Why Kumbaa exists
Kumbaa started with a conversation between our founder, Sanjay, and his dad. His dad told him stories about his own life, his parents and the elders in the family. Many of them Sanjay had never heard. It made him wonder: if he didn't know these stories, how many others in the family did? And what happens when there's no one left to tell them?
That's the problem Kumbaa is for. Not names and dates on their own, but the stories and the faces that go with them, kept so the next generation knows where they came from. More on that on our about page.
What gets lost first
- Names on photos. Your grandmother knows who everyone is in her wedding photo. Nobody else may.
- The stories in between. Why they moved, how they met, the shop, the war, the house they lost.
- The far branches. Great-aunts, cousins of cousins, the family that stayed behind.
- The photos themselves. Prints fade, albums get split up, boxes get thrown out after a move.
How do you start?
Sit with them, with a box of photos. Old photos are the best prompt there is. Ask who's in each one, where it was taken and roughly when. Record on your phone if they're happy for you to. Then ask about their own life, a little at a time. Our list of questions to ask your grandparents is grouped by topic, so you can pick one area per visit or per call.
Scan the photos as you go. A phone is fine to begin with. Our guide on how to digitize family photos covers the details.
Where do the stories go?
In Kumbaa, every person in the tree has their own page, with a portrait, their dates, where they were born and lived, their life story, and every photo they're in. Their story goes on their page, in their own words if you can. Dates you aren't sure of can be a year, or marked "circa".
Name a face once and Kumbaa suggests that person in the other photos. So the morning you spend naming people in Grandad's albums fills in pages across the whole tree.
Kumbaa doesn't store audio or video recordings yet. Keep those safe and backed up elsewhere, and write the story down on the person's page, where the family will read it.
Bring the rest of the family in
Invite your parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They join free, and each of them can add to their own branch. An aunt adds the stories you never heard. A cousin finds the photos that were in her mother's cupboard. The family tree grows from there.