How to Use My Living Legacy

1

What Is My Living Legacy?

My Living Legacy is a place to capture your life's stories — memories, wisdom, family history, and experiences — and preserve them permanently for the people you love and the generations who follow.

Think of it as building a rich, searchable database of everything inside your head. Not just names and dates, but the stories behind them. The smell of your grandmother's kitchen. The day you got your first job. The lesson you learned the hard way at 35 that you wish you'd known at 20.

Once your memories are captured, the platform can turn them into books, stories, and eventually — in a voice and face that sounds and looks like you. The data you build today will power technology that doesn't yet exist.

💡 The core idea You don't have to write a book. You just have to capture the memories. My Living Legacy does the rest.

2

Getting Started

When you first sign in, you'll be asked one question: What brings you here today? Check all the boxes that apply. Your answers help the platform suggest where to focus first.

1

Answer the opening question — check everything that resonates. There are no wrong answers.

2

Land on your Dashboard — this is your home base. Every section of the platform is accessible from here.

3

Add your first memory — click + Add a Memory at the top of the page, or from My Memories. You don't need to start at the beginning of your life. Start with whatever is on your mind today.

4

Complete your profile — add your name, photo, and contact information so the platform knows who you are and who your family members are.

✍️ There is no right order Some people start by writing a memory. Others upload photos first. Others record voice. The platform works in any order — everything connects over time.

3

Adding a Memory

Every memory starts on the Add a Memory page. Fill in as little or as much as you like. Nothing is required except a title — you can always come back to expand it later.

1

Title — give it a short, descriptive name. "The day I arrived in Canada" is better than "Memory 47."

2

Year and Era — approximately when did this happen? Even a decade is fine.

3

Category and Sub-category — what is this memory about? Family, career, travel, faith? You can also create your own categories.

4

Who can see this? — set the access level before you type anything. The default is Owner Only (private to you).

5

Capture the memory — type it, speak it, or record video. See Section 4 for the details.

6

Save Memory — or click Save & Add Another to keep going without breaking your flow.

💡 Autosave If you've entered a title and some text, the platform saves a draft automatically when you move to another field. You won't lose your work.

4

Three Ways to Capture a Memory

Once you're on the Add a Memory page, you have a row of six capture buttons. Three of them capture your words:

✎️

Write

Click Write and type directly into the memory box. Best when you want to choose your words carefully.

🎙

Voice (Gold Mic)

Click the gold microphone and just talk. Your words are automatically transcribed into text via Whisper AI. No typing needed.

🎥

Video

Click Video to open a choice: voice-only (free, transcribed to text) or full webcam video (paid — see Section 9).

The other three buttons attach files to your memory:

💾

Doc

Attach a PDF, Word document, or text file. Good for attaching letters, printed stories, or scanned documents.

♫

Audio

Upload a pre-recorded audio file from your device. The audio attaches to the memory and can be played back.

🎬

Attach Video

Upload an existing video file from your device. Stored permanently with your memory (paid — see Section 9).

💡 You can mix and match One memory can have typed text, a voice recording, an attached photo, and a video clip — all at the same time.

5

Organizing Your Memories

Every memory has three organizing fields:

▪

Era — the stage of life the memory belongs to: Early Childhood, Teen Years, Career, Senior Years, and so on. This places it on your life timeline automatically.

▪

Category — the broad subject: Family, Career, Travel, Faith, Health, and more. You can also create your own by selecting "+ Add new category…"

▪

Sub-category — a more specific label: a person's name, a place, an organization. For example, Category = Family, Sub-category = "Driediger." Also customizable.

You don't need to fill these in when you first save a memory. You can set them later from the My Memories page by clicking directly on the cells in the table — they save instantly.

6

Who Can See What

Every memory has an access level. You set it before saving. The default is always Owner Only — nothing is shared until you choose to share it.

Level	Who Sees It	Best For
🔒 Owner Only	Just you	Private thoughts, sensitive topics, drafts in progress
👪 Trusted Family	People you've named as Trusted Family in your Profile	Personal family stories, anything for your immediate family
👪 Extended Family	All family members you've added as Extended Family	Broader family history, stories suitable for cousins, aunts, uncles
⭕ Heritage Circle	All members of any Heritage Circle you've joined or created	Mennonite history, a family group, a community circle
🌐 Public	Anyone, including people not signed in	Memories you're proud to share with the world

✍️ You control this at all times You can change a memory's access level at any time from the My Memories page. Changing it from Public to Owner Only takes effect immediately.

7

Browsing & Editing Your Memories

From your Dashboard, click My Memories to see all your memories in a searchable, sortable table.

▪

Search — type any word to find memories containing that word in the title or content.

▪

Filter by Era, Category, or Sub-category — use the dropdowns to narrow down to a specific time period or topic.

▪

Click any cell to edit — click the title, year, era, or category directly in the table. It saves the moment you click away. No Save button needed.

▪

Colour coding — a small dot shows the status: orange = not yet written, green = has content, purple = has a video recording.

▪

✏️ pencil icon — click this to open the full Add a Memory editor for that memory, where you can add voice, video, or attachments.

▪

Newest first — the most recently added memory appears at the top by default. Click any column heading to sort differently.

💡 Hands-Free Mode Click the Start Hands-Free Mode button to work through your untitled or empty memories one at a time, speaking your answers aloud. It transcribes automatically and moves to the next memory.

8

MLL Suggested Edits

After you've written or spoken your memory, you'll see a green button: Ask MLL for Suggested Edits.

Click it and the platform's AI will offer a polished version of your memory — cleaning up run-on sentences, filling out details, and shaping it into a clear, readable narrative.

This is a suggestion only. Your original words are always preserved exactly as you entered them. You can copy and paste anything from the suggestion back into your memory, ignore it entirely, or use it as a starting point.

✍️ Your words are always the final version No AI edit is ever saved without your explicit action. The platform captures your voice, not a processed version of it. The suggestion is there to help, not to replace.

9

Video & Storage Costs

Typing and voice recording are included in your base plan. Video recording and video attachments carry an additional charge.

$ Why does video cost extra? A 5-minute video recording can be 200–500 MB. Storing that file permanently — for decades, across generations — has real infrastructure costs. Text and audio cost a fraction of that. We charge for video to recover those costs directly, not to profit from them. We expect the cost to fall over time as storage technology improves.

When you click the Video button on the Add a Memory page, a window will appear asking you to choose:

A

Voice recording only — transcribed to text (Included). Your voice is recorded, transcribed, and the text is added to the memory. No video file is saved.

B

Full webcam video — video + voice + transcript (Paid). Your webcam records video and audio. Both are saved permanently. Future generations can watch you tell this story.

C

Attach an existing video file (Paid). Upload a video from your device. Stored permanently and linked to this memory.

For current pricing, see the pricing page.

10

Your Profile In Progress

Your Profile is where you build the context around your memories. It's separate from your LegacyBase content, and it's the part of the platform that answers: who are you?

Your Profile includes:

▪

Personal information — your name, preferred name, date of birth, location.

▪

Trusted Family — the email addresses of people who will have access to memories you share at Trusted Family level.

▪

Heritage Circles — the family groups and community circles you belong to or have created.

▪

Your public profile — a short bio and photo visible to anyone you've given access to.

▪

Voice samples — three recordings captured at My Voice: your casual speaking voice, your public speaking voice, and your storytelling voice. These will power future AI voice and avatar features.

⏱ Coming soon The full Profile page is being built now. For voice samples, go to My Voice from the Dashboard in the meantime.

11

Sharing With Family In Progress

My Living Legacy is designed to be experienced by your whole family — not just you. There are two ways family members connect to your LegacyBase:

A

Trusted Family / Extended Family — add their email address in your Profile. They'll receive an invitation to create their own account (free), and once they sign in, they'll see the memories you've shared at their access level.

B

Heritage Circles — create or join a Heritage Circle for your extended family or community group. Memories shared at Heritage Circle level are visible to all circle members. One person — the founding generation — typically starts the trunk story, and branches build out from there.

Family members who sign in get their own account. They can browse what's been shared with them, post questions they want you to answer, and if they choose, start building their own LegacyBase too.

💡 Family members see only what you choose No one can see a memory unless you've set it to their access level or higher. Owner Only memories are always completely private.

12

What Gets Created From Your Memories

Your memories are the raw material. My Living Legacy transforms them into finished outputs you can share, print, and pass down. These are found under My Outputs at the bottom of your Dashboard.

▪

My Stories — the first output. Select memories, sequence them, add photos, and assemble them into a readable story. A story can be a single chapter or a full life memoir.

▪

My Book(s) Coming Soon — a formatted, printable book generated from your stories. Multiple versions for different audiences.

▪

My Talks Coming Soon — structured presentations and talks drawn from your memories and knowledge.

▪

My Videos Coming Soon — assembled video sequences from your recordings, formatted for sharing.

▪

My Avatars Future — a visual and voice representation of you, able to tell your stories, answer questions from family, and eventually run on personal assistant robot hardware.

📝 The database is the permanent asset Every output is generated from your memory database. As that database grows, every output gets richer. A memory added today may power outputs that don't yet exist in 2030 and beyond.