We all have story. Some parts are good, some bad, some in between. Not only do we own our stories, but so too do the people we interact with, the people who love us.

This is the portion of a life story — the story friends, family and coworkers could tell for you — that inspired Warren Central High School graduate Jeremy Cantrell.

Cantrell, the creator of the new social media website StoryBrancher, was inspired by his grandfather, who passed away from lung cancer in 2004.

“One weekend, I was visiting (while right before his death),” Cantrell recalled. “We sat. We talked. I had known my grandfather my entire life, but at that point, I thought I should start asking him about his life experiences. I realized I never really knew his story. I knew him, but I didn’t know his story.”

Though Cantrell said he didn’t start seriously working on StoryBrancher until 2014, the idea for the social media website hatched from that moment. The website combines “news-like, objective facts about people, places and things with anecdotal stories and thoughts to present rich biographies on everyday people,” according to a press release. Think a combination of Wikipedia and Facebook.

“I remember thinking there’s Wikipedia, but there are restrictions — they have to be prominent people,” he said.

His grandfather wasn’t prominent, but Cantrell said he still wanted to preserve his story, to share it with others, much like people do via Facebook.

“If you’re not sharing it, it pretty much dies eventually,” he explained.

On the website, the story section consists of the biographical information about a person, place or thing, like on Wikipedia, and the anecdotal aspects that other people can add are called branches, hence StoryBrancher. The branches can be shared and liked similar to Facebook, he said.

“I’m now just opening it up to membership,” Cantrell said, noting he’s spent the past two years working out kinks and improving design while using friends and family to test the site. “Pretty much on every level, it’s been developing over time.”

Cantrell, a defense contractor, said he had the idea but needed the help of freelance web developers to get it off the ground. It was an undertaking he said he has been spending more and more time developing.

“It’s had its ups and downs,” he said. “I just kept at it because it meant something to me. I think I’ve gotten to the point it’s a viable, meaningful platform.”

The biggest challenge, Cantrell said, has been simplifying the information input process for stories, and in order to create “a more robust input system that is easier to use,” he has created a crowd-funding account with a $10,000 goal for those and other improvements in loading speed, design, etc.

“I’m learning as I go,” he said of the on-going development of the site.

For more information on StoryBrancher, visit its website, storybrancher.com, or to donate to the site visit indiegogo.com/projects/storybrancher#.