A way to leave letters, voice or video recordings for my descendants, a way to live on long after i'm gone

From r/SomebodyMakeThis · originally by u/PuzzledAjooba · March 30, 2026

I never met my grandparents. I have photos but nothing that tells me who they actually were. What they dreamed about. What they were afraid of. What their voice sounded like. They lived whole lives. They had fears, loves, dreams. And all of that is just gone. Not lost in tragedy. Just not passed down. I've been thinking: what if I could leave something for my grandchildren or great-grandchildren? Not just photos in a box. A letter. My voice. The messy, real parts of who I am. Something that gets delivered 50 years from now, when they're old enough to want to know who I actually was. I'm not technical. I don't know how to build this. But I'm wondering * Would anyone else use this? * How would you even make sure it lasts that long? * Would it matter to you if your grandparents had left something like this? Genuinely curious if this is just me or if others feel the same.

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Discussion(4)

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u/heesellon 3/30/2026

I think writing a letter on paper works better. Technology might be so different 50 years from now that devices we have now get replaced. Aside from that, I doubt it will be maintained for 50 years. You could make recordings on your phone and store it on a pc by connecting it with a usb cable and alternatively store it on a USB drive as that won't run out of power and it does not require maintenance. This is just my take.

u/woundedkarmaon 3/30/2026

Often think of this as a real service not just crapware. Go and interview the person. Record audio or video. Gather info from relatives and friends. (Who are willing) Then structure a set of memories and writings about them. Charge the family per copy. (I'd rather not but people have to eat) Much like Speaker for the Dead.

u/reiti_neton 4/1/2026

this may suffer from economical feasability .. and may or may not fall to cooperate greed at some point with everything being lost. so you either have this a government backed project or maybe some sort of blockchain/decentralized entity where the people keep it alive .. in the end it's a lot of data only growing bigger and ideally not costing maintainance to be a true memory vault

u/WorldDanceron 4/18/2026

[familysearch.org](http://familysearch.org) allows you to upload photos, voice recordings, and documents to your profile for you descendants. The storage on your account is basically limitless. In terms of it not existing, it's owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have a strong interest in keeping the site running forever because of religious beliefs and the sacredness of family history.