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Five Reasons to Record a Life Story

Strengthen family relationships – we honour our elders when we listen to them share their stories, memories, and perspectives. Family members who hear these stories gain a new understanding of that person, learning what it was like to live in a different generation, and why life choices were made.   Preserve the history of your family – in recent years it has become much easier to do family research online but this is often just the names and dates.  A recorded life story will...

Keith

Few things in life are as precious as the recollections and stories of whānau and friends. It was with this in mind that we gave our dad an oral history to celebrate his 90th birthday. We were lucky enough to find Emily and Origin Stories to interview and record Alan’s life. Emily was wonderfully approachable, empathetic, and asked just the right questions to bring Alan’s memories alive. Emily helped us create something quite remarkable for us and our generations to come....

St Georges' Cancer Care

This project consisted of in depth interviews with patients who had succesfully gone through cancer treatment.  The interviews were used to educate, inspire and encourage recently diagnosed patients....

St John of God

This project was done over two years interviewing a wide range of people connected with the origins of the hospital - the Catholic Brothers who worked there, nursing staff, managers, and family members.  The interviews are being used to create a book....

​Lucy

Emily is a relaxed and warm interviewer and easy to talk to. She knows how to listen carefully and captured the essence of my story. She asked questions about elements I hadn’t previously considered - this gave me the opportunity to reflect in different ways on my story. I would recommend her as a wonderful recorder of people’s life experiences....

Hurunui Seismic Stories

The Hurunui Seismic Stories project captured 26 interviews with people who lived through the Kaikoura 7.8 quake in 2016.  Material from the interviews were used to create an exhibition that toured the region, and a book....

Richard

I was interviewed for a community history for our village.  Emily’s sensitive and intelligent questioning resulted in an excellent and accurate account of our history....

Vickie

My family was very fortunate to have Emily write my parents stories a few years ago. Mum now has dementia and doesn’t even know my name and Dad has suffered a stroke and gets quite confused about things. I’m so grateful they got to tell their stories before this happened. Thank you Emily for recording their lives for us all. This is something that we should all do for our families - It’s too easy to say we should write stuff down and just never do it.  Do it now before it is too late....