When we launch our site redesign a few weeks ago, one of the new features that we added was the Family Memories Website (see example). Besides helping you discover new family memories, we also want to help you share those newfound memories.

So how does the Family Memories Website work? Easy, you don’t have to do anything extra. Tpstry takes all your answered questions and uploaded images and automatically creates a website for you.  To view your website, log in to Tpstry and click the “View Website” button at the top left of the webpage. Currently, all Family Memories Websites are private and can only be viewed by users who have access to that Tpstry family. We have plans for the future to open this open and let you securely share your website with non-Tpstry users.  So stay tuned.

The Family Memories Website uses the images you have uploaded to create a visually appealing homepage for your site. Don’t worry if you haven’t uploaded any images, we have a collection of nice general photographs to use as placeholders.

The Family Memories Website organizes content into People, Places, Events and Images just like on the main Tpstry site. We also moved the Timeline page from the main Tpstry page into the Family Memories Website. Plus, we made the timeline even better!

As you answer more questions, your Family Memories Website will begin to look even better. Since many people are just getting started answering questions on Tpstry, we’ve created an Example Family Memories Website that you can view to get a feel of what your site will look like.

© Steve Todey

We asked our users what they hoped to discover about their family by using Tpstry. Most of the responses were fairly common like how did my grandparents meet or did my grandfather earn any medals in the military. But we also got some responses that we thought would be cool to know about our own families.

Here are 10 unique questions that Tpstry users want to know about their family. How many of these can you answer about your family?

1. Who was your mom’s prom date?
2. What position did your grandfather play in little league baseball?
3. How many speeding tickets has your father received?
4. What was your grandmother’s first job?
5. Did anyone in your family attend an Elvis concert?
6. Did your grandmother ever ride a rollercoaster?
7. What was your grandfather’s first car?
8. Who in your family has crashed a wedding?
9. Which teenage heart throb did your mom have a crush on while growing up?
10. What food did your father refuse to eat as a child?

If you don’t know the answer to some of these questions, use this as an opportunity to find out. Tpstry can help you discover and share these types of family memories. Family history is more than just dates and scrapbooks, it is also about preserving and celebrating the personalities and characters in your family.

When we recently updated the site with the new Family Memories Website section, we also updated the Timeline view and moved it from the question area to the new memories website.

The Timeline view takes all questions with an associated date and places them in chronological order. Questions with dates include births, deaths, marriages, graduations and events.

Uploaded images also have dates associated with them. Most new digital cameras automatically store a date in the picture file. When you upload an image, Tpstry reads this date automatically so you don’t have to enter when a picture was taken. If more than one picture is taken on a specific date, the images are grouped together and you are able to scroll through all images for that date.

Thank you to everyone for using and providing feedback on the Tpstry site. We’ve taken that feedback and made the site even better!

Today we are launching a site redesign. This redesign is intended to make Tpstry easier to use and to also introduce the Family Memories website section of Tpstry.

Making Tpstry Easier
Answering questions is how Tpstry collects your family memories, so we reconfigured the visual design of the site to better reflect this idea.  We also made it easier to find an existing entry by adding a “Quick Nav” search box that will take you directly to the page for a particular entry.

Family Memories Website
Now that you have answered questions and uploaded images, wouldn’t it be great to view all this in a visually appealing website? Well now you can. Once you log into your Tpstry family, click on the “View Website” button in the top left of the page. This will take you to your Family Memories website. This website is a read-only version of all the answered questions and uploaded images. We plan on adding a lot more features to the Family Memories website in the future to let you customize your site and easily share it with others.