There's more to you than meets the eye. You know that. Does everyone else? Especially the people who matter most, like your children, your extended family, and your closest friends?

There's a line in Sue Monk Kidd's book, The Secret Life of Bees, in which she writes: "Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are."

Anne Roberts, a trained personal historian, agrees, noting it only takes two generations to lose the stories. If stories-life experiences-are not retold, they are gone. "It means your children's children will never really know you," she says.

Anne, a teacher of special needs adolescents, recently took on the job of writing biographies on everyday people. If you think about it, biographies of famous people are often best sellers, but you don't have to be famous to have lived a fascinating life. Hidden within the minutia of our existence are some of life's greatest revelations.

By sitting down with you once a week for ten weeks and recording the conversations, a personal historian can take you on a journey into your past. It is often an eye-opening experience that is both rewarding and cathartic.

Anne is a member of the Association of Personal Historians (APH), a non-profit international network of skilled professionals passionate about preserving life stories. She has been trained on the techniques required to elicit information and turn those tales into a compelling memoir.

Each individual's story unfolds differently, as you don't always start at the beginning, Anne says. People usually defer to what they want to remember. Which is why the investigation also entails unearthing photo albums, letters, and memorabilia-the clues that piece together the past in order to help us uncover who we are in the present.

"From the beginning of time people told stories trying to remember, pass along and preserve the events of their lives, whether it be their adventures, their struggles, or their joys," Anne says.

Many people say they will write their own life story, but never do because life itself gets in the way. In addition, in this electronic age where multitasking and text messaging are  the norm, people forget to connect with those who matter most.

"Why do we know more about Madonna than we do about our own mother, much less our grandmother?" Anne says. "I am, or I was, guilty of this too."

A Remarkable Mother

A few years ago, Anne embarked on her own personal mission to learn more about her mother, Mary Elizabeth. It was a bit of an accident, she admits. Her father had just passed away and Anne was trying to teach her mother how to live as a widow, which meant keeping up with paperwork-mail, bills, filing bank account information. Every now and then, however, Mary Elizabeth would lean back while gazing out the window and say, "Did I ever tell you the story about..."

They were small stories, but ultimately monumental. Collectively, these little bits of information were the mosaic of memories that make Mary Elizabeth unique. Everyone knows the big things: Mary Elizabeth, for example, was a dedicated wife and the mother of seven children. But, like all of us, there is much more to this life we live than those pillars that we feel define us. But too often we dismiss the tiny aspects of us-or interactions we have-- as 'unimportant'.

Take cousin Phil, who Mary Elizabeth relayed this story about:

"One time I was walking down the street with Betty Ann's brother, Phil. I was happily chewing my gum and enjoying the day when suddenly Phil asked me for my gum. I surrendered it to him; he put it on the end of the stick and stuck it down into a grated water drain on the street to retrieve a quarter. I was out of gum and didn't even get the quarter!"

Anne didn't think much of the information at the time she heard it, as she was more interested in teaching her mother essential things, like how to deal with the household she was now in charge of. 

"But then as I drove home that day wondering if she was ever going to learn how to file correctly, I would think back to the story she had just told me," Anne says. "Who was this cousin Phil of hers? What a smart guy using her gum to retrieve a shiny quarter lost down a grated water drain. As a matter of fact, I never knew my mother even chewed gum.... Call it serendipity, call it coincidence, but by slowly dipping in and asking those questions, what was about to unfold was the life story of a real, whole person....a remarkable woman - not just my mother."

Even a seemingly innocuous memory can have a huge emotional effect on a person's life. And these are the events that Anne captured in her published book, All About M.E., the biography of Mary Elizabeth Hayes Tucker.

At first Mary Elizabeth resisted relaying the many facets of her life, she admits. "Not that I was hiding anything in the family," she says. "But I thought, what good will it do for me, for her, or the rest of the family?"

Anne would sit there with a tape recorder in hand and Mary Elizabeth would suddenly have no stories to tell. But with the recorder out of sight-hidden, not gone-she began to open up. Soon, the process took on a life of its own.

"The daughter with whom I shared these tales enjoyed listening. Then she asked questions which brought out more stories," Mary Elizabeth says. "As time went on, I realized this was fun and it is good to know that all of my children will have a feeling of who their mother was. Someone who didn't just raise children."

When finished, the book was given to everyone in the family, but perhaps it was the voyage back in time that meant the most. "Anne and I had a lot of laughs and a lot of tears," Mary Elizabeth remembers.

So, why is capturing your story so important?

"Just sit for a minute. You can feel it. There is a loud clamoring in the world for hope, for purpose, for understanding," Anne explains. "So much of what we can be taught can be learned from our own living ancestors. We can hear about what they faced, learn from the decisions they made, the roads they took, and the way their lives unfolded. We grow stronger from knowing what they held on to and we realize we are not alone in our groping for answers. What a treasure to be able to pass their strengths and life lessons on. What better gift can you give your family?"

It is a gift. Of course, there is a price to pay. The work of a personal historian is extremely labor intensive as it includes interviewing, transcribing the audio tape, organizing and editing the stories, and publishing a customized book. Many people opt for only the audio portion of the reporting exercise, as it costs less than a print product, and voice is a powerful way to bring back the memory of a person. But photos and the written word complete the picture.

Regardless of the approach, having a biography is a valuable investment.  "It's more than a memoir, it's a way to connect generations," says Anne.

For more information on creating the story of your life, contact Anne Roberts at: tuckeranne@verizon. 

By Stephanie Neil

Stephanie Neil is a journalist. Her business, technology, and human interest stories have appeared in a variety of print and online newspapers and magazines including eWeek, Managing Automation, The Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Huggies Baby Network, South Shore Woman, and The Boston Globe.  She lives on the South Shore with her two kids, two cats, and a dog. Contact info: stephanieneil@comcast.net  or 781-378-1652. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieNeil