For the person doing the remembering
Someone has asked you to record your life story with MemoriesBox. You decide what is recorded, what is deleted and who is ever allowed to hear it. Sessions are short, and you can stop whenever you like.
Facts on this page verified
Somebody asked you
Probably your daughter. Probably at the end of a visit, in the doorway, slightly too casually, having clearly thought about it in the car on the way over.
You said yes, because saying no to that is difficult. Now there is a link in an email and a sense that a fuss is being made, and you are not sure the thing being fussed about is worth it.
This page is for you, not for the person who asked. They have their own page.
The four things people usually worry about
| What you are thinking | What is actually the case |
|---|---|
| My life was not interesting | 51% of people say what they want most is stories about what their ancestors were like when they were young (OnePoll for Ancestry, March 2022, n=2,113). Nobody is asking for a remarkable life. They are asking for an ordinary one, described accurately |
| This is a lot of fuss over me | It is thirty minutes every week or two, mostly sitting down. The fuss, if there is any, is one person setting up an account once |
| I will ramble, or say it badly | Rambling is the format. The recording is not a performance and it is not edited into one. Long pauses and changes of mind are what people sound like |
| I do not know what to say | You are not asked to talk about your life. You are asked one question at a time, and then another one that follows from your answer |
| I do not want all this on the internet | It is not on the internet. It sits in the European Union, nobody has access unless you give it to them, and you can take all of it away and close the account |
What actually happens
- Somebody sets up the account. About ten minutes, and it is not you unless you want it to be.
- You are asked a question. Out loud, one at a time. You answer in your own language.
- It asks a follow-up based on what you just said, not from a printed list. If you mention a shop, you get asked about the shop.
- You stop when you want to. Twenty minutes is a normal session. Nobody is timing you.
- It happens again a week or two later, and the thing gradually becomes long.
There is no test, no score, and nothing that tells you how far through you are.
What you decide
This is the part that is usually explained badly, so here it is in one place.
- You decide what is recorded. If you do not want to answer something, say so, and it moves on. You are not required to give a reason.
- You decide what is deleted. Anything, at any point, including things you said and later thought better of.
- You decide who is ever allowed to hear it. Nobody gets access by default. Not your children, not your grandchildren, and not us. You can also decide that some of it is for after you have gone, and not before.
- You can take it all with you. Everything can be exported in ordinary file formats and kept on a drive in your house, without a subscription and without us.
- You can stop entirely. There is nothing to argue with, and nobody rings you up about it.
Where the recordings physically sit, and who at the company can reach them, is set out on where your recordings actually live.
When you cannot think of anything to say
Nobody can answer "tell me about your life". It is not a question, it is a subject.
What works is smaller. Start with a room rather than a period: the kitchen of the house you grew up in, where the table was, what was on the wall, who sat where, what it smelled like on a Sunday. Start with an object: your father's coat, the first car, the radio. Start with a day you remember for no good reason, which is usually a better door than the days you are supposed to remember. Then say what happened next. That is the whole method.
The first twenty minutes sets out the order that tends to work, if you would like to see the shape of it before you begin.
About your voice
Most people dislike hearing themselves played back. It is nearly universal, and it has nothing to do with how you sound to other people, who have been listening to you for decades and are not troubled by it. Your family is not going to assess your voice. It is the thing they will want most, and they will want it in the ordinary register rather than a formal one: telling a story badly, laughing at your own joke, saying somebody's name.
If what worries you is the sound quality rather than the sound of you, getting clean audio in an ordinary room covers it. The short version is that a quiet room matters and equipment does not.
You are also allowed to be funny, unfair, and unresolved about people. An account of a life in which everyone was lovely is not more respectful. It is less true, and less useful to whoever hears it in forty years.
Questions people ask
What if I say something I do not want the family to hear?
Delete it, or mark it private, or ask for the session to be removed entirely. The decision is yours while you are alive, and it is yours to change afterwards as often as you like.
Do I have to use a computer?
No. Somebody else can set it up and you can simply talk. If nobody in the family is nearby, there is VIP Setup, where a person arranges everything and sits with you for the first conversation, and there will be a device that needs no phone and no account at all — $79 one-time, shipping in 2027. Until then, for a parent who doesn't use a smartphone sets out the real options.
How long does the whole thing take?
There is no whole. People do sessions of twenty to forty minutes every week or two, for as long as they feel like it, and stop when they are finished. About 30 minutes of recordings in total is enough for the voice to be kept.
What is this avatar thing my son mentioned?
It is a recording of you that can be asked questions. Later, someone can ask something and hear an answer in your voice, put together from what you actually said. It is not you, it does not have opinions you did not express, and it says that it is an AI every time it is used. That labelling is required by European law and we would do it anyway.
What happens to it when I die?
It continues, under whoever you name while you are alive, and nobody else. The legal position varies by country and is explained on who owns a cloned voice.
Related: For the person who keeps meaning to ask · For families split across countries · Who MemoriesBox is for
If you have decided to do it, tell whoever asked. They can start a subscription in a few minutes: $139 a year, first 14 days free, cancel anytime.