Recording for Posterity!

I am lucky as my Mom is still living. We just celebrated her 90h birthday this past August.  When we get together we don't talk that much, as Mom is very hard of hearing and it is a chore for her to carry on a long conversation. At times she will look up from the book she is reading and start telling me a story of something that happened in her younger days. 
I want to be always ready to save it, so I downloaded a Voice Recorder App on my phone and my tablet. "Hold on a sec!" I yell in the loudest deepest voice I can muster as I open my handy app.  "Ok, start again!" Press record.

There are many Free voice recorder apps, one just as good as another, different interfaces, simple features - but you want to get one that you can save the recording and more importantly, Share it!  Read the features and reviews before downloading.

 

The one called Best Voice Recorder by Khai Nguyen is one I have on my phone. Just open and press Record. No fiddling around. The output file type is MP3 or OGG, and you can always change the name of your file and save it. You can send it to your Google Drive, or share it in many ways. On my iPad I have Quick Voice which I got a few years ago.  It does the job, but there are many more to choose from now.

Here is a sample recording I made - My Mom telling about when she was about 18 years old and lightening struck.  I used the Quick Voice App on my iPad and Mom was sitting a few feet opposite me.

Mom also liked to sing goofy songs to us when we were kids, and to her grandchildren, so I have a few of those recorded as well.

I like to make movies with Windows Movie Maker (free download) and it is easy to add in these recording along with your photos and videos. Makes for really amazing family history projects. Here is a one-frame movie sample using the above recording.

So get a free recorder app on our phone and/or tablet and keep it handy when visiting with older relatives.  Also start now recording incidents from YOUR childhood that you want to pass on to your descendants.