FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who is a good person to interview for Personal Highlights?

Personal Highlights are excellent entry points into the world of interviewing, oral history, and storytelling. It’s a great exercise for people who are nervous, or those who ‘don’t have anything to say.’ It could be your mom or dad, or your grandparents or best friend. Perhaps this person has taken part in historic events, or persevered through and unimaginable challenge. Personal Highlights are great opportunities to introduce a person to an experience they’ll treasure for the rest of their lives.

What do you mean by legacy?

We like to look at legacy as a gift left for loved ones, by loved ones. But a legacy is also something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or relative. Often people look at legacies as money or endowments, but at Narrate we like to think that our real legacies are the stories from the past that we use to inform our future. Traditionally for folks who didn’t have a lot of money, stories and wisdom were transmitted offering connection, context, and care.

Can’t I dictate my life stories into my phone without using Narrate?

You can totally do that! And it would be a great exercise to get you thinking about your life, your experiences, your contributions to the world, and your values. Its a fantastic way to start the process. And a trained Narrate interviewer - one who is curious, one who is researched, one who has some professional distance - can really help you discover some truths and make some connections that aren’t always as easy to see ourselves.

Who has access to my interview?

Great question! The customer is the owner of the recording, and Narrate provides them a copy of the interview. Usually the customer then shares the interview with the storyteller, and any other family members who want copies. But the only people who have a copy of the recording are the people involved in the recording. Our interviewers work for you, and once it is edited all copies are given to you for your personal use! Narrate archives all interviews for 6-months, in case of an emergency, but all content is the property of the participants in the process.