Recording Family life stories
Curious if anyone has spent some time recording the life stories of their parents / grandparents (particularly if they are affected by Alzheimer's)? I recently sat down and recorded a long interview with my grandparents to capture some of their life stories and life reflections. They lived incredibly rich lives so I wanted to preserve something about them I could look back to one day as I know I have a finite time with them.
Curious if many people have done something similar with your family members?
After my own experience I'm also thinking about building a simple service to help guide others through a similar process - specifically to share a database of interesting question ideas and inspiration to help you prepare for your own conversations with your loved ones + an online audio/ video recording tool to store the recording (and potentially turning the recording transcript into a simple family memoir). Frankly I would have loved such a service myself and I couldn't find any good online platforms to cater to this.
I would love to hear if this would be of interest to anyone (or any other thoughts and feedback)! Also curious to hear about other people's experiences if you might have done something similar.
Thanks
Nik
Hi Nik (
). What a great idea as a way to preserve the life and history of loved ones. I for one, wish that I had the foresight to do the same with my own grandparents. I'd love to hear what other community members have to say in regard to their own experiences. In the meantime, I am sharing an article from one of our contributors, , who recently wrote about an experience recording her father's stories - https://alzheimersdisease.net/living/conversation-repetition-looping. Warmly, Patty (Team Member) 
Nik- thanks so much for reaching out. My team mate, Patty Day, has previously sent you a link above to an article I wrote. In the article, I talk about my journey of recording a moment in time, with my father. It is something I was able to not only do with him, but also with my mom. They both had the Alzheimer's diagnosis. They have both passed and the audio/video recordings are something that I definitely cherish.
I am so happy to hear that you were able to do some recordings with your grandparents. That is so wonderful!!!
Not sure if you have heard of an organization called StoryCorps. I have sent you a link below to their memory initiative page. The organization helps with recording and keeping records of our loved ones. https://storycorps.org/discover/memory-loss-initiative/
I have also provided a link to an app that StoryCorps has which might be useful to you. https://storycorps.org/participate/storycorps-app/.
Wishing you the best and thank you so much for sharing!
Just Keep Swimming...Lynn Marie, "AlzheimersDisease.net Team Member"Wonderful idea I wish I had had this before my mom and three sisters passed.
I love this idea as well. One thing that I like to do is look through old photos and talk about the people in them. I remind her of stories that she actually told me about those people and it triggers new stories and anecdotes. Scott AlzheimersDisease.net Team Member
