Here My Story
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Map the place you grew up

Here My Story is a free personal memory map. Use it to pin the streets, shortcuts, stores and hiding places of your childhood, including the ones that have since closed or been torn down, and write down what you remember of each.

Updated

Why map your childhood neighborhood?

Because the memories are still there and the places are going. Psychologists call the pattern the reminiscence bump: when David Rubin and Matthew Schulkind asked 70-year-olds for memories in a 1997 study, a disproportionate share came from between the ages of 10 and 30. The streets you knew at that age hold more of your life than their size suggests, and a map is a quick way back into them.

What should you pin?

  • Your house, and the houses of the friends you walked to
  • The route to school, and the shortcut you weren't supposed to take
  • The store where you spent your allowance
  • The field, lot or dead-end street where everyone played
  • The best hiding place, and the best sledding hill
  • Where you learned to swim and where you learned to ride a bike
  • The house everyone was afraid of
  • Where you got hurt, and how you got home
  • Your first job
  • Where the teenagers went, and where you went when you became one
The gap in the fence behind the Hendersons' garage. It cut ten minutes off the walk to school and took you past a dog that hated everyone. I used it every day for six years.
Example pin: the shortcut, 1978

How do you map a place that isn't there any more?

Put the pin where it stood. Write what it was, what you did there and what stands there now. If you have an old photograph, or can find one in a family album, attach it. The pin stays on your map after the building has gone.

The video store on Main. Friday nights, one new release and one old one, and an argument in the car about which. It's a vape shop now.
Example pin: a store that closed, 1994

How do you get started?

  1. Open the map on the street you grew up on and zoom in until you can see your block.
  2. Pin your house first. Choose "Add a story," place the pin and write what you'd see walking in the front door.
  3. Walk the route to school in your head and pin whatever you pass.
  4. Date each pin with the year you were that age.
  5. Invite a sibling or an old friend by email. They'll remember the places you've forgotten, and argue with the ones you got wrong.

When you run out, the 100 memory prompts by place will find more.

Can you turn it into a walk?

Yes. Mark a handful of stories "Only readable at this place" and invite your family. Each one shows as a locked pin that opens only when someone is standing at the spot, which turns a visit home into a walk around your childhood, one story at a time. How location-locked stories work.

Questions about hometown maps

Can I share my hometown map with a local history group?

Yes. Switch on the public link and post it. Anyone with the link can read the map without an account. A public link shows every pin on your map, so if you also keep private memories, make a separate account with another email address for the map you share.

How do I write down memories of my childhood neighborhood?

Take one place at a time. Pin it on a map, then write two or three sentences about what happened there and who was with you. A list of places is easier to start than a blank page, and a memory map such as Here My Story keeps each memory at its spot.