How Remento Helped Us Preserve Our Family Stories

Some memories seem to wait for us, sitting quietly in the background of a life until a question or a photograph brings them forward. That's what happened for my wife Lyn and me once our son gave us Remento: preserving our family history became a way to revisit the lives we'd lived, discover stories we'd never heard from each other, and leave something behind that keeps our voices present for the people we love.

“For years to come, people can hear our voices and read our story because of Remento.”

Why Did Our Son Give Us Remento?

Our son introduced us to Remento after discovering it while watching Shark Tank. He thought it would be a meaningful gift for Lyn and me, and what began as a gift soon became something we genuinely enjoyed doing together. There was something natural about being invited to remember through conversation rather than having to sit down and write our lives out ourselves.

We’d get the questions through email or text, and when we had a bit of time, we’d sit down and tell our stories, using either video or audio. There was no need to write everything out ourselves. We could just talk about the memories as they came to us, and those stories would find their way into our Remento book. 

What we liked was that it kept something of the way we actually told the stories too, our voices, our laughs, and those little pauses you have when you’re remembering something from years ago.

See how Remento's Speech-to-Story™ technology works if you're wondering how a recording turns into a written book.

We Discovered Stories We Didn’t Know About Each Other

One of the most meaningful parts of the experience was realizing how much of our own histories we had never shared. Some prompts brought back memories from childhood and from the years before we knew one another. Even after building a life together, there were still stories waiting to be discovered.

For Lyn and me, it was a bit like discovering each other all over again. We started hearing stories we’d never heard before, things from when we were young that had simply never come up over the years. It gave us a lovely chance to understand a little more about who we were before we met and the lives we’d lived before they became one.

“For us, sharing things that I didn't know from when he was a young child, and he learned things about me from when I was a kid.”

The experience became about more than family history. It gave us another opportunity to keep learning about each other.

Remento's Speech-to-Story™ Technology helps turn the things we’ve talked about into written stories, while the original video and audio recordings keep the way we told them. For us, that’s what makes the whole thing feel worthwhile.

We Love That Our Voices Are Part of the Remento book

A story on paper is lovely, but there’s something different about hearing someone tell it themselves. You hear their voice, the way they laugh, or the little pause when they’re trying to remember something. We liked being able to record our memories as video or audio because it meant our family wouldn’t just have the written story. They could hear us telling it too.

When we got the Remento book, we especially liked the QR code. You can read the story on the page, then scan the code and hear us talking about it. It makes the book feel a bit more personal, because you’re not just reading something we wrote down. You’re hearing us tell it in our own way.

“I've been telling people about the brilliance of having this little QR code on the Remento book where you can put your camera on and actually hear us talking.”

That’s probably what we like most about it. Our family can read the stories, but they can also hear our voices telling them.

Take a look inside a Remento book

A Family Keepsake We Can Keep Coming Back To

What we like most is knowing that these memories are there for our family to come back to. We’ve got the stories in a book now, along with the recordings, so they can read what we had to say and hear our voices as well. It’s nice to think that something we’ve enjoyed doing together will still be around for the family down the track.

The stories are ours, of course, but one day they’ll belong to the family too. 

“I just can't thank Remento enough. It’s a fantastic idea, and we love it.”

We’ve really enjoyed doing it together. It’s given us a lovely way to sit down, talk about the past, and leave a few of those stories behind for the family.

If you're curious what a finished book actually looks and sounds like, take a look inside a Remento book, or see whether Remento works well for older parents and grandparents if that's the question on your mind. 

When you're ready, get started with Remento and begin capturing your own family's stories.