About ToldForward
A safe place for a life, in the person's own words.
ToldForward helps people record their memories, values and the way they think, privately, while they are living. After they are gone, it hands that record to the people they choose and, if they wish, to a partner library or archive for future generations.
Why we built it
Most of what people know about their family fits on a few lines: names, dates, places. What is lost is how someone thought, what they hoped for, and why they made the choices they did. That is what families wish they had asked about.
We built ToldForward to keep those words safe and to hand them over carefully: only to the people the person named, only after their passing is confirmed, and only after a waiting period of at least 6 months, so grief comes first.
Some of those words matter beyond one family. A life told in the person's own dated words is the kind of first-hand account libraries and archives collect. So, with Archive Membership, members can choose a Historical Deposit for after they are gone.
What we will never do
- Imitate anyone. The guide quotes a person's own words with their dates, and always speaks about them, never as them.
- Keep a voice or a face. We never receive audio or images of you.
- Sell your data, or use it for advertising.
- Make a record public or searchable while its owner is living.
- Build a record about someone from other people's material. Only the person can create their own.
- Train AI on a record without its owner's separate, revocable permission. Nobody under 18 uses the guide.
Who runs it
ToldForward serves people in the United States. We host it with Cloudflare, whose network carries the site worldwide. Your record is stored in the United States until we move it to Cloudflare, and then in North America wherever Cloudflare lets us choose.
We run ToldForward and hold the records ourselves. For the long term, we encourage a Historical Deposit, which gives a record a home beyond the family and beyond us, with a partner library or archive. If ToldForward ever closes, every record is released early: to the member while they are living, or after their passing to the people they named, with the waiting period still kept.
We are a small team. When you write to us, a person reads it and replies.
Why it costs what it does
A membership pays for looking after a record for decades, reviewing every reported death, and handing a whole record to each person named.