videos, audio files, documents (recipes etc) that you want passed on. and – you don’t have to worry about the technology itself becoming obsolete (8track tapes? VHS even?) because the Foundation will ensure the file types are updated.
We look at this as a corollary to books and journals – an online archiving location where they are safe, and more importantly – findable and shareable! Life books are great -we love those too, as our video and pictures – but storing them to avoid loss or desctruction is important as well, and then being able to link the stories together for the future generations is a big part of this.
If you get into the site and have any problems, questions or ideas, please feel free to use the contact us forms and we’ll get right back to you. Or mail me directly at kkuhns (at) storyofmylife.com
Happy storytelling!
Great review. I hadn’t heard of this site but I will register and will use it as a tool to write my stories. I always wanted to do this, but it seemed overwhelming. This will help me break it into pieces so it’s easy. I also think this is my responsibility to leave a digital foot print of myself in this beginning of this 21th century.
Nice write-up Shayne. You really understand the site, which is great. Video recorders and digital audio recorders are really cheap these days. Storing them online (not just on your computer) is smart way to ensure preservation.
@Insightful Nana – if we can help in any way just yell
@GramaBarb – that is neat. We’ll have better printing tools coming soon too
@Beth – exactly. We hope to make it fun & easy so that people just do it naturally and then have a great dossier of their life as told through stories, pics, videos etc.
@Kristi – the pics say it more loudly than any words can (as to just how cute his daughters and granddaughters are)
Don’t I have such a wonderful Mom! I’m glad that Storyofmylife.com featured her (Tanda), so everyone else knows as well. I love all of the valuable lessons that my mom has taught, and continues to teach me. I think she is a rare jewel in our society and especially in the education system. Tanda is the perfect combination of good ol’ home values and modern advancements. Although she is far away from me and my kids, my mom always makes time to connect with us (thanks video chats)! I feel like I am loaning out my mom to all of her students on the East coast that she has “adopted” and shared these same values with. I am now the nurse (fulfilling her original plans without the fear of needles), and she is serving her more suited purpose of being “Mom” to so many of the next generation. Thanks Mom, I love you!
I enjoyed my grandparents when they were still living. A lot of beautiful memories are always clinging to my mind every time I head to visit them at their grave. We should always give honor to them.
Story of My Life.com - I’ve been featured | ShaynePacker.com @ 5:43 am
[...] It was serendipitous how this came about! I had seen the website and had an impression of how it could be a great resource for grandparents. So I planned to write a review for my GrandparentsTLC.com blog. My goal was to share with grandparents how they could use the site as a tool write their life stories and [...]
What a well-written review of an interesting site! Thanks for telling us about it. I’m going to pass the word.
Shayne,
I always like your blog posts. You have the most useful information and this time is no exception. What a great way to bring Grandparents in on the technology available.
I love your idea. I treasure the story my grand mother wrote about her childhood. It helped to research my family history. I have some family in magazine telling about things that happened to them so it is a great thrill to be able to touch the past. I have over 600 pages on information on just one leg of my family. How much space do you allow?
Sherry
@Sherry – thanks for asking, good question. You can put as much text as you can imagine. We allot 150MB of space per account (and we’ll most likely be increasing that soon too) – and note that text takes up practically nothing when it comes to space – for photos, videos etc. If you’d like to move them to Permanent Storage, you can purchase as much “forever space” in the Foundation as you’d like:
http://www.StoryOfMyLifeFoundation.org – The Foundation has 3 very important missions:
1) ensure that that the data is kept in perpetuity (you can read more about how they do this on their site)
2) ensure that the technology stays accesible as it changes
3) issuing grants for projects to do oral histories etc.
Note too that if you buy Permanent space in the Foundation, you can always remove/add/edit/update information that’s there. The amount of space there is always constant but you can update the content of that space at any time.
If all text of 600 pages I’d estimate that’s probably 2mb of space total, if that
Pics and videos add a bit more, and there are also easy ways to compress files to make them smaller for the web.
Wow, this is amazing. What an awesome idea! Reminds me of my mother-in-law’s story that never got written. How computers have enabled us!
Sharon
http://grandmaisawriter.blogspot.com
Shayne, thanks for inviting me to look over your latest online project– what a fascinating man(couple/family)! I am so inspired by people of vision, and particularly where family predominates in the vision. Continued good wishes for your valuable service!
Great site. I hope that it continues to operate for a long time to come.
I particularly like the Next Steps part of this article, gives your readers a little bit of homework and a great way to get started on our site. Thanks for the kind words!
great blog !
nice story! it’s so positive:)
This was some of the best information that I got from your blog. My friend suggested me to visit this blog. Really good one!
regards.