About Grandtell
A small site that asks the storyteller in a family one question at a time, and keeps every answer where the whole family can read it.
Why it exists
Most families mean to ask a parent or grandparent about their life, and most never quite get round to it. A printed journal of questions is a lovely gift that often stays blank, because a whole book of questions at once is a lot to face. A long form or a video call puts the storyteller on the spot. Grandtelltakes the opposite approach: one question, in large type, with as long as they like to answer it, and the next one only when they are ready.
How it is built
The pages are static files. A small server keeps the books, questions and answers in one database on Cloudflare and decides, at 9:00 on each question day in the storyteller's own time zone, whether a new question goes out. The person who keeps the book signs in with a passkey, so the site never holds a password. The storyteller and the family need no account: each has a long random link, and the database keeps only a scrambled form of it.
It asks for as little as it can. The storyteller is known only by what the family calls them, such as Grandma. Suggestions from the family refuse email addresses and phone numbers, and who is asking is picked from a short fixed list, so a grandchild never has to type their name. There is no advertising, no tracking script and no data shared for marketing. The stories are kept until you delete them, and you can download the book any time.
Who it is for
A grown-up child or grandchild giving the gift of being asked. It suits a storyteller who is happy on a phone or tablet but does not want another account, and a family spread across towns or countries who would like to read the same stories as they arrive.
What it is not
It is not a printing service and checks no facts: the stories are the family's own words. It gives no medical, legal or genealogy advice. It does not email the storyteller or the family, ever. Grandtell is not affiliated with any memoir, printing or family-history company.
Install it
On a phone it can sit on your home screen like an app. On an iPhone or iPad, open the Share menu in Safari and choose Add to Home Screen. On other browsers, use Install in the menu. For the storyteller, the same works with their own link open, so the question is one tap away.
Contact
Questions and problem reports go to [email protected]. A report that names the page and what you pressed is the quickest to fix.