Interest in preserving and sharing personal sentimental objects in digital format is increasing. This paper examines the use of a professional archiving service (the YKSA archiving service and the YKSA client) for the construction of a family archive. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach are described as a result of a case study. The paper claims that using the professional archiving service makes family archiving more plausible and a multi-purpose undertaking. The description of archived objects seems to encourage the archive creators to tell stories. This social and storytelling motivation should be exploited when developing the professional archiving services. Special attention should be paid to the multimedia features of a digital archive service and to the feasibility of the offline management software.