Journal
My South African Family Stories
Capturing the Stories, Languages, and Lives of the Generations Before You
South African families carry history worth recording—not the public story, yours.
For the South African person — in South Africa or abroad — who wants to capture the stories, languages, and lives of the generations before them, including the parts no one has written down.
The Name It First Experience
South African families carry a complex, layered history — of apartheid and resistance, of language and ethnicity, of the things built before and after. Much of that history is personal and has never been fully recorded. This journal is built to help you capture it: the names, the places, the stories of the particular people in your family, the languages they spoke, the lives they lived. The output is not a political history of South Africa. It is your South African Family Stories Journal.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What name in your South African family do you most want to capture — and what do you know about the person who held it?
- What language does your family speak at home — and what stories does that language carry?
- What does your family's life across the generations look like, and what of it needs to be written down?
Research basis
Grounded in oral history methodology (Ritchie, 2014) / post-apartheid identity research / Truth and Reconciliation Commission documentation frameworks / Cross (1991) racial identity theory / and intergenerational narrative preservation across racial groups in South Africa.
Choose your format.
Every format asks the same questions and produces the same document.
Print Paperbackpersonalize
A real book and a pen. Write in the margins. The most permanent version of you on a page.
$16.99
eBook + journal
The full guide on any screen, with a companion journal to write your answers by hand.
Not available
Audiobook
We read every question and every scenario aloud. For the commute, the walk, the dishes.
Not available
Hardcoverpersonalize
The keepsake edition — sewn, ribboned, made to sit on a shelf and be returned to.
Not available
Digital Fill + membership+membership
Answer on screen. Your responses save as you go and assemble into your finished document.
$7.99
Hands-Free Interactive + membership+membership
Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
Not available
Everything packages
The Paperback Everything Package
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The Hardcover Everything Package
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The Premium Hardcover Everything Package
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Choose your pace.
The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
Essential path
Shorter sessions. The questions that go directly to the document.
Full depth
Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
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