In this episode, Maureen Taylor speaks with Glen Meakem, founder and CEO of Forever.com. Glen shares his inspiration for starting the company in 2012—recognizing a gap in long-term, secure, digital storage for family memories. Forever offers users a permanent digital home to store and share photos, videos, and documents with guaranteed access for future generations. Unlike other cloud platforms, Forever emphasizes ownership, privacy, and permanence, supported by a sustainable financial model. Glen also discusses their digitization services, metadata functionality, and commitment to customer support and continuous innovation, highlighting Forever’s mission to preserve memories for lifetimes to come.

Key Bullet Points:

• Glen Meakem founded Forever.com in 2012 to fill a gap in long-term digital memory preservation.
• Forever.com provides permanent cloud storage for photos, videos, and documents, guaranteed for your lifetime plus 100 years.
• The Forever.com Guarantee Fund ensures sustainable digital preservation through an endowment-like financial structure.
• Services include digitization of analog media, real-time phone backups, photo book printing, and more.
• Users retain full ownership and control over their data, with options to manage legacy settings and metadata.
• Forever offers exceptional customer support via ambassadors and dedicated service teams.
• Constant updates ensure the platform evolves with changing technology.

Related Episodes:

Episode 260 : The Photo Marketplace Shift: What It Means for Your Memories

Episode 237: How Storied.com Transforms Family HIstory into Captiving Stories

Links:

• Forever.com
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Glen Meakem is the Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of FOREVER, the leading cloud platform for people and families to save, organize, and share their photos, videos, documents, audio files, and stories now and for generations into the future. Learn more at www.forever.com.

Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective® helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations.

Support the show

Ron Coddington, editor and publisher of Military Images magazine, joins The Photo Detective podcast to share his journey from teenage Civil War photo collector to leading a respected history publication. He discusses the legacy of Civil War portraiture, the vast archive of surviving images, and the magazine’s mission to reconnect forgotten faces with their stories.

• The magazine, founded in 1979, showcases rare Civil War portraits and stories behind them.
• Civil War photography is vast—estimated at 40 million images taken, with millions surviving.
• A database of 10,000+ identified soldiers is now available online and via JSTOR.
• Traveling exhibits like Faces of Freedom bring Civil War stories to new audiences.

Related Episodes:
Episode 265: Spared and Shared: How One Man Made Civil War History Accessible to All

Episode 259: Digging Into Civil War Pension Files with Brian Rhinehart

Links:

• Military Images Magazine
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out The Family Photo Detective ebook
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:
Ronald S. Coddington began collecting Civil War-era photography as a teenager, and he has never stopped. A journalist by profession, he is the Editor and Publisher of Military Images, a quarterly magazine showcasing, interpreting, and preserving Civil War portrait photography. He is the author of the five-volume series, Faces of the Civil War (Johns Hopkins University Press), and Gettysburg Faces: Portraits and Personal Accounts (Gettysburg Publishing). His writings have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Civil War Monitor, Civil War Times, Civil War News, and elsewhere. You can follow his trips down the research rabbit hole on Life in the Civil War Research Trail weekdays on YouTube.

About Maureen Taylor:
Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective® helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations.

Support the show

In this episode, Griff (Bill Griffing), the mind behind the Spared and Shared websites, shares how he turned his post-retirement passion for Civil War history into a monumental historical preservation project. Transcribing over 15,000 letters—mostly from eBay—Griff provides context, authorship, and insight for Civil War correspondence, making them publicly accessible. His meticulous work bridges genealogical research and historical scholarship. His efforts have supported publications, academic research, and even led to a book on Abraham Lincoln. Griff’s dedication ensures these firsthand historical voices are preserved and searchable for generations.

• Griff has transcribed over 15,000 historical letters, primarily from the Civil War era.
• His Spared and Shared project spans over 23 public websites and more than 160 collection-specific sites.
• His work is freely available and indexed via the Billy Yank & Johnny Reb Letters site.
• A book he co-edited, A Great and Good Man, compiles rare Lincoln accounts from these letters.

Related Episodes:
Episode 259: Digging Into Civil War Pension Files with Brian Rhinehart

Episode 245: The Enduring Legacy of Tintypes From Civil War Soldiers to Contemporary Artists

Links:

• Spared and Shared Facebook
• Billy Yank & Johnny Reb Letters
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Need help preserving your photos? Check out Maureen’s Preserving Family Photographs ebook
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out The Family Photo Detective ebook
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

For the past fifteen years following his retirement, William Griffing dedicated himself to the transcription of letters—encompassing thousands of Civil War era correspondence and diaries that have remained unpublished until now, with most residing in private collections for decades. A significant portion of this work has been presented on various Spared & Shared Webpages or in independent, stand-alone websites.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective® helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations.

Support the show