A practical, beautifully designed workbook for family historians, genealogists, and memory-keepers who want to turn interviews, photographs, recipes, letters, documents, and family memories into stories people will actually read.

Get The Family Story Starter Kit

The childhood house.

The recipe nobody wrote down.

The migration story.

The photograph full of unidentified faces.

The family saying everyone recognizes but nobody can explain.

The story your mother tells differently every time.

The memory only one person still carries.

These stories rarely disappear because families do not care.

They disappear because nobody knows where to begin.

The Family Story Starter Kit gives you a clear, gentle structure for beginning now, before another name, voice, detail, or memory slips away.

You do not need a perfectly organized archive.

You do not need to be a professional writer.

You do not need to know what the finished book will look like.

You only need one person, one question, one photograph, or one memory.

This kit will help you take the next step from there.

Use the workbook to:

• decide who to interview first

• prepare thoughtful family-history conversations

• record and protect important memories

• ask questions that uncover stories, not just dates and facts

• organize photographs, letters, recipes, objects, and documents

• identify the people, places, and turning points that shape your family story

• turn raw memories into readable story material

• begin planning a private family book

• decide which parts you can do yourself and where professional help may be useful

The goal is not to gather everything.

The goal is to begin well.

Start Preserving Your Family Stories

The kit opens with a simple seven-day plan.

Day 1

Choose one story-keeper.

Day 2

Choose one photograph, object, recipe, letter, or document.

Day 3

Choose five questions.

Day 4

Schedule the conversation.

Day 5

Record it.

Day 6

Write a short summary.

Day 7

Choose one memory to shape into a story.

By the end of the week, you will not merely have thought about preserving your family history.

You will have begun.

1. The Story-Keeper Priority Scorecard

When several relatives carry different parts of the family story, whom should you interview first?

The scorecard helps you compare possible interviewees and consider:

• what they may remember

• how urgent the conversation may be

• what stories only they can tell

• which subjects they may enjoy

• which topics may require care

• the best first question to ask

You will leave this section knowing exactly where to begin.

2. The Family Story Map

See the larger shape of your family story before disappearing into boxes, folders, names, and dates.

Map the:

• central people

• important places

• major turning points

• meaningful objects and materials

• questions that remain unanswered

Sometimes the most important story begins with the question that will not leave you alone.

3. First Interview Planning Sheets

Prepare a thoughtful conversation without making it feel like an interrogation.

The planning pages help you choose:

• the purpose of the interview

• the time period or theme to explore

• photographs or objects to bring

• your five most important questions

• gentle follow-up questions

• sensitive areas to approach carefully

• details to verify afterward

You will also have space to record the best story, best quote, follow-up questions, and next actions.

4. A Complete Recording Checklist

The recording checklist guides you through what to do:

Before recording

Prepare the room, device, questions, photographs, and permission.

During the conversation

Listen carefully, allow silence, avoid interrupting, and notice the details that bring a story alive.

Afterward

Rename the file clearly, create a backup, summarize the interview, note sensitive sections, and prepare follow-up questions.

The kit also includes suggested wording for asking permission to record.

5. Interview Notes Templates

Capture the material that matters while the conversation is still fresh.

Record:

• key stories

• names

• places

• dates and time periods

• possible chapter titles

• memorable quotations

• details requiring verification

These pages help prevent valuable interviews from becoming forgotten audio files sitting on a phone.

Never again sit across from a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older friend wondering what to ask.

The kit contains 100 story-opening questions organized by theme.

Childhood

Explore homes, bedrooms, school, games, fears, food, money, expectations, and the people who made someone feel safe.

Parents, Grandparents, and Older Relatives

Discover what family members were really like, what they valued, what they argued about, who held everyone together, and who may have been misunderstood.

Home and Place

Recover the streets, villages, kitchens, gardens, shops, churches, schools, factories, and neighbourhoods that shaped the family.

Work, Money, and Responsibility

Ask about first jobs, wages, sacrifice, success, respectability, hardship, and what work meant in the family.

Love, Marriage, and Family Life

Explore courtship, weddings, affection, marriage, divorce, partnership, and the lessons people absorbed about love.

Migration, Moving, and Starting Over

Preserve why people left, what they carried, what they lost, what they hoped to find, and which places they never stopped missing.

War, Hardship, and Survival

Approach difficult times with care, including military service, poverty, illness, bereavement, resilience, and survival.

Food, Recipes, and Daily Life

Recover the meals, smells, kitchens, celebrations, shortages, and recipes that carry family memory.

Beliefs, Values, and Family Rules

Uncover the spoken and unspoken rules about duty, religion, education, shame, happiness, and what made a life respectable.

Reflection and Legacy

Ask what changed someone’s life, what they are proud of surviving, and what they hope future generations understand.

You do not need to ask all 100 questions.

The best question is the one that opens the door.

Get All 100 Questions

When someone says, “I don’t know where to begin,” the decade-by-decade prompts help them walk through life in manageable stages:

• ages 0–10

• ages 10–20

• ages 20–30

• ages 30–40

• ages 40–50

• ages 50–60

• ages 60 and beyond

These prompts reveal how homes, friendships, work, love, loss, responsibility, identity, and values changed over time.

Old family materials are not merely things to catalogue.

Each one may contain a story.

The kit includes dedicated worksheets for:

Photographs

Identify who appears, where the photograph was taken, what happened before and after, and what the image does not reveal.

Letters

Explore who wrote the letter, what was happening at the time, what emotion it carries, and what it reveals about a relationship.

Recipes

Preserve who made the dish, when it was served, what it tasted and smelled like, and the memory attached to it.

A recipe without a story is instructions.

A recipe with a story is inheritance.

Objects

Record who owned an object, how it entered the family, what it reveals, and what story should travel with it.

Documents

Go beyond what a certificate or record confirms.

Ask what it complicates, what question it raises, and what human story may sit behind it.

Documents are not the story.

They are clues.

Collecting memories is important.

Shaping them is what makes people want to keep reading.

The kit includes a step-by-step story template to help you identify:

• who is involved

• where and when the memory takes place

• what is happening

• what is at stake

• the sensory details

• the emotional meaning

• what the memory reveals about the family

• why descendants may care

You will then use those elements to create a polished paragraph.

See The Transformation

Raw Memory

“We lived in a small house. There were six of us. Mum made bread every Friday. I remember the smell more than anything.”

Polished Family Story

Every Friday, the house filled with the smell of bread.

There were six children and never quite enough room, but somehow the kitchen always made space for warmth. Long before anyone in the family used words like heritage or legacy, their history was rising quietly in the oven.

The bread was practical, of course. It fed people. It stretched money. It belonged to the weekly rhythm of a busy household.

But years later, what remained was not only the taste.

It was the smell.

It was the memory of a mother making something from almost nothing, again and again, because that was what love looked like in that house.

That is the difference between preserving information and preserving a life.

When you are ready to move beyond individual memories, the Chapter Planner helps you define:

• the working title

• the intended reader

• the kind of book you want to create

• the central story

• possible chapters

• the materials you already have

• what is still missing

You will also receive sample tables of contents for:

• a one-person memoir

• a multigenerational family history

• a recipe-and-memory collection

These are not rigid formulas.

They are starting structures you can adapt to fit your family.

The Kit Takes You Through 10 Stages:

1. Gather

2. Sort

3. Transcribe

4. Select

5. Shape

6. Add context

7. Edit

8. Design

9. Print or share

10. Preserve

You will learn what to consider at each stage without being buried under the machinery of professional publishing.

The kit helps you understand what you have, what matters, and what to do next.

The Family Story Starter Kit is for you if:

• you know important memories are at risk of being lost

• you want to interview a parent, grandparent, relative, or family friend

• your photographs and documents are scattered or poorly labelled

• you have family-history research but not yet a readable story

• you want to create a private book, booklet, album, or collection

• you need a practical structure rather than another vague reminder to “preserve your memories”

• you want to do much of the work yourself

• you are not yet ready to commission a complete professionally produced memoir

This is not a complete professional memoir-writing, book-design, or publishing course.

It will not produce a finished 250-page private book while you cheerfully ignore the interviews, writing, editing, photographs, and family diplomacy.

It is designed to help you:

begin, gather, organize, and shape.

It gives you the tools to start the project yourself.

For families who want the entire process professionally guided and managed, The Memoir Experience offers a different level of support.

Record the memories. Preserve the voice. Begin the book.

Your downloadable workbook includes:

• a seven-day Quick Start plan

• story-keeper priority scorecards

• a Family Story Map

• interview planning worksheets

• a recording checklist

• interview notes pages

• 100 family interview questions

• memory prompts by decade

• photograph, letter, recipe, object, and document worksheets

• raw-memory-to-story templates

• a complete before-and-after story example

• chapter planning tools

• sample tables of contents

• a ten-stage private-book roadmap

• a book-readiness checklist

• a DIY-or-get-help decision guide

• final action-planning pages

£47 Get The Family Story Starter Kit

Download it, print the pages you need, and begin with one story.

Some families enjoy conducting the interviews, organizing the archive, and shaping the material themselves.

Others know the story matters too much to remain another unfinished family project.

Through The Memoir Experience, Oliver Luke Delorie helps families:

• plan the project

• conduct thoughtful interviews

• identify the true story inside the material

• organize recordings, photographs, and documents

• write and edit the manuscript

• integrate photographs and captions

• design a beautiful private family book

• manage the project through printing

You do not need to organize everything first.

You do not need to know where the book begins.

You do not need to be a writer.

You only need to know that the story matters.

Purchase The Family Story Starter Kit now, and your £47 will be credited toward The Memoir Experience if you later decide to commission a private family book.

Learn About The Memoir Experience

Is this a physical product?

The Family Story Starter Kit is a downloadable PDF workbook. You can use it digitally or print the pages you want to complete by hand.

Do I need genealogy experience?

No. The kit works for complete beginners, experienced family historians, and anyone who wants to preserve meaningful memories.

Do I need special recording equipment?

No. A smartphone is enough to begin. The kit includes a simple recording checklist and advice for saving and backing up files.

Do I need to interview an elderly relative?

No. You can interview a parent, sibling, cousin, family friend, neighbour, former colleague, or anyone who carries part of the story.

You can also use the worksheets to preserve your own memories.

Do I have to complete the whole workbook?

No. Begin with the section that solves your immediate problem.

Choose one person.

Plan one conversation.

Label one photograph.

Shape one memory.

The workbook is designed to support the project, not become another project you feel guilty about avoiding.

Will this help me write a complete memoir?

It will help you gather, organize, and begin shaping the material for a private family book.

It is not intended to replace professional interviewing, writing, editing, book design, or printing.

What happens if I later want professional help?

Your £47 purchase can be credited toward The Memoir Experience if you later commission Oliver to create a private family book.

A census record can tell you where someone lived.

A certificate can tell you when they were born.

A photograph can show you what they looked like.

But only a person can tell you:

• what the kitchen smelled like

• what their mother sang

• what the family never discussed

• what made everyone laugh

• what it felt like to leave

• what it cost to stay

• what love looked like in that house

Begin while the voice is still in the room.