Family Legacy in New Zealand: record your parents’ voices
For New Zealand families who want the recorded voice, not a book posted from the US — including where a parent or grandparent grew up speaking another language.
Updated 30 July 2026
Family Legacy is a voice-first alternative to StoryWorth for New Zealand families. Instead of typed answers printed as a book and shipped from the US, you record your parents talking — in the language they grew up with — and keep a searchable archive online that family here and overseas can reach.
New Zealand families are rarely far from a story of arriving — from Britain, the Pacific, Asia, or somewhere else within a generation or two — and often from more than one language spoken at home. StoryWorth, the product most people find first, is a US text service that prints a book and ships it a very long way south. Family Legacy is built around the voice instead, with nothing to post.
Is there a StoryWorth alternative in New Zealand?
Yes. Family Legacy records the spoken conversation rather than collecting typed answers, with no printed book shipped from the US. You record your parent or grandparent talking, it is transcribed and made searchable, and the archive lives online where family in New Zealand and overseas can reach it.
How does Family Legacy work for New Zealand families?
You record on a phone, the session is transcribed and tagged with names, places and years, and it goes into a private archive the family can search and add to. Nothing is posted and nothing takes weeks to arrive. There is a full guide in how to record your family's stories.
What if a parent or grandparent grew up speaking another language?
Record them in it. A parent recalling the place they grew up will usually tell it more fully in the language they lived it in than in English. Family Legacy records in the original language and provides an English transcript alongside, so the archive is searchable while the recording keeps the voice as spoken. There is more in recording a parent in another language.
How is this different from StoryWorth?
StoryWorth is typed answers printed as a book, in English, based in the US and shipped from there. Family Legacy keeps the recorded voice, works across languages, and has no book to send. For the head-to-head see StoryWorth vs Family Legacy, and for the wider field the best StoryWorth alternatives.