As promised, here is the link to watch my appearance on yesterday’s San Antonio Living Show. It was a great opportunity to meet with Shelly Miles and tell some local families about how they can start saving stories today. If you missed the show, be sure to go watch it at this link.

Also, here’s a little of what I discussed on the show. Tips from Family Biographer, Rory Siefer, on how your family can celebrate Family History Month:

• Save the Stories: Record your family’s stories orally or in written form. Sit down and interview your parent or grandparent – and get the kids involved. Or as an extra special gift to a loved one, hire a family biographer to come in and capture the stories for them!
• Trace Your Family Roots: Start a family tree together and call your parents and grandparents to uncover the exact dates. Who knows how far back you can go!
• Preserve the Photos: Create a photo book with some of your best old family pictures. Record the details about each snapshot so that those stories are never lost.
• Create a Family blog: Keep your family and friends up to date on what your family is up to on a regular basis. his can be an easy weekly activity and then by the end of the year you have a great collection of memories.
• Make Sentimental Gifts: Integrate family mementos and history into a one of a kind gift for your loved one. Frame a family artifact, or create greeting cards from your favorite old photos.

To learn more about how to save your families priceless stories check out Rory’s website or call today:
Rory Siefer - The Texan Biographer
(210) 694-4743
http://www.TexanBiographer.com or rory@texanbiographer.com

Looking for a way to save your parent, grandparent, or loved one’s life history, but not sure where to start? Let the Family Biographer, Rory Siefer help! Rory, the Texan Biographer, travels the country to help transform a lifetime of memories into customized biographies. Today, she just launched a brand new website, http://www.texanbiographer.com to showcase some of the families she has helped, and the stories she’s saved.

Fun Facts about Rory Siefer, the Texan Biographer:

• It takes over 200 hours to carefully design and create most personal biographies.
• Using special photo restoration software, all of the pictures included are enlarged, sharpened and brought back to life. Postage sized pictures can finally be seen in renewed detail, over 200 percent larger.
• From start to finish, the process can take anywhere from three to six months. Timing depends on how available the families are to complete the interviews.
• Families have ordered from 20 to even 100 extra copies of the completed biography to share with friends, family, and even neighbors.
• Completed biographies range anywhere from 150 to 250 pages and are printed in full color on special archival papers.
• Siefer has created biographies for people as young as 23 and as old as 98. Old and young, all of her clients have great memories worth saving.
• Personal biographies can be an important and therapeutic project for a loved one in need. Siefer has completed projects for those with Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other debilitating diseases.
• An unexpected and unique gift for someone who has everything. The Texan Biographer has helped create biographies for milestone birthdays, anniversaries, and family holidays.
• Last year alone, Siefer spent over 3000 hours creating biographies for families across the nation.

To find out how you can hire Rory to capture your parents’ life stories - or to virtually page through one of the biography masterpieces, visit her site today: http://www.texanbiographer.com.

Do you want to save your family history?

If your family is like most, storytelling is at the center of every gathering. Dad has the same few stories he loves to recall and Mom loves to tell him he’s gotten it all wrong!

Have you ever tried to count up all the great stories that your parents or grandparents tell? More importantly, have you ever thought about what might happen to all of these memories when the storyteller isn’t here to recite them on their own?

If you have a parent or grandparent, who you hold dear, then you need to read the following article about saving their life history. By taking the time to record the stories today, you can ensure that your family history will never be lost or forgotten.

It is important for all of us to know and record the stories about our family roots, because once those stories are gone, they are lost forever!

Here is a three step process to help you begin to save your family history:

Step 1: Record the Stories
Step 2: Share the Stories
Step 3: Preserve the Memories

Step 1: Record the Stories - Choose a method for interviewing your parents or grandparents about their life history. You can capture their stories on audio tape, video tape, or even written by hand. I spent the past year creating the StoryCatcher Interview Guide. It helps everyday people like you and me interview a loved one about the key events from their life. Look for a guide like this that lends structure to your interviews. You want to make sure this is a project you complete.

The key to a good family history interview is making your interviewee relaxed and using your questions to help them discuss memories that even they haven’t thought about in a long time.

Step 2: Share the Stories - Once your interviews are complete, find a way to output the stories into a viewable form. If the stories were voice recorded, get one of the family members to create a typed manuscript. If you video taped the interviews, see if you can find a local video editor to splice them together into a short film.

Take the time to put the interviews into a usable format so that they can easily be shared with the whole family. If you are feeling extra ambitious look for a local family historian who can help transform these interviews into a completed biography. As a family biographer, I help families save their loved one’s best stories in the form of their own memoirs. You don’t have to be famous to leave behind a record of your life’s accomplishments…sometimes you just need help!

Step 3: Preserve the Memories - No matter which format you choose (audio, video, or written), make sure you create copies of your work. Store them in a safe place! After all of the hard work, take the extra effort to safeguard the memories you have saved.

To find out more about how to save your family history, visit our website: www.CatchMyMemory.com and learn about our two family history kits. Each one was developed to make saving life history fun and easy! Completing one of these projects with your loved one can be a priceless activity that you will remember forever!

How can you save the memories when a loved one has cancer or a terminal disease?

It’s hard to think about, but if you knew your time was limited, what would you do? How would you go about spending time with family and friends?

Just this week, Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a gliomas brain tumor. According to ABC News, he is not alone… “Doctors diagnose about 180,000 new cases of brain cancers each year… with malignant gliomas being the most aggressive — and deadly.”

There are thousands of individuals across the country that are given a cancer diagnosis each year. Some take the opportunity to fight the disease, others go for second opinions, and still others settle in for the long battle ahead.

Though it is hard to think about, these terminally diagnosed cancer patients have an opportunity, unlike many of the rest of us. These cancer patients have a chance to create special memories with their loved ones no matter what happens with their cancer.

With this posting I want to give families, like Senator Kennedy’s, a plan of action for this time of crisis. I wanted to help them take advantage of the time they do have with their parent or grandparent, whether it be 6 months or 6 years.

The Plan for families dealing with a terminal diagnosis:

1) Create one-on-one time: this goes without saying, but when the family is gathered, take some time to spend alone and one-on-one. Find an activity to work on together, whether it is a crossword puzzle, Connect-Four, or a board games. You can still make wonderful memories together!

2) Celebrate the Past: though it can be difficult, bring out the old albums or home videos, and take some time to reminisce together. Relive the special moments from the past as a family.

3) Record the Stories: take this time to make sure that your loved one has a way of passing on their life story. No matter what happens, you want their stories and memories to live on forever. Help them create a legacy for future generations by using a program like the StoryCatcher. This do-it-yourself family history kit comes full to the brim with memory sparking questions that can help your loved one recall the best moments from their past. The whole family can be involved in the creation of this instant legacy and the digital voice recorder included in the kit will capture their voice and memories forever!

My hope is that families, who face a diagnosis like cancer or Alzheimer’s, take the opportunity to spend precious time with their loved one. No matter what happens, I can promise you that taking the time to save the stories today mean that they will never be lost or forgotten. Now you can always hold onto a precious part of your loved one’s spirit!

Today there was an article written in the Deseret News called, “It takes only 6 words to tell whole life story.” It is worth checking out if you are in the initial phases of writing your own personal history or even getting ready to help a parent or a grandparent create their life history.

The gist of the article is to try to use 6 words to describe your life. This exercise can be a fun way to start thinking about who you are and what your life has meant so far.

For instance here is my life story in 6 words: I’ve tried, I’ll keep trying, forever.

Today, use this activity as a spring board into your own life history project:

1) Take out a blank piece of paper and a pen.

2) Write out 6 word combinations that describe who you are and what you’ve accomplished.

3) Get a friend to try it with you and share your attempts together!

If you have a good time with this short brainstorming project then I would definitely recommend the StoryCatcher and the PhotoCatcher. Both of our kits will help you capture your life story, whether written out as a storybook, or captured through an oral history interview. Taking the time to tell your life story today or helping a parent with the very special project can assure that your family’s stories are never lost!