Latest Articles
Using Maps and Places to Unlock Family Memories
Maps and places are among the most powerful anchors for memory. Asking someone to describe a childhood home, a neighbourhood, or a town they left behind often unlocks…
Using a Family Reunion to Gather Life Stories
A family reunion is a gathering, but it is also, if you approach it deliberately, an extraordinary research opportunity. Cousins who grew up in different branches of the…
Memoir Structure: How to Shape a Life Story That Reads Well
A memoir is not just a record of events. It is a shaped account — one that has a perspective, a voice, and a reason for existing. Many…
How to Build a Family Archive From Scratch
A family archive is more than a collection of old photos in a box. Done well, it is a structured set of materials — documents, recordings, images, and…
Making the Most of Short Conversations for Life Story Research
Most people, when they think about recording a life story, imagine sitting down for a long formal interview. But some of the richest material comes from much shorter,…
How to Involve Other Family Members in a Life Story Project
A family history project often begins with one person’s determination to preserve what they know before it is lost. But it rarely stays a solo endeavour for long.…
Capturing Stories in Unplanned Conversations
Some of the most valuable moments in a life story project happen not in a planned interview but in an unguarded conversation — at the dinner table, during…
How to Write a Short Biography for a Family Archive
A biography written for a family audience is different from the kind of biography you find in a bookshop. It does not need to be long, literary, or…
Recovering Women’s Stories in Family History
Many families discover, when they begin to explore their history, that they know very little about the lives of the women in it. Grandmothers, great-aunts, and women further…
Creating a Family Heirloom Inventory: Objects and the Stories Behind Them
Not every life story is recorded in words. Some of the richest family histories live in the objects that have been passed down — the tools, the textiles,…
Recording Childhood Memories: Questions and Approaches
Childhood is the part of a life story that is most likely to be forgotten — not because it was unimportant, but because the person who lived it…
How to Annotate Family Photographs for Future Generations
Photographs are among the most powerful tools in life story preservation — but only if we know who is in them and what they show. A box of…