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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 "Did I turn out to be the son you wanted?" 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 two

The second part of the series follows the mobile StoryCorps recording booth to small town America. To Colorado.

One question comes from an adopted daughter asks her adopted father "How did you know I was meant to be?"

He says "I went to the orphanage and they bring you in. You were not yet three. And you pointed to me and said 'papa'. And I just about lost it."

Voices on civil rights, from prisoners, between a man who'd had breast cancer and his daughter - are no less striking or touching - and turn this national scheme into a project that showcases what is best about America.

First broadcast 4 December, 2009.