I · Families
A family history is not a transcript. It is a book somebody actually reads.
Interviews by secure video, anywhere in the world. Written from living memory, photographs, letters, family Bibles and whatever documents survive.
Almost every family has the same three things: somebody who remembers, somebody who has been meaning to ask, and a box nobody has opened since the funeral. What is missing is the person who sits between them and writes it down properly.
I interview the people who remember — usually over several conversations, because the second one is always better than the first and the third is where the real material arrives. I work from your photographs and papers. Then I write a continuous narrative in your family’s own voice: not a transcript, not a scrapbook, not a chronology of dates.
Where the record ends, the writing says so. No gap is ever quietly filled in.
How it works
-
The fifteen-minute call
Free, no obligation. You tell me who the subject is and what you already have. I tell you honestly whether there is a book in it, and whether I am the right person. Nothing is quoted on this call.
-
A written proposal
Scope, number of interviews, length, timeline and a fixed price, in writing, before any work begins. You can put it down at this point and owe nothing.
-
Interviews
By secure video, in sittings of about ninety minutes, usually two to six of them depending on the scope. Recorded so I can work from the actual words. Family members can join separately — people say different things when their sister is not on the call.
-
Documents and photographs
You send scans or photographs of whatever exists: letters, certificates, the flyleaf of a family Bible, a church bulletin, a deed, a photograph nobody can caption. I catalogue what is there and, just as importantly, what is not.
-
The writing
Written by hand, start to finish. Typically six to sixteen weeks depending on length. You see a full draft, not fragments.
-
Two rounds of correction
Your family reads it and corrects the facts. This is where the best material usually arrives — reading a draft dislodges memories that a question never does.
-
Delivery
Print-ready PDF and an editable Word file. Photographs placed and captioned. Yours to keep, copy, print and give away, with no ongoing fee and no licence to me.
Straight answers
Questions people actually ask
What does it cost?
It depends entirely on scope — one interview written up as a long passage is a different job from a hundred-page family history with four narrators. That is why nothing is quoted before the call. What I will promise is a fixed price in writing before you pay anything, and no changes to it later.
My grandmother is ninety-four and repeats herself.
That is normal and it is workable. Repetition is information — the story somebody has told two hundred times is the one that mattered most to them, and the small variations between tellings are often where the truth is. I have done this work with people in early dementia. Shorter sittings, more of them, and a family member present.
What if the family disagrees about what happened?
Then the disagreement goes in. Two accounts, both attributed, no adjudication. That is more honest than picking one and it is almost always more interesting to read.
There is something in our family we do not want written.
Tell me at the start and it stays out. You control what is included; I only control that nothing included is invented. If leaving something out would make the rest misleading, I will say so and we decide together.
Who does the writing?
I do. Every commissioned narrative is written and edited by me. I do not use AI to draft, rewrite or 'polish' the commissioned narrative.
We are not in Canada.
It does not matter. Interviews are by secure video and I have worked with families across time zones. The only real constraint is scheduling around somebody who naps at three.
Where to start
Send me 250 words about one person.
No fee, no obligation. I will shape what you send into a finished passage, return it, and tell you honestly what your material could become. If the answer is that you do not need me, I will say that too.
Shape it before I write it
Your Story Mixer
Use twelve simple sliders to show me the balance you want: emotion, humour, intimacy, detail, historical context, faith, difficult memories, voice and legacy. Not sure? Leave anything in the middle and ask me to guide you.