Heritage and Family Memory

Your Family, In Your Family's Keeping

The relatives beside you and the ancestors behind you. Photographs, recorded voices, the moments worth marking, and the name your clan carries — held in one vault that belongs to your family.

A legacy page in the Sibaya app for an example family elder, Nomsa Dlamini. It lists her clan and family, buttons to add photos, a message, a call or a memory, and collections for voice recordings, stories, videos, photos and recipes.

What You Hold

The People, the Names, the Voices

Your Clan

The History Behind Your Name

Your clan's meaning, its praise names and where it began, maintained with the councils and custodians who hold that knowledge and credited to them.

A clan profile, maintained with clan custodians.

A clan profile in the Sibaya app, showing the clan's region, member and story counts, the meaning of its name, its praise names in the original language, and several paragraphs of its recorded history.

Your Circles

Who Is In the Room

Private family and clan circles you create, and heritage circles you can ask to join. You choose which, and you choose who.

Circles, before any have been joined.

The Circles screen in the Sibaya app, with a button to create or join a circle, above a list of heritage and clan circles that can be joined, each showing its member count and region.

Inside a Family Vault

Four Things a Family Keeps

  • The People You Come From

    Living relatives and the ancestors behind them, and how each one connects to you.

  • Voices and Photographs

    A recorded voice, a photograph, a story told once, a recipe in someone's own words.

  • The Name Your Clan Carries

    Clan origins, praise names and history, maintained with the custodians who hold them.

  • Kept Among Your Own

    Family and clan circles you form, holding what you have chosen to put in them.

Beginning

Three Steps to Begin

  1. Add Your People

    The relatives you know, and the ones you only know of.

  2. Keep What Would Otherwise Go

    Record a voice, write down a story, add a photograph or a date that matters.

  3. Bring Your Family In

    Invite the people who should be holding this alongside you.

See This in More Detail

Custodianship

Your Family's Record Stays Your Family's

What a family puts into a vault is among the most personal information it will ever hand to anyone. How that is held is described in plain language, and so is what has not been settled yet.

  • You Decide Who Is In

    You choose who joins a circle. Membership is yours to grant and yours to withdraw.

  • A Vault Holds One Family

    Circles are built so that what a family puts in them is seen by the family and clan members that family has chosen.

  • Told Plainly What Is Held

    How a family's record is treated is described in plain language, including the parts that are settled and the parts still being written.

How Sibaya Holds Family Data Safety

A Life, Set Down

Your grandmother's voice, kept. The year she was born, the town she left, the work she did, the interviews she sat for — one line at a time, in her family's hands.

A life timeline in the Sibaya app for an example elder, running from birth in Bulawayo in 1938 through marriage, children, a move, qualifying as a teacher and a first recorded family interview, to her death in Durban in 2024. Beside it are her collections: 18 voice recordings, 37 stories and 9 videos.

Questions

What People Ask First

Answers describe Sibaya as it stands today.

What is Sibaya?

A family vault. It holds the relatives beside you and the ancestors behind them, the photographs and recorded voices, the dates worth marking, and the clan name your family carries — in one place your family keeps.

It is built for African and diaspora families, and the clan material in it is maintained with the councils and custodians who hold that knowledge.

Can I download Sibaya now?

No. Sibaya is not on the App Store or Google Play, and there is no public release today.

When there is, it will be on the availability page. There is no mailing list to join in the meantime.

Who can see what I add?

The members of the circle you put it in. You choose who joins a family or clan circle, and you can withdraw that.

Custodianship describes how a family’s record is held, including how ancestors and children are treated. The binding detail will be in the Privacy Policy, which is being written now.

What does Sibaya cost?

Sibaya is free to start, with 25GB.

  • Sibaya — free, 25GB.
  • Sibaya+ — R89 a month, 250GB.
  • Sibaya Legacy — R199 a month, 1TB.
  • Legacy Endowment — R7,999 once off.
  • Preserve Forever — R49.

Prices are in South African rand. Sibaya is never priced by the size of your family.

Which devices will Sibaya support?

iPhone and Android phones. The exact versions supported will be listed on the availability page once there is a release to list them against.

Visit the support centre

Availability

Sibaya Is Not Open Yet

There is no public release to download today. When there is, this page carries it.

Not yet on the App Store or Google Play — get notified at launch.

iPhone Coming soon Android Coming soon

Where Sibaya Will Be Available