What kind of archive is this?

Every archive is 'about a life,' but lives are in different places. When you create an archive you tell us two things — who it's about, and where they are in life — and the archive quietly shapes itself around the answers. Nothing is locked in; you can change either as life changes.

Who it's about

• Yourself — recording your own stories, in your own words, for the people who will want them someday. (The entries you think are too ordinary will be the treasures.)
• A loved one — a parent, grandparent, spouse, child, friend. The most common archive: built with them if possible, about them always.
• A couple — two lives braided together; the archive holds both voices and the story of the two of them.
• A family — a shared home for the stories that belong to everyone: the farm, the migration, the holiday chaos.
• A community elder — the neighbor, deacon, coach, or shopkeeper whose story belongs to more people than one household.

Where they are in life

This is the setting people are most nervous to choose, so let us say it plainly: there is no wrong answer, and changing it later takes one click and loses nothing.

• Living — prompts lean toward questions you can still ask, and the archive behaves like a growing scrapbook.
• Living with illness — the archive slows down: gentler prompts, no urgency theater, guidance that respects good days and bad days.
• Living with memory loss — prompts become era-anchored and sensory ('what did the kitchen smell like?'), because those doors stay open longest. Recording their voice moves to the front of every suggestion, because it should.
• No longer living — a remembrance archive. Milestone language disappears entirely, dates go gentle, and the archive becomes a place the family meets the person again.