TheirStory - A Unique Way to Record Oral Histories

It's hard to belive that less than a month ago more than 30,000 of us from 55 countries were attending the world's largets genealogy conference at RootsTech. Now we are all self isolating and watching as many of our upcoming conferences are being cancelled or going virtual. Is virtual conferencing the way of the future or is it just a survival method for today? One benefit of virtual conferencing is that you can attend without the costs of travel but many people in our genealogy community may not have access to the equipment to attend these virtual conferences. Another problem caused by social distancing is that we can't go to our archives and other brick and morter collections and we are restircted to online data. Additionally, we now have to use different methods to collect information from our families since social gatherings are being restricted.

My last couple blog posts were covering some of the things I learned at RootsTech and the products that are being developed. In this post I will be presenting a site called TheirStory. The idea behind TheirStory is to provide a platform to assist you in gathering family stories through virtual interiews with family members. Their slogan is "Everyone has a story to share."

TheirStory screen shot

The site is not built around a software package so there is no need to download a program. The process is very simple and can be used to interview anyone with a computer or mobile device (phone, tablet, etc). The first step, once you have a subscription to the service is to set up a group where you can invite your family to see the stories. These groups can be organized any way you want, by topic, family, location...you are able to add the stories to each group after the interviews occur. Once you have your groups set up you can launch a session from your account and send the link to the person you want to interview. The link can go to email, messenger, or any other method that the user can access on their device. You will be connected to the call when they access the link and then you can begin recording. The recording is saved to your account and you can associate it with the group(s) that it fits into. These videos are stored in your account but your family can also download them to their computer or sync them to their Google Drive so they have their own copy available at all times. To see a demonstration of how this works, check out their video of a live interview here. You can also set up a group with questions for people to call in at anytime. To see a demo of this click here.

I tested this product during a video call with Zack Ellis, the Founder and CEO of TheirStory. We had a seemless call while I was walking around in my back yard and he recorded the interaction. When our call was done, he just hit stop recording and then we ended the call. It was as simple as that.

For individuals, for a limited time you can set up a family subscription through a one-time payment which is currently $350 (regularly $500) for unlimited lifetime access across your family and live technical support. They also have monthly subscriptions for $12 and annual subscriptions for $120.

In this time of social distancing, collecting your family's stories is a great idea for passing the time. Check out their website and begin collecting your stories today.