Though it feels hard to know where to begin, take heart! You’ve already been recording your history. Every document you save, souvenir you keep, example of your work you store and letter or photograph you box up is a piece of your past, which you saved because it was important to you. These are the seeds of your biography. You can grow your story from there by using our Biography Planning Guide to help you decide what you want to say about your history and how you want to say it.

We also provide a free Preservation Guide, which describes how to preserve items like photos and letters.