StoryVault - Online video family history

[Erlang]

Hi

This was the most appropriate section I could find, for a website service I have stumbled across.

It's called StoryVault, and from it's pages it says it's free.

At it's simplest it's YouTube for personal history, the Introduction video is by Dan Snow the TV history presenter.

From the website FAQ.

StoryVault is a website dedicated to sharing the memories of ordinary people - their own, their family, friends or anyone with an interesting story to tell. Users can discover more about their family history or share their own first-hand testimony of events they have witnessed. The content of a video may be a relative telling you what it was like growing up in the 1920s, or perhaps you know someone who witnessed first-hand a historical event such as the Falklands War or fall of the Berlin Wall.

I'm not associated with it in anyway, I just stumbled on it whilst researching Family History it seem non-commercial or at least not any sort of subscription service.

It also has Family Tree creation pages.

I haven't posted a link in case it's against T&C's, but Google finds StoryVault pretty much first time.

I know nothing on the Internet is forever but if it assists some people to get their personal history recorded and distributed I'm all for it.

If anyone here has more experience of the site, please let me know what you think of it.

[notanotherminer]

I've had a good look around and there are a couple of aspects which members should be aware of.

If you decide to create a family tree it will become public by default. You can change the permissions to allow selected persons or you can keep the tree completely private but unless you physically change these settings your tree can be seen by everyone.

I put a couple of names in just as a test and there doesn't seem to be a facility that recognises possible living persons which means that vital facts such as dates of birth and marriage will be visible on an open forum so I would advise caution when entering these facts or you might have a very irate relative demanding to know why their personal details are available to the rest of the world.

Having said all that, provided that people exercise due care, it could be a useful site for sharing those stories and memories.

[Mutley]

I think the general idea is great, for people to tell their stories and for the social history information contained within to be preserved, is a benefit to all.

However, as notanotherminer explains, caution should be taken. It is not a good idea for personal details of the living to be plastered over the world wide web. These days we are never quite sure who is watching and waiting to pounce!