Family History Stories Go Mainstream

First came PBS' "Faces of America." Now aimed at an even wider audience comes NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" Videos below are from NBC's web site.





These are not exactly the kinds of stories we tell. Our stories usually don't go back hundreds of years. What our productions do is give someone tens and even hundreds of years from now something to look at to see from where — and whom — they came.

Imagine getting to hear your grandparents or great-grandparents tell their life stories. Just seeing and hearing them would amaze you, which I can assure you from personal experience. A few years ago I stumbled across some old family home movies shot in the 1940s and 50s. Some featured my mother as a young girl. They didn't have sound, just the moving images alone blew me away.

I would love to have interviews of her parents from that time. I have photographs, I have manually-typed poems my maternal grandfather wrote to his wife and to my mother. And, as mentioned, I have some home movies. But I don't have his voice recorded anywhere except in my increasingly dimming childhood memory of him.

This will not be a regret that my nephews and any children I have someday will ever face. The first full-length family documentary story I told was about my own parents. It's fresh in mind now because I'm restoring the original version shot in standard definition to re-edit it in high-def.

I hope you will not regret giving your children and grandchildren a priceless piece of themselves that will let them see and hear you again whenever they want for as long as they live.

Visit our website Personal-Documentary.com to watch examples of our work and to learn more about commissioning us to preserve your story, in your words and in your voice, in a video biography.

Who knows? Maybe a famous descendant will appear on some future version of "Who Do You Think You Are?" And, thanks to you, they'll already know.