The Everyone blog
Stories about stories.
History, memory, and how to capture the lives of the people you love, before they’re gone.
How toQuestions to Ask Your Dad About His LifeMost fathers pass on their stories as lessons, or not at all. The best questions to ask your dad about his life, and why his side so often goes missing.
How toQuestions to Ask Your Grandparents Before It’s Too LateYour grandparents can reach back 150 years of family memory, further than anyone else alive. The questions to ask them, and why the window is short.
IdeasLearning From the Mistakes of History: Does It Work?Learning from the mistakes of history is harder than the slogan suggests. The evidence says lessons survive when someone's own words carry them, and fade when they do not.
HistoryOrdinary People in History: Whose Stories Get Lost?Ordinary people in history rarely left a record of their own. Why most lives vanish, how historians recover a few, and why the fix is asking someone now.
IdeasThe Importance of Oral History: Why Life Stories MatterHistory is mostly the record of those who left records. The importance of oral history is that it lets ordinary lives into the evidence, while they can speak.
IdeasWrite a Biography of Yourself: Who Will Read It?Self-published memoirs pile up in secondhand bookshops. The problem is rarely the life. It is the format, and the audience. Here is what survives instead.
How toHow to Get a Parent to Talk About Their PastWhy reluctant parents refuse to be interviewed, and the ways of asking that actually work: asking for a favour, starting small, and leaving the hard years alone.
IdeasRecord a Life Story on Video: Why It Beats WritingWriting keeps the facts, audio keeps the voice, video keeps the person. Why video is the best way to record a life story, and where it falls short.
IdeasLife Story Interview: What Psychologists LearntDan McAdams has asked people to tell their lives as stories for decades. Here is what the life story interview found, and how to use it with family.
How toQuestions to Ask Your Mum (or Mom) About Her LifeFamilies rely on Mum to remember everything, yet few ask for her own story. The best questions to ask your mum or mom, and why she is hard to interview.
How toHow to Film an Interview at Home: Light, Sound and PropsWhy a window beats any lamp, why sound matters more than picture, and how the objects in a room unlock memories: a guide to filming a life story at home.
How toHow to Interview Older Family MembersMost interview advice assumes a listener in their prime. What hearing, memory and the life review change when the person across the table is eighty.
IdeasDigital Legacy: What Happens to Your Photos When You DieWe take around two trillion photos a year, yet most will be unreadable, locked away or meaningless within a generation. How a digital legacy actually survives.
IdeasQuestions I Wish I Had Asked My Parents: Why We WaitMore than half of us learn something about a parent only after they die. Why the questions we most want answered arrive too late, and how to ask them early.
How toHow to Write a Eulogy, and Why Stories Make It EasierMost eulogies are written in a few days, in grief, by someone who realises how little they know. How to write a good one, and how to make it easier.
How toHow to Conduct an Oral History InterviewIn the 1930s, over 2,300 people born into slavery were interviewed. Barely seven hours of their voices survive. What oral historians have learnt since.
IdeasThe Top Regrets of the Dying and What They Teach UsA carer’s list of deathbed regrets has been read by millions. The research behind it explains why we regret what we never did, and why that regret grows.
FamilyYou Have 16 Great-Great-Grandparents. Can You Name Them?Most people cannot name a single great-grandparent. Why your great-great-grandparents were forgotten so quickly, how to find them, and what it means for you.
How toHow to Interview Someone: Open vs Closed QuestionsPolice detectives once interrupted witnesses every 7.5 seconds. What that research reveals about how to interview someone, and why open-ended questions work.
HistoryA Short History of Storytelling: From Campfire to CameraThe history of storytelling is a history of preservation, from words to voice to face. Now the technology is free, yet family stories are still being lost.
How toQuestions to Ask Your Parents About Their LifeThe best questions to ask your parents or grandparents about their life, why some questions unlock real stories while others get a shrug, and how to ask them.
HistoryAncient Graffiti and the Human Desire to Be RememberedKings built monuments to be remembered. Often, the only ordinary people we remember from the ancient world are the ones who scratched their names on a wall.
HistoryHow the Ancient Egyptians Viewed Life and DeathThe ancient Egyptians believed a person could die twice, and that the second death, being forgotten, was the one that mattered. They were onto something.
How toHow to Capture Someone’s Life Story on VideoLessons from filming more than a hundred life stories: how to prepare, what to ask, and why the most important part of an interview is the pause.
HistoryThe Oldest Stories in the World, and How They SurvivedThe first stories humans wrote down were about death, friendship and a parent’s advice to a child. How they survived 4,000 years is a story in itself.