Where heritage lives.

The photographs survive. The stories don't.

Your family already has the boxes and the hard drives. What's missing is everything only one person still knows — who that is, why it mattered, what happened next. Cultural Home is where your family puts the story back, together, while they're still here to tell it.

Step inside → See pricing

Founding families move in this November. Public opening January 1, 2027.

The Royals · Augusta, Georgia, 1993Eight people · every one of them named

Who this is for

In every family, someone notices.

One person ends up holding the photographs and asking the questions nobody else thinks to ask. If you're reading this, it's probably you.

The Keeper

Starts the house

The daughter, the reunion organizer, the one already collecting everything. She opens the house and invites everybody in.

The Source

Knows the answers

The elder who carries the names, the traditions and the relationships. Their knowledge is what makes the archive worth anything — and gives it a deadline.

The Family

Adds and inherits

Children, siblings, cousins and the generations after them. They correct it, add to it, and eventually it's theirs.

Sylvester feeding his granddaughter at the kitchen table

Our story

I filmed my grandfather six days before he passed.

I didn't know it would be our last conversation. I only knew that something in me said: capture this.

That recording is the most valuable thing my family owns. There's no version of us that can be put back together without it.

My grandmother has dementia. She's still here. Her memories aren't. I've spent the years since learning the difference between having someone and having what they carried.

Cultural Home is built for now, while everybody's still at the table.

Jasmine BallardFounder, Cultural HomeCultural archivist · TEDx speaker

Your grandmother's hallway, made searchable.

Every family has this wall, and one person who can still name everyone on it. Cultural Home is that wall with the answers attached — tap a face and you get a whole person, and tap a photograph and you get the conversation about it.

Open a face. Open a photograph. Open the tree.

Watch a family put the story back.

This is the real product, running on my own family. Three things to try: tap a portrait to meet a person, open one of my grandmother's photographs to watch the family fill in what only she knows, and hit Family tree in the bar to see how Generations builds itself.

Living Room The Wall

Faces of the family

Alan

Father

Malik

Cousin

A map of who you come from.

You never build a chart. Add people, say how they're related, and it assembles itself.

SylvesterGrandfather

♥

Fossie MaeGrandmother

Their children

AlanFather

Child of Alan

JasmineYou

ValerieAunt

RodneyUncle

MichealUncle

Grandmother

Fossie Mae

Married to · Born 2 January 1936

Born in Northwest, North Carolina, daughter of Essie Mae and Henry. She ran Duck's Childcare out of Northwest for years, then spent thirty more as an educator — a working woman and a business owner before anybody used the word entrepreneur for women like her. She went to Fayetteville State. She ushered at the church and loved the Lord out loud.

Children

Alan
Micheal
Valerie
Rodney

Photos, video & voice

Six photographs, and only one of them has its story yet. Open the church steps to see how the rest get theirs.

Mama & us, Jan 62

AlanValerie+2

At the table, 1992

Jasmine

Clarkie, Henry & Fossie

Henry

Ballard family reunion

+ Tag

Radford reunion, 1982

+ Tag

Added by Valerie · March

The church steps

Fossie MaeLizaCrystal Spring Missionary Baptistc. 1958

What the family knows

ValerieMarch 3

Found this in the bottom of Mama's cedar chest. No date on the back.

JasmineMarch 3

Who is that on the left with Grandma?

Fossie MaeMarch 5 · voice note

▶

"That's my cousin Liza."

0:42

"That's my cousin Liza. We walked to that church from the Robinson place every Sunday, rain or not. Mama made us carry our shoes till we got to the road."

MichealMarch 6

Liza Robinson. I've got another one of her at the '71 reunion — adding it to her page now.

＋ Add what you know…

This is the whole product. A photograph nobody could date, turned into a record with a name, a place, a route to church and a voice — in three days, by four people, while she was still here to answer.

Grandfather

Sylvester

Married to · 1932 — 2024

Born in Northwest, North Carolina. He came home from the service and stayed close to the land after that — horses first, then whatever he could get to grow. He kept a garden until he couldn't. A family man in the plain sense of it: he was there, every day, for everybody.

The last conversation

▶His life story, in his own voiceWatch · transcribed · searchable

Recorded six days before he passed. Nobody knew. Every family gets a window like this — almost nobody notices it while it's open.

The white suit

The house he built

Sylvester & Fossie Mae

Fossie Mae

The house

Four rooms. You already know what goes where.

Room 01

Living Room

The Wall, photo albums, the message board — and where the family meets on video.

Room 02

Kitchen

Recipes in her handwriting, with her voice attached.

Room 03

Bedroom

Private to one person. Journal, time capsules, the files your heirs will need.

Room 04

Attic

Documents, oral histories, deeds and funeral programs — filed by person, searchable by name.

The Kitchen

The recipe, and the part she never wrote down.

Her card, photographed as she wrote it. Her voice attached, telling you the thing no card holds — when to stop, what it should smell like.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

from Charlotte · Grandmother

#sundays#castiron

As she wrote it

Pineapple Upside Down 1 stick butter — melt it in the black skillet
1 cup brown sugar, packed down
1 can sliced pineapple, drained
cherries, one in every ring
yellow cake batter — then — Bake till it pulls from the side.
Let it sit 10 min. Flip it warm.

▶

"Don't you flip it cold."

1:42

The Attic

The paper nobody else kept.

Funeral programs, deeds, church records — the pages that live in one person's closet and disappear when it gets cleared. Photograph it with your phone; find it by name years later.

Lizzie was my grandmother's grandmother — born 1901, buried in Pine Cemetery, Waynesboro, Georgia, 1982.

🏠 Attic › Lizzie

Funeral program for Mrs. Lizzie Heath — Her program, 1982

Lizzieb. 1901 — d. 1982Waynesboro, GA

The Bedroom

You are the archive too.

Nobody should have to die to be worth recording. The Bedroom is one person's own — your journal, your letters, the things you want your grandchildren to have in your words instead of somebody's memory of them.

You're not only the one saving everybody else. You're in here.

Nobody can see inside a Bedroom — not even the keeper — unless its owner moves something out. Three come with a household, and elders never pay for theirs.

🔒 Private to you

JournalToday's thoughts, in your own voice.

Time CapsulesLetters that open on a future date.

Private AlbumsPhotos only you can see.

ClosetJewelry, heirlooms, what goes to who.

EntertainmentBooks, music, movies you love.

Ancestral FilesObituary, will & trust — for your heirs.

🛡 Heirs & access · 1 of 2

Choose up to two relatives who can unlock read-only access to your Bedroom — when you decide to give it, or after you're gone. Nothing is shared until you activate it.

SafiyyahStanding by

Activate

— Select a family member —Add heir

Two ways to live in it

Some people want help. Some want quiet.

An usher doesn't preach and never takes the pulpit. She meets you at the door, shows you where to sit, then leaves you alone. That's the only job I'll give a machine in this house.

Every house gets one, and you name yours. Mine is Pearl — my grandfather's sister, who gave me a peppermint stick every Christmas when I came to visit my grandparents.

A gold church usher pin from Crystal Spring Missionary Baptist Church — My grandmother's usher pin.

The quiet house.

Nothing suggests anything. You add what you want, when you want, and the rooms sit exactly as you left them.

No transcription, tagging or suggestions
Nothing analyzed, summarized or scanned
You can turn the Usher on later. It never turns itself on.

This is the default. For a lot of families the slowness is the ritual.

Living Room · this week Quiet

The church stepsAdded by you · Sunday

The structure out backAdded by Valerie · Tuesday

Sylvester Sr., 1953Added by Micheal · Friday

That's everything. Nothing else to see.

She threads things together.

The Usher does the tedious part and none of the part that matters. It notices, transcribes, and asks. It never decides.

Threads the same face across photos in different rooms
Transcribes recordings so you can search them by name
Suggests tags — you confirm every one
Tells you who's missing from the tree, and who hasn't been asked yet
Sees what's coming — a birthday, an anniversary, any family milestone — and offers to gather what already exists into an album or a short film

Living Room · this week Pearl is on

Sylvester Sr., 1953Added by Micheal · Friday

🕊PearlThreaded

This woman also appears in The church steps and Mama & us, Jan 62 — three photos, two rooms. Same person?

Yes, that's Fossie MaeNoNot sure

🕊PearlTranscript ready

Sylvester's recording is done — 41 minutes. He names eleven people. Four aren't on the Wall yet.

Show me the fourLater

🕊PearlSaturday

Two years since Sylvester, on Saturday. I've gathered 14 photographs of him and the 41-minute recording. Want me to put something together the family can watch?

Make an albumMake a short filmNot this year

One rule we'll never break.

You can name your Usher after someone you love. It will never speak as them. No recreated voices, no invented memories, no "here's what she might have said." An archive keeps what was actually said, by the person who said it.

Your house notices.

It remembers the days you meant to.

Birthdays, anniversaries, first days of school, the day somebody's mother would have turned ninety. Cultural Home keeps them and tells you while there's still time to do something about it. Not a feed to check — a few words on a Tuesday, from the house.

This is your Usher doing the quiet part — noticing what's coming, noticing what the family added while you were busy, and already knowing there are six photographs of the two people whose anniversary it is.

You choose which kinds of dates reach you, and any of them can be turned off. A death anniversary should never arrive uninvited.

Saturday9:33

Cultural Home8:04 AM

Sylvester & Fossie Mae's 70th wedding anniversary would have been today. Pearl put together a short film from the Living Room.

▶ Watch it

Cultural HomeYesterday

Valerie added her peach cobbler recipe to the Kitchen — in her mother's handwriting.

＋ Schedule a family cook-along

Cultural HomeThu

Randy & Darlene's 35th wedding anniversary is Wednesday. Elijah started second grade.

A neighborhood, not a feed.

The Block.

Your house is private. The Block is the street it sits on — workshops, prompts, and what families choose to share. Block party, not timeline.

Included with every household — if you're in Cultural Home, you're on the Block. And nothing from your house appears here unless you post it.

Preserving a church or a neighborhood instead of a family? That's work we do through Melanotion, our nonprofit.

Workshop · Thursday 12 November · 7 PM ET

Digitizing the Shoebox

Bring one box. Ninety minutes, together: what to scan first, how to photograph a fragile print without a scanner, and how to name things so a stranger could find them in forty years.

Free to householdsRecorded

Prompt of the week

What did your grandmother keep in her freezer that wasn't food?

One question a week, written to get at the specific instead of the sentimental. Answer it in your own Kitchen — nothing is shared unless you share it.

Recipe exchange · a family in Durham

Red drink, the way her grandmother actually made it

Families can post a recipe out of their own Kitchen with the attribution attached. Others pull it into their house and add their version underneath.

Reunion spotlight

Six states, 84 people, one recording booth in the corner

How one family turned a folding table and a phone tripod into eleven oral histories in an afternoon — including the two questions that worked on everybody.

Ten families, then the price changes.

Coming home.

Founding families move in this November and help shape Cultural Home before the public opening.

The Founding Household

Build it with your family.

$180

The founding rate, available to the first ten households. After the tenth it becomes $240 — and either way your access runs through December 31, 2027.

Move in this November, before the public opening
Use every room and feature available during the founding year
Invite relatives to add names, photographs, recipes, documents and voices to your shared family house
Three private Bedrooms — one for the Keeper and two to gift within your family
Founding-family feedback sessions with Jasmine
A monthly letter from Jasmine and a vote on what gets built next
Export everything, anytime, in open formats

Become a founding family

Ten places at $180. Everyone after pays $240 for the same term.

The Family Interview

Your Cultural Home, curated with you.

$1,200

Three households only. Includes everything in the Founding Household through December 31, 2027, at no extra cost.

A recorded oral history with your elder or family Source, conducted by Jasmine
A complete transcript, edited and indexed
Your family materials organized and added to the appropriate rooms
Your Cultural Home set up with you, so you're not uploading everything alone
A written family narrative you can print and share

Ask about an interview

Three, because Jasmine conducts and curates every one herself.

The Toolshed

Some work software can't do. We're building a short list of vetted partners — genealogists, digitization, oral historians, care coordination and estate planning. Referral relationships always disclosed, and nothing is ever surfaced based on what you just uploaded.

What happens after 2027?

Your founding access covers everything listed here through December 31, 2027. Before that term ends you'll receive the public subscription options and decide whether to continue. The founding price is not a lifetime rate — we'd rather tell you that now than surprise you later.

The promise

The house is still being built. Your room is already safe.

Between November and January things will move. Here's the line we won't cross: the interface can change — what your family puts in it cannot. Nothing you add will break or disappear. Export is built in from day one, so you never have to take our word for it.

I have thousands of photos. Do I have to upload them alone?

No — and this is the honest answer to the hardest part. Bulk uploading is real work, so for founding families I help you move in. The Family Interview includes me setting your rooms up and filling them with you. For everyone else we're building phone-library import and a scanning partner, and I'll tell you plainly when each is ready.

What do I get between now and January?

You move in this November, before the public opening — the term runs through December 2027 either way, so those first months are yours. Plus feedback sessions with me, a letter each month, and a vote on what gets built next.

What exactly am I buying?

Founding access to Cultural Home from November through December 31, 2027 — every room and every feature available during that term, for your whole family. The first ten households pay $180; after that it's $240 for the same access. Before the term ends you'll get the public options and choose whether to continue. It isn't a lifetime rate, and we won't pretend it is.

Do our senior family members have to learn an app?

No. You hold the household, you do the recording, you add the photographs. They just talk. Their Bedroom is free, and someone else can be named keeper alongside you.

What if the launch date moves?

You'll hear it from me, not from a banner — and you can have a full refund, no conversation required.

What's the refund policy?

Full refund for any reason within 30 days of payment, and a full refund after that if we fail to open your home by the date we promised. The Family Interview is refundable up to 14 days before your session; once it's been recorded the fee covers work already done. Refunds land back on your card within 7–10 business days. Email privacy@myculturalhome.com — no form, no retention pitch. The full text lives in the Terms.

What if Cultural Home goes away?

The right question before uploading anything irreplaceable. Everything exports at any time in open formats — photos as files, recordings as audio, text as documents. Your archive isn't hostage to our existence.

Become a founding family

Become a founding household.

Tell me about your family and which door you're coming through. I'll be in touch within two days.