Every profile in the Kinlore Archives began the same way: somebody sat down with an elder, pressed record, and asked one more question than felt polite. Dates make the skeleton of a family tree, but voices put flesh on it — the laugh, the pause before a hard memory, the recipe detail nobody wrote down.
Start with one object
Bring a photograph, a letter, or a kitchen tool to the interview. Objects unlock specifics that open questions never reach: who stood beside Jenny at the orchard press in 1962, why the christening cradle has two sets of initials, what the harbour workshop smelled like on a wet morning.
Write it the way it was said
Keep the speaker’s own words wherever you can and mark your guesses clearly. Our reading room keeps the full recording, a typed transcript, and a one-page summary — so a grandchild fifty years on can hear the voice, not just our version of it.