Chris Wisniewski

My own story begins with a diverse background in art, design, sociology, anthropology, history, and web design. At university, I spent time in Flagstaff, Arizona, studying and working with members of several Native American tribes. While studying with Navajo teachers, I was introduced to the Navajo belief that there are two types of wealth a person may obtain. The first is the wealth obtained through physical objects, such as blankets, sheep, turquoise, and silver. The second type of wealth came through the knowledge of stories, songs, folklore, and cultural ceremonies. Both were valued equally among the Diné. It was a concept that resonated with me on a very personal level.

In 2009 I founded a company called Saving Stories, a personal history business dedicated to preserving your memoirs, milestones, and personal history. We work with individuals, families, businesses, and non-profits to produce archival-quality hardcover or paperback books with your stories and personal photographs. Everyone has an interesting story to tell. Saving Stories can help you ensure your story can be shared with generations to come.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved listening to people's stories. My career as a personal historian began more than 30 years ago, working with my own family — doing research, asking questions, and recording interviews with my extended family about their memories of the past. I am well versed in conducting research from a wide range of records to help round out oral histories. You can frequently find me at the National Archives researching census records, ship manifests, naturalization documents, and alien registration records. I have extensive experience locating records of birth, marriage, and death from a variety of sources. I love researching old newspapers and periodicals or digging through local history collections to locate additional information to support a family's story. Just as every person is singular, the path of research each project leads me down varies, depending on the needs and requests of the family. It's that variety which makes this work so interesting — searching for new doors to open up to illuminate the past.

I have become passionate about preserving people's stories. I know the impact saving and sharing stories has had in my own family. I feel privileged to be able to help others preserve their stories to share with their family and friends. While I enjoy the challenge of helping families find their roots, I love capturing the stories behind the names and photos in a family tree even more. It is by preserving those little details that we can give life, meaning, and understanding to the names and faces in our past. It is those stories and details that are so often lost from one generation to the next.

I currently reside in the tiny seaside town of Wellfleet, Mass., where I am not only passionate about saving stories, I'm also passionate about: travel to expand my view of the world; singing to feed my soul; reading authors who make me pause and appreciate the beauty of well-crafted words; and long conversations with friends or strangers that cause me to look deeper inside myself for understanding.