Big birthdays and anniversaries

A gift that brings the whole family
together.

A century of family history, on one interactive map, linked with a family tree.

Five generations, towns across three continents: the photographs, the stories and the journeys, all reachable from anywhere.

For a big birthday, a golden anniversary, or the first time everyone is in one room in years. In every family there is one person who still holds the whole thing, and everybody assumes there is still time to ask her properly.

A Family Story Map puts her life back on the map of the world she actually crossed. Every town she lived in, her own photographs where they belong, her stories beside each one. Tap her name and her road draws itself, from the house she was born in to the country she ended in.

Her grandchildren read it in English, her sister reads it in Russian, the cousins who ended up somewhere else read it in whatever language they kept, all from one link, on the same evening. And it is the rare present a whole family can give together.

Tell us about her Open a real family map What it costs

The map shown here is our own family’s. We published it on purpose, so you can see exactly what you would be getting. Yours stays private unless you tell us otherwise.

The whole family map with the journey drawn: numbered stops running from Belarus and Lithuania through Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to Israel, then across the Atlantic to Los Angeles and Boston, with region filters along the bottom

Above: the first Family Story Map, built from one grandmother’s memoir. One tap numbers the stops in the order they happened, from Bobruisk and Vitebsk out to the Urals and Kazakhstan, on to Los Angeles and Boston, and home to Israel. Every place is listed down the side with its portrait and its dates, every pin opens into its photograph and its story, and the regions along the bottom filter the map to one chapter at a time.

See it in use

Video: the Family Story Map open on a laptop, the journey drawn across Europe and North America, with a place card open beside it

The night before you decide

She will say she does not need anything. She will mean it.

You have already been down the list. Another scarf. A voucher for a restaurant she will not want to sit in for three hours. Jewellery, which she will thank you for warmly and put in the drawer, next to the last one.

It is the same problem whether it is an eightieth birthday, a ninetieth, a golden wedding anniversary or the first big family gathering in years. The trouble is not that she is hard to buy for. The trouble is that at eighty the things she still wants are not sold anywhere. She wants to be asked. She wants to know that somebody has written it down. She wants to be sure that when she is no longer at the table, everybody still sitting round it will know where they came from.

That is what this present is. Not an object. The family sitting down and saying: your life is worth mapping, and we did not want to leave it any longer.

What they open

A century of her life, in the language each of them reads.

One link opens in every language your family reads, and each reader picks their own. Stories, names, tree and every button switch together. Shown with the family’s permission.

The family tree: eighty six people across three branches and five generations, each with their name in three languages and a pin linking them to the map

A family tree, interconnected with the map. Eighty six people across five generations in this one, each name in its own languages. Click any person and their journey draws itself, from the house they were born in to the country they ended in. The grandchildren find themselves at the bottom of it, which is usually the moment they start paying attention.

A place card open over the map: the archive portrait of an eighteen year old woman in uniform, the family member connected to the place, the year 1943, and the passage from the memoir describing her crossing of the Dnieper

Open a place and the story is waiting. The archive photograph, who in the family is connected to it, the passage in the writer’s own words, and a line on what stands there today. Nothing paraphrased, nothing invented.

The exported PDF: each place laid out with its archive photograph shown whole, the story in full, and a QR code that opens the location

And it prints as a book. Any selection of places exports to a PDF: the photograph, the story in the family’s own words, and a QR code that opens the location. Print it, bind it and wrap it, so there is something in her hands on the day.

What actually happens on the day

The present is not the map. It is the two hours after it opens.

Somebody opens it on the biggest screen in the house. The journey draws itself across the map, and the first place opens: the town she was born in, a photograph, a few lines in her own words.

She bursts into tears. Nobody expected that, and for a moment nobody knows what to do, and it turns out to be the best thing that happens all day.

Then she starts talking. She tells you the story behind a photograph you have looked at your whole life without ever knowing what it was. She remembers a detail that is written down nowhere, and that she has not thought about in fifty years, and she remembers it only because she is looking at the street where it happened. She corrects you, twice.

That is the present. Everyone quiet, her talking, the grandchildren hearing it for the first time in their lives, and one of them holding up a phone to record, because it has finally occurred to somebody that this should be recorded.

Nothing to dust

It is not another object looking for space on a shelf, in a house where every shelf is already full. It is a link she opens on the biggest screen she has, and the grandchildren open on their phones from three countries.

She does not need to be good with computers

Nothing to install, nothing to log into, no membership. It opens like a photograph. Somebody sits with her the first time, and after that she can go back to it alone, as often as she likes.

Everyone can give it together

One present, split between children, grandchildren and a brother in another country. Far easier to fund than to organise, and nobody has to guess her size or her taste.

Three generations of the Lando and Kliot family photographed together in a garden in Israel, the oldest sitting in the middle

This is our own family, in Israel. Theirs is the map you can open from this page, built from one grandmother’s memoir, and it is the reason any of this exists.

The cake is finished by Sunday. The map is still there next year, when a cousin sends a photograph nobody had ever seen, and it goes where it belongs.

“Now my mother’s stories about evacuation and the boat from Marseille make sense. She was in tears when I showed this map to her and thanked you tremendously.”

How it works

You send what you have. We do the rest.

You send your material

A memoir, an interview recording, a tree file, a shoebox of photographs, or just a list of names and towns.

We research and locate

We find each place as it exists today, including towns that were renamed, and check every one against the record.

We build and translate

The map goes live on a private link, in the languages your family reads, with the tree, the path and the photographs in place.

It grows with your family

Once the family sees the map, new photographs and memories surface. One update round in the first year is included.

About the date

Tell us when the birthday is in your first message. We will say honestly whether a full map can be ready in time. If it cannot, First Chapter, five researched places for $195, is ready in a week and can be handed over on the day, with the full map following after. We would rather tell you now than let you find out in the last week.

And a link is a hard thing to hand across a table while everyone watches. Every full map exports as a PDF book, place by place, with the photographs, the stories and a QR code at each one. She turns the pages first, in front of everybody, and opens the link when she has finished.

What it costs

One payment. No subscription, ever.

A map built from a written family history starts at $3,000. It is commissioned work, made once for one family, not a template. Set it beside what one big family celebration costs. The evening ends. This does not.

First Chapter

$195

five places, one payment

You do not have to decide about the whole family today. Send us five places from her life. The town she was born in. The place the family was evacuated to. The street they first lived on here. We research each one, find it even if it has been renamed twice, and put all five on a real map with her own words beside them.

One language, ready in a week. If you go on to the full family map afterwards, the whole $195 comes off the price.

Five researched places on a map, and that is what it is. The family tree, the whole journey drawn in the order it happened, the additional languages, the PDF book and the update round belong to the full map. This is the way in, not a smaller version of it.

A Family Story Map

$3,000

You already have the story written down: a memoir, a recording, a family history, a folder of documents. We do the rest.

What is included

Every place read out of your material, located and verified, including towns that were renamed
One language, and up to 40 places and 100 people on the tree, which covers most family histories
The family’s own words at each place, quoted exactly. In any additional language they are translated faithfully, never rewritten or embellished
Your own photographs, scanned, cleaned and placed where they belong
Where the family has no photograph of a place, we search for a freely licensed historic image of it and credit every one. Not every place has a surviving picture, and where none exists the card says so
A line on each place as it stands today
The family tree, linked to the map: tap a person and their journey draws itself
The whole journey as one path, in the order it happened
A PDF book, laid out place by place, each with its photograph, its story and a QR code that opens the location
Where the record is unclear, or two sources disagree, we come back to you rather than guess
One update round in the first year. Once the family sees the map they start remembering, and everything they send in that first year goes in at no extra cost

Add to any map

Each additional language, produced in full: the stories, the tree, the interface and the PDF book$1,000

A larger family: more than 40 places, or more than 100 people on the treepriced individually

A further update round: everything the family has sent since, added in one pass, in every language your map carries. Bought when you want one, never on a schedule$600

Tell us which languages your family reads and we confirm them in the offer, before you commit to anything.

Yours to keep

You pay once. Hosting is included for ten years and there is no annual fee.
You get a copy you can keep. The finished map is handed over as files you can download and host anywhere. If Ludara ever stops, your family’s map does not.
The material stays yours. Your photographs, your text, your family’s words, never licensed, sold or used anywhere else.

Questions we are asked

About giving this as a gift.

What do you give a grandmother who says she wants nothing?

Something that is not an object. A Family Story Map is her own life on one interactive map: every town she lived in, her photographs where they belong, and her stories beside each place. It arrives as a link the whole family opens together, and as a printed book she can hold on the day.

How long does it take, and can it be ready for the birthday?

Tell us the date in your first message and we will answer honestly. A full family map is commissioned work and takes weeks rather than days. If the birthday is sooner than that, First Chapter, five researched places for $195, is ready in a week and can be given on the day, with the full map following after. The $195 comes off the price of the full map.

Can several people share the cost?

Yes, and most families do. Children, grandchildren and relatives abroad each put in what they can, and one link arrives on the morning of the birthday. It is far easier to fund together than to organise together, and nobody has to guess her taste or her size.

She is not comfortable with computers. Is this the wrong gift?

No. There is nothing to install, nothing to log into and no membership. It opens like a photograph, on whatever screen is in front of her. Somebody sits with her the first time, and after that she can go back to it alone as often as she likes.

We have no written family history. Can you still make one?

Yes. Most families start with less than they think they need. A folder of documents, photographs with something written on the back, and an afternoon of what she still remembers is a real beginning. The research is our part, not yours.

What if she corrects it, or the family remembers more afterwards?

That is what usually happens, and it is planned for. One update round in the first year is included in every full map, so everything the family sends in that year goes in at no extra cost.

Tell us about her.

Write a few lines about what you have and when the birthday is. Even a name and a country is a beginning. We answer within one business day with a price offer and an honest word about the date, and we will walk you through a finished map first, so you know exactly what will be sitting in front of her.

Most families start with less than they think they need. Photographs with something written on the back, and an afternoon of what she still remembers, is a real beginning.

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A gift that brings the whole familytogether.