How to record your family’s stories while you still can
Every family means to do this. Few get around to it, usually because it feels like a big project. It does not need to be. You need a question, a quiet room and a way to keep what they say.
Three ways to do it
Sit down with a phone
Free and personal. Put your phone on the table, press record, and ask. The hard part is afterwards: the recordings pile up unlistened, untitled and hard to share.
A written question service
Some services email a question each week and collect written answers into a printed book. Great for parents who like to write.
EverTold: a spoken conversation that becomes stories for everyone
For parents who would rather talk. EverTold asks out loud, listens and follows up. Every answer is written up, narrated and kept with their real recordings, and each relative hears the story told from their own place in the family, with a story-time version for kids.
Doing it yourself, step by step
- Pick a quiet time with no deadline: a Sunday afternoon, a long drive.
- Choose three specific questions in advance. See our list of questions to ask your parents.
- Record on your phone, close to them, in a room without a television on.
- Follow up instead of moving on: "What did that look like?", "Who else was there?"
- Name each file right away with the date and the topic.
- Share copies with siblings so the recordings live in more than one place.
What they need for EverTold
Just a phone, tablet or computer with a web browser and an internet connection. There is no app to install and no password to remember: the gift email signs them in.
What only EverTold does
Each relative hears the story from their own place in the family
When Mom tells a story about her brother, her daughter hears it as a story about "your uncle" and her grandson hears "your great-uncle", read aloud in a warm storyteller’s voice. Every listener gets the version that makes sense to them.
Story time for the grandkids
A grandchild can tap a story at bedtime and hear it retold for a child: the same true story, simpler words, a gentler pace. Adults get the faithful telling.
A real conversation, not a writing assignment
EverTold asks a question out loud, listens, and follows up, like a patient grandchild on a phone call. It waits for them to finish. Nobody has to write a thing.
Their real voice, kept
The recordings of their answers are saved privately for the family, right next to the written stories, so you keep the way they actually sound.
Handed down for generations
A family library that keeps growing, paid for once. No subscription, no renewal, nothing to cancel.
The family can ask for more
Anyone in the family can send a question like "Mom, tell me about the farm". It goes to the real person, and their answer comes back as a new story.
The EverTold Forever Promise: One payment, no renewals, for as long as EverTold operates. Download everything any time. If EverTold ever closes, you get at least 6 months’ notice and then 90 days to download everything before anything is deleted. Read the full promise
Give EverTold
One storyteller, a lifetime family library, paid once.
Two storytellers, usually Mom and Dad, sharing one family library, paid once.
One payment, no subscription. 30 day refund. Delivered by email on the day you choose.
Give EverToldQuestions
What is the easiest way to record a parent’s life story?
Ask one specific question at a time and record the answer, either with a phone or with a service like EverTold, which asks the questions in a spoken conversation and turns the answers into narrated stories the family can listen to.