LivesArchived springs from founder Sean Dippold’s experiences with the loss of loved ones and the tremendous amount of personal effects that they, and we all, had accumulated.
Again and again Sean faced the questions of what to do with his late father’s diplomas, letters and awards, where to store his father-in-law’s woodworking plans and how to share a lifelong friend’s literary achievements. Leaving handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and photographs in boxes to molder and fade didn’t seem like fitting tributes. Yet, what else could he do with all this stuff?
There were also his own family’s achievements to consider. Professional certificates, vacation videos, school awards, and work commendations were strewn about his office and house. Rather than risk misplacing or damaging them, he wanted to secure them all in a central spot.
In this Q&A, Sean explains how LivesArchived was born from his own experience needing a place to store and display life’s many accomplishments through online archives.
What was your experience like attempting to preserve the documents of late family members?
“The experience feels both important and overwhelming at the same time. It starts with what to do with all the person’s possessions. They are divided amongst family, thrown away, or sold. It is a tough time with the person’s recent passing so you may not think about preserving until years later. Sorting and deciding what to do with things is time consuming. A box of documents, photo, awards, articles, etc. can take a long time to process. Even with all of this work you are left with three choices, throw it away, give it away, or keep it. Giving it to another relative is just passing the burden on.
The trouble with archiving is it can take a lot of time and effort. So we wanted something that was easy but also permanent.”
Did you learn anything about your family history by organizing and archiving familial documents?
“I have many examples of running to my wife with a new discovery. My grandfather had given a speech in 1967 where he mentioned the birth of his first grandkid, my cousin. You quickly learn that you have pictures but often don’t know who the people are. Then you find a newspaper article with a picture and tie it to a different photo, and the person becomes real. My wife grew up 6 hours away from where we live. We found letters from the 1930’s talking about gravestones of other relatives within 2 miles of our current house and hadn’t known previous generations were in the same area.”
How did you decide to store these documents digitally rather than physically?
“I have always loved photography and switched from film to digital pretty early. All of my digital photos were well organized, but my film prints and negatives were not. Back in 2005, I scanned many of the photos myself and also used a scanning service so I could have everything in one place. I liked that I could have multiple copies of digital photos to prevent loss and easily find things.
I started taking the same view towards other things like documents. Why keep the paper around? A smartphone can make a PDF of a document and you can get rid of a lot of paper and be more organized. The main benefits of digital include being able easily to make copies to preserve and share. You do have to be careful about the format of digital files as many types will not be viewable in the future. For example, I have digital remodeling plans from our house from 2003 that can’t be read as the software is no longer made.”
How did you learn that other online storage options did not quite fulfill your needs when recording your family’s documents?
“I have used Google Drive and DropBox daily for many years and love how those tools promote collaboration. However, the documents are attached to an account and if the account is closed or password is lost or hacked, the documents are gone. Even if you have a copy of a Google document on your computer, the content itself is not stored on your computer but rather at Google. You can even create your own website but as soon as you stop paying for hosting and a domain, the information is gone. Wikipedia is probably going to be around but you can’t put your stuff or your loved one’s information there either. Another common solution is to put the data offline on a CD/DVD or thumb drive. Unfortunately, CD/DVDs only last 2-10 years while thumb drives last 2-13 years and of course can be lost and are not easily shared.”
Have you shared your archives with other family members to celebrate past lives and memories?
“I have shared archives with other family members and they love it. You are taking the best of what you have of a person and making it easily visible to them. They can also easily contribute anything they have. It is not just immediate family who like seeing the archives. Acquaintances who were influenced by the person have commented on how they appreciate seeing the person’s archive.”
When did you realize that other people experienced similar challenges with preserving their or their loved one’s achievements?
“Prior to 2016, I would have thought of this preservation thing as more of an “analog era” problem. In other words, it really only impacted people whose stuff wasn’t largely digital. Unfortunately two younger people I knew had died. They were heavily into all things digital so you would think there would be a lot about them available today. But if you Google them, you see an obituary and their dormant Facebook page. While it is something, neither shows the essence of those people. The obituary is somewhat morbid and not what I would consider a biography. Facebook has some funny pictures, no documents, and not thoughtful. So this need for preservation still exists even in the digital age.”
What inspired you to develop LivesArchived as a service for anyone to use online?
“I really didn’t think about preserving family members until a close relative died. I was going through digital photos and realized I had only one picture of the person and we couldn’t even figure out where the person went to school as their diploma was in some box somewhere.
So I thought I need to find a personal archiving service as I assumed one already existed. I couldn’t find one. I talked to a friend in technology who coincidently had looked for a similar service three months prior when his father died. What did exist were some funeral home memorial sites that allowed you to add pictures to an obituary. But that was it. There was no solution that would be permanent. As I explored this further I started to recognize ideally, people would use this over their whole lives rather than as an afterthought.”
Since day one LivesArchived’s mission has been to safely house and exhibit a person’s life’s work for the public and for generations to come. The company ensures transparency on where these materials are stored and who stores them. It makes selecting and archiving personal information easy and worry-free.
Do you share a similar experience with Sean? If so, you can start your archive here: https://livesarchived.com/
