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

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.

Where did I go?

Materials:

• Flight receipts - check google flights, credit card portals, airline websites, travel portals (expedia, hopper etc)
• Transaction history - credit card transaction logs always list merchant names; transactions can localize you to a place on a date
• Photographs - often contain geolocation metadata
• Google Timeline or other location services - scrub the timeline, see where you went