Your life is a story worth preserving.
You’ve lived a life full of experiences, relationships, turning points, and memories that deserve to be remembered. But knowing how to capture those stories—and where to begin—can feel overwhelming.
Your Life’s Archive gives you a simple, three-step way to begin.
This self-paced online course helps you identify the experiences that matter, capture the stories behind them, and create a personal archive you can continue building over time.
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Practical video and written lessons
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A straightforward, three-step approach
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Bonus resources for personal archives, provenance, and digital memories
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Learn on your schedule, with no deadline
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Lifetime access
One-time payment: $149
Start preserving the stories that make your life yours.
Personal Archive Program Overview
Step One: Discover
What stories are waiting to be remembered?
Step Two: Capture
What do you want to say about them?
Step Three: Preserve
How will you ensure they're not forgotten?
What will you have when you're done?
You don’t need to write a memoir, catalog every photograph, or document every year of your life.
You need a place to begin—and a way to keep going.
Through Your Life’s Archive, you’ll begin to:
Recognize the stories worth keeping. Identify the experiences, people, places, and turning points that have shaped your life.
Capture the meaning behind the memories. Go beyond names and dates to preserve the context, relationships, and details that give your experiences meaning.
Create a personal archive you can build on. Establish a practical approach to preserving your stories, photographs, documents, and digital memories so they can remain accessible and meaningful over time.
The goal isn’t to finish your life’s story. It’s to begin preserving it—one meaningful piece at a time.
Hi, I'm Zibby. I'm an artist, author, and heritage communications expert.
I have a master's degree in cultural heritage management from Johns Hopkins University and a book I wrote based on the personal archives of my relative, Maria Chabot, is forthcoming in 2027 from the University of New Mexico Press.
I've spent much of my career working with stories, archives, and the people who preserve them. I've seen what happens when someone's papers, photographs, letters and memories are carefully preserved. I've also seen what happens when they're not.
The most important stories aren't always the ones that make it into official archives - they're the stories ordinary people carry inside them. I created Your Life's Archive because I believe those stories are valuable and deserve to be captured, too.
How it Works
Take a look inside Your Life’s Archive
The Process:
You don’t need special training, expensive equipment, or hours of uninterrupted time to get started.
The course combines video and written lessons with practical guidance you can revisit whenever you need to.
You can work through the material at your own pace, pause when life gets busy, and return when you’re ready.
Here’s what you’ll explore:
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Where to begin when you have a lifetime of memories
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What to include—and how to approach collections of photographs, papers, and other materials
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How to create a personal archive system that works for you
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How to preserve digital memories and understand the importance of provenance
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How to keep building, storing, and sharing your archive over time
What participants are saying:
"An easily understandable and great way for people to take their first steps in coalescing a lifetime of turning points and important memories."
Tracy L.
"I like that this was no-pressure and the lessons are repeatable so that I can work through things on my own time."
Nate W.
"I can't believe I have never done this before. Getting started on my life's archive is a gift to me and my family!"
Nicole S.
"It's nice that information is provided for an entire spectrum of people - like, it's OK to be casual about this, but if you want to go all out, here's the info to do that too"
Carol I.