Resources
Guides to recording a life story
Everything here is free, complete, and useful whether or not you ever become a member. Nothing is held back behind a sign-up - a guide that withholds the good part is not a guide.
Questions to ask
50 Questions to Ask Your Parents About Their Life
Fifty questions that get real answers, grouped by era, plus the four follow-ups that matter more than the list itself.
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Questions to Ask Your Grandparents
Forty questions, including the ones that reach back to great-grandparents nobody else can tell you about.
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How to record
How to Record Your Parents' Life Story
A ten-step guide: setting, equipment, what to ask first, and the four mistakes that end most family projects in session one.
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What Makes a Good Life-Story Interview?
The funnel, the process question, the five-second silence, and why you must never correct them.
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How to Record Family History in Someone's Own Voice
Where to put the phone, what ruins a recording, and how to make sure the audio still plays in fifty years.
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Writing and keeping it
How to Write a Memoir When You Don't Like Writing
Four approaches for people who talk far better than they type - and why the blank page defeats nearly everybody.
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The Difference Between a Memoir and an Autobiography
Not a pedantic distinction: which one you think you are writing determines whether you ever finish it.
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How to Preserve Family Stories for Future Generations
What actually survives a century, what quietly does not, and the six decisions that determine which yours will be.
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Where to go next
If you would rather have the interviewing done for you, Rosie does everything these guides describe - the opening question, the follow-ups, the transcription, the organising - and keeps the recording. If you would rather do it yourself with a phone and an afternoon, use the guides above and good luck: it is a genuinely worthwhile way to spend a Sunday.
Or let Rosie ask the questions.
She does the follow-ups too, every session.
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