Yesterday I was at my parents’ house and I finally cracked it that my mother expects me to memorise the provenance of every object in the house so I will know what to keep as heirlooms after her death.

It’s similar to the way that I, the only daughter, am expected to memorise all family history like in Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver’. It’s a fkn gendered #MentalLoad and because of #ADHD I am awful at remembering things told to me verbally. I need written records.

For years I have begged her to make an actual catalogue of the house items but it is too overwhelming a task to begin.

So I took her round the house and got her to explain where everything was from, recording her on my phone via speech to text.

I recorded it into an email and then spent at least 4 hours tidying up the transcript:

– adding speaker labels
– adding gestures and descriptions of things referred to
– filling in gaps, because the AI doesn’t catch every word spoken
– fixing the weird word guesses the AI makes based on info from my phone’s custom dictionary and contacts

It’s still pretty rough but it’s a start. And then I emailed it to both my parents with the subject line “Family Heirlooms”. They can reply to the email with more info

#OralHistory #FamilyHeirlooms #FamilyHistory #MaterialCulture #MachineTranscription #Interview