def. discovering information about oneself via “material culture”.

As I get older I remember less about myself. Where was I in a given year? Where was I living, who was I hanging out with? What were my interests? What am I not remembering?

Lately I've been doing a sort of archaeological dig on myself, investigating my own records, belongings, and digital traces in order to remember.

Where was I?

Materials:

• Bills - these often have addresses and can tell you where you lived in a particular time period.
• Receipts - if digital (online shopping), almost always have shipping addresses
• Email is a good source, as in every case
• Photographs - if you took them or are in them, they localize you to a place - metadata or memory can supply the date, and often have GPS coordinates. Geotagging photos is super useful. Even if you don't have geotagged photos, someone else might
• Google Timeline, or anything that you use or used to use that logged your location
• Flight receipts - email, credit card portals, airline websites, travel portals you use
• Transaction history - credit card transaction logs always list merchant names can localize you to a place on a date

Think outside the box. Lots of things log your location. Online account login history can show you if you logged in on a particular device; that can localize you to a place.

Who was I with?

Materials:

• Instant message logs
• Email
• Photographs

All of these show you who you were talking to or who you were with.