Oral History Interviewing - professional track 2025

A replay series at a reduced price

(Note: the above video relates to the live version in 2024, but is still a great preview of the pre-recorded material)

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$199

Course Summary

This pre-recorded course will prepare you to conduct life story interviews with professionalism. Life story projects begin with interviews, and you will come away with the skills to conduct them well. Along the way, you will come to love this as one of the most poignant parts of the work.

You will gain confidence to capture voices and stories with empathy. Get through the hurdle of choosing your tech kit, knowing what questions to ask, and how to navigate sensitivities. Seriously, this class will save you so much time and aggravation.

Interviewing is one of the easiest and most profound ways to capture stories. One day, you will look back and say that the interviews you conducted were among the best, most rewarding parts of your work. The result will be priceless.

We do not have plans to teach a live version of this course in 2025, so we made the version availalbe for those who are eager to get started.

What one student spontaneously said about our oral history instruction

In a professional class we taught on March 6, Cheryl Dalton spontaneously thanked us for our classes. She wanted us to know how she went from an intent to start a new life story business in retirement, to having the skills and confidence to finish her first projects. We asked her permission to clip that segment of the Zoom meeting so we could share it with you. 

Watch this short video...

Rhonda Lauritzen

Rhonda Lauritzen is a professional biographer with multiple published books. She specializes in life stories, collecting oral history, and historical storytelling. She earned an MBA from the University of Utah and was selected as the Outstanding Graduate in her undergrad major. Before she founded Evalogue.Life in 2016, she served as a college marketing director, Vice President, and a corporate CEO. In 2007, her writing journey began with her parents’ family business saga, which became her first book. Since then, she has been hired to help tell the stories of families, cities, and nonprofits. She believes that when you tell your story, it changes the ending. This is why her passion is teaching, coaching, and presenting at conferences.

Rachel Trotter

Rachel J. Trotter is a senior writer/editor at Evalogue.Life – Tell Your Story. She tells people’s stories and shares hers to encourage others. She loves family storytelling. A graduate of Weber State University, she has had articles featured on LDSLiving.com, lds.org, FamilySearch.org and Meridian Magazine. She has been a speaker at RootsTech, Weber State University Family History Conference, Conference on Family History at BYU and the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. She helps people tell and write their life stories and has written six life stories with several more in production. She has also helped several others write their own stories. She and her husband Mat have six children and she recently became a grandma! She and her family live on the East Bench in Ogden, Utah.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The class runs for four weeks. The prepared instruction will run for 75 minutes with Q&A afterward. 

This is a LIVE, small-group class with ongoing Q&A. There are additional prepared materials in the course player including step-by-step videos demonstrating tech tools to watch on your own. 

There will be 4-weeks of live instruction/group coaching and a closed FaceBook group so class members can network. This is the fifth time we have taught and refined this course, and it is the culmination of decades of experience. There are replays, transcripts, slides, and a great workbook to reinforce concepts.

Telling the stories of buildings and places: To sweeten the package, we are also including our popular professional class on telling the stories of buildings and places. This is an on-demand class you can watch any time.

Easy video stories: Many students want to make a video from their oral history interviews. This on-demand class walks you through how to make an easy video using Animoto's beautiful templates.

Printed package: You will also receive a packet of printed materials, including our life story interview booklets.


We hope you can join us live, but the sessions will be recorded. If you miss a class or want a refresh, you can go back and watch the replay. You may submit questions to be answered during the Q&A even if you can't be there. Course materials will remain live until the end of 2024. 

It is great if you have already done some interviewing or family history writing, but we assume you are just beginning.  We'll walk you through what it takes, even if you have never done interviews before. This year's class will be geared toward professionals and genealogists. If you are thinking about starting a life story or personal history business, this class is the perfect place to start. 

This year, we are teaching a special 4-week business boot camp immediately after class ends. This will be ideal for people who feel inspired to do this work professionally because it will help you put together a strategic plan for pricing, marketing, and other important issues. 

This year's course will focus more on oral history methods than on the business side of the house, but we will give some high-level information and are happy to answer questions about how we run our business. 

This 4-week course is taught at an introductory level to help you get started doing professional work. There is no official certification for oral history practitioners.

Sign up before it fills

$199

TESTIMONIALS

"Loved this class and I am so excited. I can see Oral History work as a way to bring together all my interests & everything that I love—family, other people & cultures, writing, photography - everything. Also, I love the energy you bring to your work— you bring so much light and enthusiasm!"
Lynette, Philippines

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“Rhonda, Thank you so much for the inspiration, education and encouragement you have so generously given through the weekly course. I feel very lucky to have found you.”
Andrew, Australia
I have thoroughly enjoyed this professional class!!! I've learned so much and all of the resources have been awesome! I appreciate the processes and the tools you've found to work best. Thank you again for offering this course. I’ve just loved it.  
Tera, United States
“It combines the why with the how of recording oral stories and the motivation to actually do it because it has been made simple, so why wouldn't you?!”
Jennifer, Unites States
“Thank you for your informative class and the wonderful follow-up emails! Each person in the class enriched my life. Thank you for doing this."
Mary, United States
“Thank you so much for this class, Rhonda. I'm now so excited for the future and being able to be a part of your network.  This is going to be terrific!"
Shirley, United States
“Detailed and helpful: Loved this course. It has so much information with pictures and links. It is detailed and helpful for me and my journey of helping to record the stories of family and friends. Thank you, Rhonda!"
Corinne, United States 

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“I was impressed with the sacred ground part of each story being so important to families to record and share. This was complete, taught with empathy, and many techniques were shared, with the author's pros and cons about using each one.”
Linda, United States
“The whole course is amazing, easy to follow, full of great advice, and the transcription tips are great. I had searched for someone who could teach me with passion and something more powerful. I did my research, read a lot of helpful information on Rhonda's website, and I watched the previews and that convinced me to do this course.” 
Bruce, Australia
“I just finished the professional Oral History Course. THANK YOU - it was so wonderful to have this resource, to inspire, confirm and receive tips to enhance the process. I have done about 20 interviews so far and it truly is sacred work, and something I have felt called to do.  My passion is the interviewing piece, and I have come to appreciate that each person has something special to share. Thank you so much for all you've done to help this work move forward."
Janean, Unites States
"This is a very good course with comprehensive technical advice, as well as food for the soul. Thank you so much!”
Karen, England
"Besides skills- they offer me such positive encouragement to step out of my comfort zone and overcome my ‘imposters’ syndrome! Without them I wouldn't have done any of this, so I'm full of gratitude.
Cheryl, United States

Course Curriculum

TEACHING AND PRESENTATION EXPERIENCE

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