National Guardian Life Insurance Company teamed up with Ancestry to create WeRemember.com, a free website designed to celebrate and share the stories of our loved ones.
In this interview recorded at the 2018 National Funeral Directors Association convention, Gail Rubin speaks with David Graham, Vice President of Emerging Businesses with Ancestry, and John Baker, Regional Vice President of National Guardian Life Insurance Company.
What does Ancestry get from being involved with this website? “Our mission is to help people discover, share and preserve their family story,” said Graham. “We do that pretty well for your past, through people that you’ve found through census records, but not so much for the here and now, gathering memories of people that you live with and that you know and love.”
“Much of the strength and focus of WeRemember is to gather a lot of different perspectives,” observed Graham. “At a funeral, when you’re gathered together, you hear all these stories you’ve never heard before. As we’ve interviewed people, the stories that are most meaningful are the ones from people they didn’t know, like the people who worked with Dad who you never met.”
John Baker had a unique experience with WeRemember.com. His mother-in-law, who was an artist, died in June. The family used the WeRemember.com site to share images of her artwork with a wider audience beyond the family members who had her artwork.
Baker also started his own WeRemember page for himself. He gathered some pictures and commentary and shared with a few close relatives. “It’s been a real interesting experience to see what people have said and shared,” he related. “Sometimes I think people are more willing to speak anonymously through the site than right to your face. It’s been a real rewarding experience.”
Graham noted, “The website is something Ancestry is really proud about, it’s completely free, and it’s already blessing a lot of lives by being able to turn your grief into something positive.”
How WeRemember.com Works
Here’s a video that explains how the website works.
Here’s another video that provides an example of how WeRemember.com could be used with someone who is still alive.
