In memory

No one you love is ever dead.

Ernest Hemingway, letter to Gerald and Sara Murphy, 1935

What they left behind, put back where it happened.

A Family Story Map takes what they left, a memoir, a recording, a box of photographs, a page of names and towns, and puts it back on the map of the world they actually moved through.

Book a call with us Open a real family map Five places $195 · Full map $3,000

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.

A place card open over the map: the archive portrait of an eighteen year old woman in uniform, the year 1943, and the passage from the memoir describing her crossing of the Dnieper at night, on a raft, under fire

Above: one place, opened. The photograph from the family’s own archive, the person connected to it, the year, and the passage exactly as it was written, in this case a girl of eighteen crossing the Dnieper at night on a raft, under fire, who could not swim. Underneath, a line on what stands there today. This is what every place in a family map looks like.

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

What a family gathering can become

The room is already full of the story. Somebody just has to write it down.

It happens in every house. At the meal after the funeral, during the thirty days, at the unveiling of the stone, at the gathering a year later. Somebody brings out a box. The albums end up open on the table, the photographs go round the room, and an aunt looks at one and says: that is not Odessa, that is the house in Vitebsk, and your grandfather is the boy on the left.

So use the gathering, on purpose. Put the albums on the table rather than waiting for somebody to find them. Ask the oldest person there who is in each photograph, and write it on the back while they are still standing beside you. Let a phone record in the corner while the stories are being told, badly, with the tea going cold. Nothing has to be organised, and nobody has to be a historian.

A memorial that keeps growing, rather than one that is finished on the day it is unveiled.

What they open

1Their 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 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

The whole journey, in the order it happened. One tap numbers every stop and draws the road between them, and the regions along the bottom filter the map to one chapter at a time.

2A family tree, interconnected with the map.

Every person in the stories has a place in the tree, with a photograph where the family has one. 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.

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

3A book of family stories, to print or save.

Any selection of places becomes a PDF book: the photograph, the story in the family’s own words, and the location. Print a copy for the relatives who would rather hold paper than open a link.

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

How it works

You send what you have. We do the rest.

You send your material

A memoir, a recording, a tree file, a folder of documents, a box 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. Edits are included through the whole of the first year.

Nothing is invented

Nothing is invented, nothing is filled in to round out a story, and nothing is made sadder or braver than it was. If a place cannot be found, the map says so.

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. You pay once. There is nothing to renew, nothing to keep paying for, and no anniversary email from us reminding you what month it is.

First Chapter

$195

five places, one payment

You do not have to decide about the whole family today, and this is not the week for big decisions. Send us five places from their life. The town they were born in. The place they were sent to in the war. 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 the family’s 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 year of edits belong to the full map. This is the way in, not a smaller version of it.

A Family Story Map

$3,000

The story is written down somewhere already: a memoir, a recording, a family history, a folder nobody has been able to open yet. We do the rest.

What is included

Every place read out of your material, located and verified, including towns that were renamed
The family’s own words at each place, quoted exactly, never rewritten
Your own photographs, scanned, cleaned and placed where they belong, and the family tree linked to the map
A PDF book, and edits through the whole of the first year

The full specification, the extras and what you keep ›

Questions we are asked

Questions people ask us at this stage.

What can you make if the person has already died?

A map of the life they lived, built from what they left: a memoir, a recording, letters, documents, photographs, or only names and towns. Every place they lived opens with its photograph and the passage that belongs to it, and their name on the family tree draws their whole road across the map. It becomes a memorial the family can open from anywhere, rather than a box in a cupboard.

We have no memoir. Only photographs and a few papers. Is that enough?

Yes. Almost every family says the same sentence first, that nobody wrote anything down, and almost every family turns out to have more than they thought. Documents, photographs with something written on the back, and an afternoon of what two or three relatives remember between them is enough to build from.

Is there something we should do now, before we decide anything?

Yes, and it costs nothing. Before the flat is cleared, photograph the papers. All of them, badly, on a phone, especially the backs of the photographs, because the backs are where the names are. Most of what families lose is lost in the week the home is emptied.

Is there a right time? The funeral was only last week.

There is no right time and no date you have to meet. Families come to us at the end of the thirty days, at the unveiling of a stone, on a first anniversary, and years later with no occasion at all. Your material sits where you left it until you write again, however long that takes. You will not be chased.

Who can see it?

Only the people you send it to. Every map ships on an unlisted link that search engines cannot find, and it can be locked further with a password or limited to named people. We never publish a family map or quote from it without written permission.

Can we add to it later?

Yes, and families almost always do. Once the map exists relatives start remembering, and photographs surface that nobody knew existed. Edits are included through the whole of the first year, and after that update rounds can be bought whenever you want one, never on a schedule.

Privacy

A family story is not a publication. Your map is never listed on Google or any other search engine, and it cannot be found by searching for your family’s name. It opens only for someone who has the direct link. Send that link to any family member, anywhere, and it opens for them on any device, with nothing to sign in to and nothing to install. If you want more than that:

Password protected, $500. We can lock the map so that it opens only after a password. You name the readers on your own private page, each one gets a password of their own, and you can add or remove people whenever you like. Included for the five years of hosting, with no yearly fee.

We never publish a family’s map, quote it, or show it as an example without written permission.