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Workshops

The 2007 APH conference will feature thirty 90-minute workshops presented in six sessions. Participants may choose to attend one of five workshops during each session. Though a few workshops are noted as Advanced (for seasoned personal historians) or Basic (for those new to the personal history business), the majority are appropriate and informative for interested participants at any level.

An asterisk (*) following the Workshop Session Title denotes that the presenter has agreed to allow the class to be recorded.

Friday, November 9
Workshop Session 1 (10:00–11:30 a.m.)

Workshop 1-A: Health and Wellness Benefits: Reminiscence for Older Adults*

In this interactive workshop, you will explore how elders’ life stories can empower the elders themselves, their families, and their communities. Sharing one's life story is an integral part of healthy aging. Reminiscence has been found to reduce geriatric depression, alleviate chronic ailments, and increase life satisfaction. Participate in reminiscence exercises and discover how to answer the question, “Why should I tell my life story?” and how to face objections older adults might have to doing so.
• Presenter Beth Sanders founded LifeBio.com in 2000, has a BA in English and journalism. Her company and her book, The Memory Journal, provide many people with an affordable, accessible way to record their memories and experiences.

Workshop 1-B: Build a Better Manuscript: Amplify and Harmonize*(Advanced)

Transforming a series of taped interviews into a lucid and interesting manuscript requires many hours of transcribing, editing, organizing ... and making smart choices. Sharon offers ways to improve these skills. Participants will edit a page of text from a personal history and discuss their choices. They then will read additional text and, through exercises, discover how to maintain the narrator’s voice while structuring and editing the material to create a compelling, engaging manuscript. Learn to edit for clarity and flow so your manuscripts sing.
• Presenter: Sharon Waldman is an experienced writer, interviewer, editor and staff member in publishing, television and film. Since 1998, she has focused on personal history projects for individuals and families. In her business, Family Chronicles, she has produced numerous life stories, family history books and tribute books.

Workshop 1-C: Preparing & Conducting a Video Biography Interview*

Science and art make for a successful video biography interview. Science comes into play before the actual on-camera interview and includes a pre-interview, during which you learn the details of your subject’s story and develop the questions to ask during the on-camera interview. Art begins the moment you step through your subject’s door with your gear and crew. It’s all about making your subjects feel comfortable, communicating your interest in them, and ensuring that all your questions get answered. A pre-interview will be demonstrated and practiced during the workshop, and attendees will enjoy a discussion of what constitutes good questions. Steve also will demonstrate on-camera interview techniques.
• Presenter Steve Pender, president of Family Legacy Video, Inc., has been writing, editing, producing, and directing video and multimedia programs for over 28 years. His work has garnered many awards. Steve is a member of the Catalina Rotary Club and past president of the Arizona Chapter of the Media Communications Association-International and the Tucson Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Workshop 1-D: Mining the Web for Personal History Gold

During the California Gold Rush, everyone would have struck it rich if they only knew where to dig. This class will provide tools and ideas for locating life story information that goes beyond birth, death and marriage dates. Amy will cover the major online family history sites as well as digital newspapers, immigration records, maps, and compiled sources that will fill out and add color to any life story. Feel more confident about mining the Internet for reliable, interesting information to add color and documentation to any life story project.
• Presenter Amy Oaks Long, owner of Old Willow Personal History, teaches Family History at Brigham Young University and is a personal historian team leader with FamilyLearn. A frequent lecturer on genealogy and personal history writing, Amy is the author of the how-to book, From Shoeboxes to Books: Writing Great Personal Histories.

Workshop 1-E: Preservation Methods: Saving Tangible History From Annihilation*

Asset management has become an integral part of our business. Converting photographs, memorabilia, and film footage into 1’s and 0’s is a necessary step for incorporating these documents into personal histories in book or video form. Once the digital transformation has occurred, what is the best way to handle original elements? Taylor will address best practices in cataloging, housing, and other archival methods, and will discuss the relative permanence of photographs, film, and video. Attendees will have a chance to apply their newfound knowledge by handling and housing samples of their own artifacts. Improve your ability to advise clients on the importance of archiving tangible goods, stressing that digital format is not “preservation.”
• Presenter Taylor Whitney, president of Preserving The Past, LLC, in Los Angeles, CA, and Rochester, NY, specializes in archiving private and corporate film and photographic collections. Taylor earned a Master of Arts in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, in collaboration with George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester.

Friday, November 9
Workshop Session 2 (1:30–3:00 p.m.)

Workshop 2-A: Personal History Ties to the Work of Gerontology*

A growing body of academic research confirms the value of life review and reminiscence, upon which the work of personal historians is grounded. Arlene will share some of the concepts from that field as developed by such pioneers as Robert Butler and James Birren. You will learn how to apply these concepts to your work and will gain some knowledge of the rewards and risks involved for older adults. Discover how memories are fluid and can change over time, and about the working environments in which documenting life stories is appropriate.
• Presenter Arlene Campanella is a nationally certified gerontological counselor with a masters degree in counseling. She has worked with older adults for over 25 years and teaches classes at Lansing Community College about aging, life review and reminiscence, the power of life stories, and the three D's—delirium, dementia, and depression. Arlene started her company, Golden Voice Memoirs, in 2000.

Workshop 2-B: Beyond Business Cards: Finding Your First Clients Quickly* (General)

Time, energy, enthusiasm, and limited cash are the resources start-up personal historians usually begin with. Learn how and where to invest your resources so you can be up and running as quickly as possible. Dhyan will also answer such questions as: “How do I answer truthfully about my lack of experience and still find clients? Should I discount at the beginning?” and “What if I’ve never done marketing and sales?” Start-up personal historians will gain an accurate idea of how to delegate their resources effectively so they find clients as quickly as possible.
• Presenter Dhyan Atkinson is a business consultant who specializes in working with personal historians. Since 2003, she has worked with more than 150 personal historians through private consulting and through her highly rated workshops for APH.

Workshop 2-C: What's Wrong With This Picture?*

Restoring photos is more about “seeing” than “software.” This workshop will demonstrate how to assess photos needing restoration and will outline the best flow of steps to accomplish that restoration. Learn to identify the types of restoration old photos typically require. Become familiar with the most common Photoshop tools used for restoration and how to work more productively with them. Recognize when it may be best to turn photo restoration over to a specialist and how to effectively communicate your needs in the process. The class will be most useful to those with some photo editing experience but will also prove useful to those who subcontract this type work.
• Presenter cj Madigan has over 20 years' experience in graphic design and print production. Since 2000, she has focused on digital photo editing. Her firm, Shoebox Scanning in Vero Beach, FL, helps organize and digitize photo collections. Clients include the Indian River County Library, families, and personal historians.

Workshop 2-D: Smart Publishing: Market, Write, Print and Sell Your Book Online*

Have an idea brewing for a book with publishing potential or a client who thinks his memoir will be the next NYT bestseller? Take advantage of today's seismic shift in the publishing industry. Print-on-demand technologies and the Internet make it possible to do market research, write, and sell a book profitably on your own. Neal will share the online secrets to successfully publishing and marketing a book for a niche market, giving you a foundation for deciding which is right for you: self-publishing or a trade publisher. Hear how to successfully market and sell a book from your website and/or how to attract a trade publisher.
• Presenter Neal Harmon of Provo, UT, has six years' experience marketing and selling on the Web. In teaching Internet business and marketing at conferences and in academia, he loves opening people's minds to the Internet's potential for promoting small businesses. Neal is president of FamilyLearn, Inc, a company helping families and individuals publish their own stories online and in print.

Workshop 2-E: Celebrating the Stories in Your Community*

During a panel discussion, the two facilitators will briefly describe their recent nuts and bolts experiences in creating community history books—finding funding, capturing the stories, getting the stories into print—as well as the benefits and rewards of working on community projects. Learn how to identify groups or organizations in your community that would benefit from a community history and how to seek funding. Hear how to organize a team of volunteers to help on the project and how each person on the team, from storytellers to proofreaders, benefits. Listen to ideas about how to promote your personal history practice through community history work.
• Presenters Gillian Hewitt and Sarah White each recently published community history books.

• Presenter Gillian Hewitt, an APH Board member, founded Keepsake Memoirs in 2002 and produces personal and family histories. Her book, Chalk, Challenge and Change (Stories from Women Teachers in Ontario, 1920-1979), has sold over 3,500 copies.

• Presenter Sarah White, APH Regions Chair, after years of consulting in advertising and marketing, established First Person Productions to help individuals record their life stories through workshops, community projects and one-to-one service. She serves as APH Regions Chair and is the author of Madison Women Remember Growing Up in Wisconsin's Capital.

Friday, November 9
Workshop Session 3 (3:30–5:00 p.m.)

Workshop 3-A: Interviewing: The Heart of Personal History (Books)*

Great interviews potentially elicit great stories and reveal significant truths, whereas poor interviews may impoverish the whole process. A good interviewer walks in with an arsenal of clinical techniques: how to develop trust and rapport, broach sensitive areas, follow up relevant leads, listen for the unspoken, and gauge the appropriate, emotional temperature. Teri will address these and other techniques for conducting substantial, meaningful interviews. Better understand the dynamics of the interview process by learning to apply this variety of clinical techniques (genuineness, unconditional acceptance, empathy) to elicit stories with informational as well as emotional content.
• Presenter Teri Friedman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Westchester County, NY, since 1991. She is the owner of Reminiscence, a home-based business specializing in personal memoirs and family history books. Teri also conducts memoir-writing workshops and lectures on the therapeutic aspects of personal history and life review.

Workshop 3-B: Song as a Spiritual Time Machine*

What does American history look like through folk and work songs? Songs offer clues about the culture, religion, socioeconomic status, and politics of past generations. Songs bring us in touch with a very human and spiritual element of the past and transport us to different continents and centuries. Participants will listen to several genres of American folk music to explore issues such as social class, race and ethnicity, gender, war, and spirituality. They will explore the folk music that lies dormant in our own traditions, the meaning that lies in this music, and how it might be used to add new dimensions to a personal history project. Come prepared to discuss songs that have played a role in your own cultural traditions.
• Presenter James Walsh, a full time member of the History Department at the University of Colorado at Denver, teaches Immigration History, Irish American History, and Oral History. His undergraduate work was done at Duke University and graduate work at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He specializes in teaching history through oral tradition—“history from below.”

Workshop 3-C: Listen With Your Eyes: Video as a True Portrait Medium*

Learn ten secrets for creating a great video portrait. Distinguished photographer Ruth Bernhard explained her relationship to the images she caught on film, “I never TOOK a photograph. Instead, I became a good listener.” Video is the ideal medium for cultivating this true attention to our subjects. We capture their physical image, their memories and emotions, and especially their unique spirit. This workshop will inform and inspire you to create treasured family video portraits. Learn the basic technical requirements for video portrait production, gain a solid sense of how to prepare for a shoot, and attune your perception of light and sound capture in video. Most importantly, develop a deep appreciation for video as a unique portrait medium.
• Presenter Gene Thomas has 25 years of television experience, starting at PBS. He is a pioneer of Family Video Portraits and the creator of Lifespan Video Portraits. His awards include the CINE Golden Eagle and the ITVA Golden Reel of Excellence. Gene holds an MFA in Television and Film from Temple University.

Workshop 3-D: The Internet as a Tool: Saving/Sharing Life Stories Through Online Caching*

Books and DVDs are wonderful “local” media, but is there another way for family and friends (often located far apart) to view your clients' stories and scrapbooks? Is there a way to store the works in a format that isn't subject to loss, degradation, or obsolescence? Yes! The Internet provides a powerful, easy-to-use way to share and preserve stories. This course is a primer on how to harness the power of online publishing and online caching to benefit your business and your clients without disrupting or distracting from your current services. Learn how to publish journals, video, photos, and documents online; how to connect people online; and how to easily communicate instructions.
• Presenter Scott Purcell, APH Southwest Regional Coordinator, is the founder of Web Biographies. He has established numerous Internet ventures and provided direction and testimony to Congress on Internet technology. Scott's passion for technology is exceeded only by his passion for personal history and its preservation.

Workshop 3-E: Promoting Your Passion: Public Speaking for Fun and Profit

“Public speaking” strikes fear into your heart. “Speech” sets your audience up for boredom. But “stories”... ahh ... They bring out your passion and thrill listeners. Sharing your passion for personal history opens new avenues for you in networking, media contacts, clients, and income. Discover how to identify your own story to engage your listeners, how to become as comfortable with an audience as you are with close friends, how to promote yourself as a speaker, and how to develop client leads from your presentations. Don't miss this insightful demonstration of personal history public speaking done right.
• Presenter Paula Stahel used to be shy about speaking up in public. Now she will gladly run her mouth about personal history to anyone willing to listen; every community is filled with folks eager to do so. An independent writer for more than 20 years, Paula has specialized as a personal historian since 1998. She joined APH in 1999, planned our conference in 2001, and served on the board of directors for 6 years.

Sunday, November 11
Workshop Session 4 (10:30 a.m.–Noon)

Workshop 4-A: Working With Hospice: Stories That Complete the Journey*

Working on personal history projects with patients at the end of their lives is a sacred job. Susan will talk about her experiences and the types of projects she has conducted with hundreds of hospice patients, including interview practices, family involvement, and a DVD presentation of her work with a 15-year-old patient. Get a general idea of what it is like to create a personal history project with a terminally ill person and what types of projects are best to do at such a time. Learn how to involve family members and how to respect the sacred space of the dying.
• Presenter Susan E. Rosano, MA, holds a certificate in pastoral counseling and is a master teaching artist with the Connecticut Commission on Culture. She is an expressive arts specialist, personal historian, and spiritual care counselor with Hospice & Palliative Care of CT VNA. An award-winning artist, poet, and inspirational speaker, Susan works with people of all ages, teaching poetry and art and helping to preserve life histories.

Workshop 4-B: Pricing for Profit: The Basics of Realistic Billing (General)

Pricing your personal history services for profit is one of the most important business decisions you’ll make. This session provides a realistic framework for smart pricing decisions considering your costs, customers’ perception of value, and goals for profitability. Deliver services profitably by developing skills such as tracking project-specific time investment and costs. Learn how to discuss money issues with clients, when it pays to use subcontractors, and more.
• Presenters Sarah White and Paula Yost
  Contributor Teri Duff of Family Archive Films in Oakland, CA, will provide pricing basics for videographers.

• Presenter Sarah White, APH Regions Chair, after years of consulting in advertising and marketing, established First Person Productions to help individuals record their life stories through workshops, community projects and one-to-one service. She serves as APH Regions Chair and is the author of Madison Women Remember Growing Up in Wisconsin's Capital.

• Presenter Paula Yost, APH vice president from 2001-2005, Paula founded LifeSketches in 1998, a personal history publishing business in East Texas. A popular speaker, she often works with nonprofit organizations and writers’ groups and offers online writing workshops.

Workshop 4-C: How to Use Tools to Create a Digital Story*

The Digital Storytelling workshop was well received in Portland last year. Now you can learn more about how those videos were created. Dan will offer a tutorial on the use of editors utilized in creating a digital story, including a graphics editor (Adobe Photoshop Elements) and a movie editor (Adobe Premiere Elements). Leave Nashville with the knowledge and confidence to use editing tools to create your own digital stories.
• Presenter Dan Barrett of Kent, WA, is a retired banker who trained at the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, CA. He has conducted and participated in several two and three-day workshops, teaching participants to create digital stories.

Workshop 4-D: Graphic Design for Writers: Another Way to Communicate*

What use is beautiful writing if your book looks bad? This highly visual workshop in design skills will emphasize how to add style and readability to your written work. You will practice design techniques in small groups, so please bring samples of both good and bad page designs for the group to analyze. Using the tools of good design, learn to increase a reader's enjoyment of your carefully written words.
• Presenter Linda Coffin, APH Director for Print Communications, has been a graphic designer for more than 25 years, working mainly with small businesses and nonprofit organizations. In 2004, she founded HistoryCrafters, a business combining her graphic design background with her love of genealogy, storytelling, and history.

Workshop 4-E: Write Your Life Story the English Way: An Alternative Approach* (General)

Countless people would like to write their life stories but don't feel they have the necessary skills or anything to say, or are just plain lazy. This session will help you adapt your skills to develop this untapped yet lucrative market. Michael's firm deals with the written word, but his techniques should apply equally well with video and audio formats. Learn about opportunities for new business and for enhancing current offerings.
• Presenter Michael Oke founded Bound Biographies in 1991 and has assisted in producing over 150 biographies, while his firm has assisted with more than 250 biographies. He is the author of Times of Our Lives and Write Your Life Story, a bestselling book sponsored by The Daily Telegraph in Britain. Michael also pens a monthly column on life-story writing in the Best of British magazine and is a popular speaker and seminar leader in the UK.

Sunday, November 11
Workshop Session 5 (1:30–3:00 p.m.)

Workshop 5-A: The Business of Running a Personal History Business* (General)

Taking your personal history practice to the next level—that of a real business—requires addressing a number of administrative, operational, and “legal” issues. Will you be a DBA, a sole proprietor, or an LLC? Why? Will you need EINs, licenses, and permits? Learn about the need for separate bank accounts and for keeping a real set of books for tax purposes. Discover which software to use, whether or not to get a company credit card, and much more. Come to understand why you're in business and what you do; your strengths and weaknesses; resources available inside and outside of your company; what a business plan is and how it will help; your market and how best to reach it.
• Presenter Bob Breakstone has been a consultant to small businesses for over 15 years. As director of operations and administration at ABC, he helped develop numerous start-up businesses and spinoffs. He holds an MBA from Columbia University.

Workshop 5-B: The Obituary: The Last Word in Personal History*

Obituary writers are professional listeners. A panel of seasoned obits writers will talk about their work, discuss interviewing techniques, and present examples of lively obituary writing that captures the essence of the deceased. Attendees may write the first paragraph of an obituary—their own, a loved one's, or a classmate’s—and receive feedback. Learn to read obituaries with a fresh eye and to write obituaries that steer clear of cliches and saccharine sentimentality. Hear how to turn obituaries into concise personal histories for those no longer able to speak for themselves.
• Presenters Alana Baranick, Larken Bradley, and Kay Powell.

• Presenter Alana Baranick, an obituary writer with the Cleveland Plain Dealer since 1992, won the 2005 American Society of Newspaper Editors award for obits writing and was the chief author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers.

• Presenter Larken Bradley, the obituary writer for The Point Reyes Light in Marin County, CA, has won six awards for obits writing from the National Newspaper Association and is the author of Stories of West Marin.

• Presenter Kay Powell has been obituaries editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 11 years and previously worked as a research scientist at Georgia Tech.

Workshop 5-C: Video Portraiture & Financial Planning: Collaborating to Create the Ultimate Gift*

Family history is a form of true wealth. To retain wealth, in all its forms, requires families to tell and retell their foundation stories. These stories are the glue that binds a family together. Gene and Keith will explain how they use video portraits to capture and transmit family stories and values as a fundamental, ongoing part of family legacy planning. Learn how to network with national leaders in the financial planning field; partner with local financial experts; tailor marketing efforts to address classic issues of resistance and indecision among potential clients; and create legacy video products.
• Presenters Gene Thomas and Keith Knell.

• Presenter Gene Thomas has 25 years of television experience, starting at PBS. He is a pioneer of Family Video Portraits and the creator of Lifespan Video Portraits. His awards include the CINE Golden Eagle and the ITVA Golden Reel of Excellence. Gene holds an MFA in Television and Film from Temple University.

• Presenter Keith Knell is principle of the Knell Group in Nashville with clients across the United States. He ran a successful family business before graduating from The University of Pittsburgh Law School. In 1995, he left traditional estate and business planning to create his own firm, dedicated to service through stewardship.

Workshop 5-D: InDesign Essentials: Customized for Personal Historians*

After an orientation regarding the InDesign interface and a brief discussion of InDesign vs Word features, the class will focus on setting up and organizing master pages, styles, and links to work smoothly with Word documents still in revision. Attendees will learn how to set up a placeholder template for client review even before the text is written, how to develop an efficient workflow, and how to apply advanced typographic adjustments to text for a polished look. Decide whether InDesign makes sense for you by understanding the InDesign interface and its key concepts and tools. Learn efficient practices and find out where to go to learn more.
• Presenter cj Madigan has over 20 years' experience in graphic design and print production. Since 2000, she has focused on digital photo editing. Her firm, Shoebox Scanning in Vero Beach, FL, helps organize and digitize photo collections. Clients include the Indian River County Library, families, and personal historians.

Workshop 5-E: Wonders of Websites: A Stress-Free Guide to Website Development

Has ignorance of Web lingo kept you from developing a website? Nanette will demystify the process with easy-to-understand explanations of Internet terms. Through humor and real-life examples, she will explain how to find and work with a website development expert, and what makes a website look professional. Building and maintaining a website, you will find, can be fairly stress-free if you use common sense, have a basic understanding of a few terms, and do a little planning and organizing. Leave ready to organize your thoughts and materials so you can begin the development process and maintain a successful website.
• Presenter Nanette Malher is the owner of Aviatrix Enterprises, a full-service website design company in Nashville since 1999. At Roosevelt University in Chicago, she earned a BA with departmental honors in journalism. A private pilot, Nanette is actively preserving the history of pioneering women in aviation history.

Sunday, November 11
Workshop Session 6 (3:30–5:00 p.m.)

Workshop 6-A: From Shoeboxes to Books: Writing Great Personal Histories (General)

Beginning personal historians are often passionate about life-story writing but uncertain how to actually get a project done. This workshop provides an overview of the process, from organizing materials found in shoeboxes to doing interviews, writing, editing, scanning, and creating a beautiful heirloom personal history that a family will cherish for generations. Many methods and processes will be discussed in this interactive class. Leave confident that you can take a project from concept through production.
• Presenter Amy Oaks Long, owner of Old Willow Personal History, teaches Family History at Brigham Young University and is a personal historian team leader with FamilyLearn. A frequent lecturer on genealogy and personal history writing, Amy is the author of the how-to book, From Shoeboxes to Books: Writing Great Personal Histories.

Workshop 6-B: A Dozen Ways to Grow After Reaching Financial Goals* (Advanced)

Once you've mastered the art of finding clients and are consistently meeting monthly financial goals, other opportunities for business growth open up. Among other things, you should learn how to increase passive income, grow past what you can do alone, upgrade your target clients, widen your presence, craft successful Internet marketing, refine sales skills, find self-fulfillment and avoid burn-out. Leave this class with “how to” options for growing your business beyond current levels of success.
• Presenter Dhyan Atkinson is a business consultant who specializes in working with personal historians. Since 2003, she has worked with more than 150 personal historians through private consulting and through her highly rated workshops for APH.

Workshop 6-C: Transcripts With Time Code: The Video Biographer's Friend*

Interview transcripts with time code…What are they? How can you use them to more efficiently script and organize your next video biography? Steve will answer those questions and show how a transcript can play a vital role in the video biography post-production process.
• Presenter Steve Pender, president of Family Legacy Video, Inc., has been writing, editing, producing, and directing video and multimedia programs for over 28 years. His work has garnered many awards. Steve is a member of the Catalina Rotary Club and past president of the Arizona Chapter of the Media Communications Association-International and the Tucson Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Workshop 6-D: Photoshop Essentials: Customized for Personal Historians*

After an initial orientation to the Photoshop interface and a brief discussion of Elements vs. CS, you'll learn how to more efficiently scan, enhance, retouch and output images. The class will look at selecting—the fundamental action in Photoshop; the importance of layers; the value of using levels and curves instead of brightness and contrast to enhance images; and the relationships between resolution, image size, and bits per channel. Decide which version of Photoshop (if any) might be best for your work and find out where to go to learn more.
• Presenter cj Madigan has over 20 years' experience in graphic design and print production. Since 2000, she has focused on digital photo editing. Her firm, Shoebox Scanning in Vero Beach, FL, helps organize and digitize photo collections. Clients include the Indian River County Library, families, and personal historians.

Workshop 6-E: Sounding Your Best: Great Stories Deserve Great Audio Recording*

Whether you produce videos or books, every interview needs to be recorded. Capturing great-sounding audio should be a goal for every personal historian. This workshop will provide an overview of basic techniques. It will also offer a hands-on approach to using the latest digital audio-recording equipment and tools, from microphones to wireless to mixers to recorders. Learn to intelligently put together a simple audio-recording equipment package or find ways to upgrade your current equipment packages.
• Presenter Richard Rosing was born in Hollywood, CA, and grew up around the film business. His company, Narrative Treasure, celebrates his lifelong interest in words, sounds, images, and the telling of stories that bind us. He has been helping individuals, families, and businesses preserve their personal histories since 1999.