Are you looking for new ways to tell your stories?

Recently I needed to prepare a speech for a presentation. It involved quite a bit of genealogical and historical research. I was to be Maria Lord (Riseley) from Van Diemen’s Land; transported for the theft of a dress in 1804. She married a wealthy landowner Edward Lord. I needed to practice this speech to ensure that I was able to present, from her perspective, in 7 minutes. [This is the typical speech duration for Toastmasters’ club meetings.]

After researching, writing, and preparing my story, I started up my Zoom room and recorded myself giving the speech, just for myself. I then had a chance to listen to myself and prune the speech content back to reach my goal of 7 minutes. The result was an audio file that I could upload to my Podcast site. Below is the first attempt at the speech recording which gives the story in full, but was a little too long for the club meeting.

A convict’s vocal tale!

This vocal process of ‘storifying your ancestors’ is one you may like to try. I am now creating a free lesson on ‘how to turn your ancestral story into a podcast episode‘ in my Preserving Family History Academy. This will be a bonus lesson in my free courses: Blogging in the Past Lane and Family Story Magic.