I had a question from a reader recently about Collectionaire, an online tool for sharing family history information and keepsake media. I have to admit I hadn’t heard of it but I checked it out and was intrigued.
It appears to act as a hub where each person has a collection linked to a family tree. A click on a person in your tree brings up their collection and all the information and media you have for them. You can easily share the collection with family members by providing a link (and you have control over which privileges to offer them).
Here’s the video from their website:
You don’t store information on Collectionaire. Rather, the keepsake media is stored in whatever cloud-based app(s) you choose, and they’re brought together in Collectionaire.
There’s a free tier, as well as two other plans at $2.99 a month and $4.99 a month.
I’m traveling now, so I haven’t had the chance to explore it, but I thought I’d turn to the experts here. If you’ve tried Collectionaire, I’d love to hear about your experience, good or bad. It seems to have such potential!
Why yes, I have!
Here’s a blog post I wrote about it:
“My new favorite thing: Collectionaire”
https://www.org4life.com/collectionaire/
Thanks for supplying a link to your robust blog post, Hazel!
Gosh, i am sorry Janine, I looked into it and had a really immediate reaction – it’s the video – and the implications about what a “shareable family’s full life” is – weddings, sparky the dog, lakes house, piano recitals, golf…even ignoring the awful music it is. It’s aimed squarely at white privilege folks and that’s not what family history is about
I appreciate your sharing your perspective, Natasha.
It is a brilliant program & there is nothing else out there like it. It truly meets a need so many of us have for organizing & sharing family history & memories with other family members & future generations. I have nothing but respect & admiration for the gentleman who has worked so hard & devoted so much of his time to developing such a wonderful product. Certainly we can each find the good in our families to share with our descendants. The music is beautiful & everything about the program is tastefully done. Their customer service is exceptional as well.
Lisa, I appreciate your sharing your perspective as well!
Hi Lisa, it is great that the site is working well for you and for others (and I appreciate that everyone has different tastes in music!) As you know the person who created it though, i think it really would be worth feeding back – families come in all shapes, sizes and colours – they are messy, complicated things – and that’s often what makes them so interesting to research and to share. The website promotes an idealised, white, privileged family life which effectively excludes the vast majority of us. Natasha
This looks like a way to bring all of the resources one may have on family, whether it is current family memories (Facebook, digital photos, videos), family history (links to Family Search, Ancestry, etc as well as personal photos and stories), and other sources of data. No need to politicize it. Since it is FAMILY history, it will be whatever the history is, or the history we want to convey, right or wrong. I think it is worth looking into, especially if you want to share things with other family. I personally have no children, and this may be the best vehicle to share what I have with my niece, grand-niece and my nephew.
I’m in the same boat with no kids and am always on the lookout on way to share with family members who are interested.
Yes! Let’s celebrate the ingenuity, hard work & commitment to excellence of people like the developer who take the risk to bring exceptional products like this to the market to help others with needs in this area. I see unlimited potential for each of us to try the product & make it what we want for each of our unique families. They even offer a free trial version which is quite generous. I might add that when I contacted them to ask questions about how I might tailor the product to my individual situation, their customer service team responded immediately & offered helpful assistance. Viewing this product through a political, angry & narrow-minded lens is sad. While my family experiences look quite different from the developer’s example content, he is clearly sharing his family only as an sample. Rather than discourage others from trying the product, I can appreciate our differences & see the potential he has created for others to share their history with future generations.