Chapel Hill’s Audible Ancestry Preserves Family Voices For Years To Come

Evan Hatch, Founder of Audible Ancestry

We’ve, very gratefully, excerpted this article from GrepBeat [full link at the end of this excerpt].

What if there was a way to hear your great-great-great grandmother tell the story of her upbringing and all the most pivotal moments in her life? Now, with Chapel Hill-based startup Audible Ancestry, there will be a way to hear those priceless stories—both today and for future generations—in their own voices.

Audible Ancestry founder Evan Hatch was inspired to create his startup after years of experience with folklore and oral history, seeing the benefits that come when people tell their stories.

“I think there’s a great therapeutic value for people who are being listened to and asked questions about their lives,” Hatch said. “Although it’s impossible, if you could interview everybody in the world, you would have such great understanding and great knowledge of people everywhere, and there’s great wisdom there.”

The graduate of UNC Chapel Hill (undergrad) and the University of Mississippi (a master’s in Southern Studies) fell in love with talking to people who have wisdom to pass down. So amid the coronavirus lockdown, he put his passion into action as Audible Ancestry.

Grandchildren will be able to listen to grandparents tell stories on subjects they might not think to ask about—or be afraid to ask—like marriages or military service. 

But Audible Ancestry does more than preserve the stories of older family members. It also offers a youth “audio portrait” service, allowing families to take a snapshot in time of a child and their full personality, which parents and family members can listen to for years to come—and that the child can even share someday with children of their own. Other services include capturing event-focused “group ancestries” like reunions or weddings.

Please turn to the original GrepBeat article to continue reading. . .