My Legacy, My Story

My Legacy, My Story is the result of the frustration we felt at finding so few personal details in the histories provided by our ancestors and the lack of moderately priced solutions to help people create a memorable personal history. The few histories that we have available are little more than enhanced versions of the genealogy data that can be found in FamilySearch. They record the important dates but do not provide detail, thoughts, feelings, dreams, or insight into what their lives were like. In addition, we looked at hundreds of online personal history programs. Several offered instruction on how to write a personal history and included primers to help, but they didn't have a format that provided feedback, encouragement or more detailed materials to help the user succeed. Others were vendors that offered full printed histories that required the purchaser to work one on one with a personal history consultant, often at the cost of several thousand dollars.

Our desire was to create a personal history site that would help people gather the necessary data, add descriptive elements, share their personality, and put it into a form that would be cherished by family members. We wanted to create a method that was affordable for anyone. We also wanted to reach an audience much larger than what would be within a reasonable travel distance for us.

Thus, My Legacy, My Story was born. The feature that makes our process unique is the One Chapter at a Time concept. We encourage users to focus on writing stories rather than just providing facts. While the site is a tool for writing and collecting stories, the behind the scenes guidance that will be provided is what will enable users to write compelling stories that are sure to be enjoyed by their posterity. Our hope is that as users produce stories, they will want to publish them as small volumes that might be appreciated immediately by children and grandchildren. What better bedtime story than a story from a family member's life, illustrated with their very own family pictures?

We're very excited about the Creative Story Options (currently Other Ways to Tell Your Story) where we encourage users to share pictures and stories of their keepsakes or family heirlooms, share family recipes and the stories that go with them, pass along family folklore, highlight specific events or people, and write stories for their children and grandchildren. These stories will result in small, vividly illustrated storybooks.

The Legacy Book should be a real treasure. It's designed as a family project. One family member will act as the administrator for the site and will invite others to collaborate online in uploading stories and pictures for family members back four generations (or more). Prompts, examples, and helpful tutorials will be provided within the site to assist family members in making appropriate contributions to the site that will help develop the life history of each individual in the family line. After all of the data is compiled, the family administrator will work with the professionals at My Legacy, My Story to develop a treasured book of remembrance.

We're currently working on a self-paced, fully online course in an open source online learning platform. The course is titled, "A Story Worth Reading." The course is being developed to assist individuals that would like to write their own story but need substantial help. The course will provide learning content, assignments, qualified mentors who will provide feedback, study materials and a user's group. Upon completion of the course, the user will have completed a life history that includes more than just basic facts. Individuals will learn to express their thoughts, feelings, successes, failures, and share wisdom with future generations.

The end product of our services will be beautifully bound hardback books, whether they be short stories or full histories. Much of our service to customers will be custom tailored to their needs, as we provide feedback on their submissions and work with them to create the final product.

Collectively, the professionals at My Legacy, My Story have 30 years of business experience, degrees in Education, English, and Instructional Technology, and a passion for family history. While we recognize the trend towards electronic sharing of family history stories and pictures, and fully appreciate the apps that allow us to do that, we still appreciate the value of holding a book in our hands and turning pages together as we explore the lives of our family members and ancestors. Stories and pictures on an electronic device must be sought after, a nice hardbound book can be ever in front of us and will live on without needing to be upgraded or becoming lost in technical difficulties.

FUNCTIONALITY Current functionality is minimal, as we have just completed Phase I of the project. Products are available within One Chapter at a Time and Other Ways to Tell Your Story. The functionality within these areas is minimal. We anticipate several more phases as we incorporate the following functionality:

Tweaks to aesthetics of the site Correct guided writing process Incorporate all prompts, examples and tutorials Upload pictures outside of the text editor Mark stories as private or shared with admin Download stories to PDF Incorporate online course Develop Legacy Book Integrate with FamilySearch to upload stories and pictures Ensure full functionality on mobile devices Incorporate voice to text capability Develop an associated app for recording from mobile device

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