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How would you like to leave a record of your life for your great-great-great-grandchildren? That's the future for participants of StoryCorps, an American oral history project - described as "a story-foraging mission of epic proportions".

StoryCorps facilitators record the conversations of two people who know each other well in recording booths that are located across the USA.

People can talk about anything. "What has been the happiest moment of your life?" or "What do you want to be remembered for?" or "Is there anything that you haven't told me that you want to tell me now?".

The result is an archive of American voices held at the Library of Congress for posterity.

Part one

What makes people want to share their most private thoughts and feelings - not just with someone close, but with the world at large?

Part one features a man with Alzheimer's disease, fishing for facts about his family from his daughter; a couple who talk about the love letters he leaves for her on the kitchen table; and the process of reconciliation for a man whose daughter was murdered by an intruder to her home.

First broadcast 27 November, 2009