About
What this is for
A lot of what the people around us know never gets written down. The remedy for an upset stomach. Why the basil keeps dying. The trick with the dough. The way a grandfather wired a plug. The phrase an aunt uses to settle a child. We forget. Life is busy. The moment to ask passes, until one day it cannot be asked anymore.
Family How-To is a voice-first notebook that captures those small daily wisdoms and organises them for you. Sit with the person who knows. Hold the button. Let them talk while they cook, garden, fix, or remember. The system transcribes what was said and keeps it on the right shelf for the next time you reach for it.
It works for both sides of the conversation. You can capture what someone close to you knows before it is lost. You can also start a notebook today and hand it on, to a child, a grandchild, a friend who will need it later. The focus is structure: recipes, remedies, ideas, the small ways of doing things, made easy to find again, for decades.
Notes are public by default. Your notebook contributes to a shared library that anyone can borrow from. Every borrowed note keeps a clear source tag, so you always know whose kitchen, workshop, or living room it came from. Private notes stay private; you choose per note.
Speak in any language. The recorder auto-detects what you say and you choose whether the card is filed in English or kept in the original language and script. The library is built to be readable family by family, wherever you are.
Family How-To is for anyone with knowledge worth keeping: a mother, a father, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a mentor, a neighbour, a friend, yourself. The instinct to pass things on is not only a mother's.
This family, you get to choose. Some shelves are filled by the people who raised you. Others are built from teachers, neighbours, friends, the older sister you found at work, the elder you met online. The shelves you build here are yours to keep, search when you need them, and grow over a lifetime. Borrow freely from anyone in the shared library, and add your own when you are ready.
The origin story
Family How-To was built by Szilvia Kocsy so she could learn everything she can from her mum, Piroska, who is multi-skilled, knows a great deal, and answers in Hungarian. Piroska spends hours answering strangers' questions in Facebook groups. This is the place those answers can live properly, searchable, in her own voice, for the people who will look for them later.
That is one family's reason. Yours will be different. The point is the same. Sit with the person who knows. Keep what they know. Pass it on.
Join us. Share what your own person knows. Let's make this connected, family by family, one curious person to another.
Built for those who still want to ask, and for those who can no longer.