These are the 52 questions, in the order they are sent: one a week, on the day your storyteller chooses, or more slowly if they prefer. Under each one, in italics, are the smaller questions printed with it in the email, for anyone not sure where to start.
If an answer is short (fewer than 40 words typed, or under 20 seconds of talking), one of those follow-ups is emailed two days later, once for that question. Questions you write yourself are sent exactly as you wrote them, without follow-ups.
Some questions assume a partner, children or grandchildren. From your family page you can swap any question still to come for one of your own, so the year fits the life they actually lived.
Where it started
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What they called me. What did people call you when you were small, and who started it?
Did it stick? Who still uses it? What did your mother call you when you were in trouble?
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Through the front door. Walk me through the front door of the house you grew up in. What is the first thing you see?
Which room was yours, and who did you share it with? What was the one thing in that house nobody was allowed to touch? What did the house sound like at night?
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Weeknight supper. What was on the table on an ordinary weeknight, and who cooked it?
What did you eat when money was short? What is the one dish you would still travel for? Who did the dishes?
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A Sunday when I was ten. Tell me about a Sunday when you were about ten. Start with waking up.
Church, the radio, a drive, a visit? Who came over? What was the best part, and the most boring part?
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The street. Who lived next door, and what did the kids on your street do all summer?
Was there a house you were told to stay away from? What game went on until the streetlights came on?
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A grandparent's house. Pick one grandparent. What did their house smell like, and what did they always have waiting for you?
What did they call you, and what did you call them? What is one thing they said that you can still hear?
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The teacher who noticed. Which teacher saw something in you, and what did they do about it?
What were you good at that nobody expected? What did you get in trouble for at school?
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In trouble. Tell me about a time you were in real trouble as a child, and how it ended.
Who found out? Who covered for you? Would you do it again?
Setting out
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First paycheck. What was your first job, what did it pay, and what did you buy with the first money you earned?
Who got you the job? What was the worst part of it?
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What I wanted to be. At twelve, what did you want to be, and who put the idea in your head?
What happened to that idea? Is there any of it in what you ended up doing?
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The song. What song takes you straight back to being sixteen, and where were you when you heard it?
Who were you with? What did your parents think of that music?
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The first car. Tell me about the first car you drove, or the first one in the family.
Who taught you to drive, and how did that go? Where did you go the first time you went out alone in it?
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Leaving home. Tell me about the day you left home for the first time. What did you take, and who saw you off?
Where were you headed? What did you miss first?
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My closest friend. Who was your closest friend at twenty, and what did the two of you get up to?
What happened to them? When did you last speak?
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Somewhere different. Tell me about the first time you went somewhere that felt completely different from home.
How did you get there, and who went with you? What did you eat?
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The best job. What was the best job you ever had, and what made a good day at it?
Who did you work with? Who was the boss? What did you learn there that you still use?
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The worst job. And the worst job. What did it teach you?
How did you leave? Is there anyone from it you still think about?
Love, home and family
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How we met. How did you meet the person who mattered most, and what did you think of them the first time?
What were they wearing? What were you wearing? When did you know?
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The first time out. Tell me about the first time the two of you went out together. Where did you go, and who paid?
What did your parents say about them? What almost went wrong?
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The wedding day. What was your wedding day actually like, start to finish? Not the photographs, the day.
What went wrong? Who gave a speech, and what did they say? What did you eat?
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The first place. Tell me about your first place of your own. What did it cost, and what was wrong with it?
What furniture did you have, and where did it come from? Who were the neighbours?
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What money meant. What did money mean in your house growing up, and how did that shape the way you handled it later?
What was the first thing you saved up for? What did your parents never buy?
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What my parents argued about. What did your parents argue about, and how did it usually end?
Who usually won? What did you take from watching that?
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What they taught me without saying. What did your mother or father teach you without ever saying it out loud?
Tell me about one time you saw it. Do your children see it in you?
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Where I was that day. Where were you when you heard the biggest news of your young life, and what did you do next?
Who did you call? How did the next few days feel?
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The recipe. What is a dish in your family that has a story, and who taught you to make it?
What is the step everyone gets wrong? When do you make it now, and for whom?
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The day you were born. Tell me about the day your first child was born. Start the night before.
Who was there, and who wasn't? What was the first thing you said?
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Choosing the names. How did you choose your children's names? Were there names you argued over?
Who were they named for? What would they have been called if the other side had won?
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A hard year. Tell me about a hard year, and the thing that got you through it.
Who showed up for you? What did you learn about yourself?
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A mistake I made. What is a mistake you made as a parent, and what would you say to the younger you?
Did you ever talk to the children about it? What did you get right that nobody noticed?
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For fun. What did you do for fun in your twenties and thirties, and who was the ringleader?
What was the wildest night? What would you never do now?
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The trip that went wrong. Tell me about a holiday or trip that went wrong and turned into a family story.
Who tells it best? What is the version the other person tells?
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Traditions kept and dropped. What is a tradition you kept from your parents, and one you dropped on purpose?
Why did you drop it? What did you start that your children now keep?
What life taught
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The first person I lost. Tell me about the first person you lost, and what you learned from losing them.
What did they leave you, in things or in words? What do you do now that you learned from them?
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Advice I ignored. What advice did you ignore, and were you right to?
Who gave it? What advice did you take that you should not have?
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What they never knew. What did you do that your parents would have been shocked by?
Did they ever find out? Would you be shocked if your children did the same?
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A stranger's kindness. Tell me about the kindest thing a stranger did for you.
Did you ever find them again? Have you done the same for someone since?
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Proudest at work. What was your proudest moment at work, and who did you tell first?
What did it take to get there? Did anyone doubt you along the way?
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The question nobody asked. What is a question nobody has ever asked you that you wish they would? Ask it, and answer it.
Why do you think nobody asked?
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A place that is gone. Tell me about a place that no longer exists that you miss. Walk me through it.
Who was there with you? What stands there now?
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The thing I loved. What is an object you loved, a car, a coat, a tool, a house, and what happened to it?
Where did it come from? Who has it now, or where did it end up?
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From my mother, from my father. What habit did you get from your mother, and which from your father?
Which one do you see in your children? Which one did you try to lose?
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The hardest decision. What was the hardest decision you ever made, and how did you make it?
Who did you talk to? What would have happened if you had chosen the other way?
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What they get wrong about me. What do you think your children misunderstand about you?
What would you want them to know instead? Where do you think the misunderstanding came from?
Looking back
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Becoming a grandparent. What do you remember about the day you became a grandparent?
What did they end up calling you, and who chose it? What did you see of yourself in them first?
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What I believed at twenty. What did you believe at twenty that you no longer believe?
When did it fall away? What replaced it?
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What I changed my mind about. What have you changed your mind about in the last ten years?
What changed it? Who argued you round?
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A day I would live again. What is a day you would live over exactly as it was? Walk me through it.
Who was there? What time did it end?
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A skill nobody asks about. What is a skill you have that nobody asks about anymore?
Who taught you? Teach it to me in a paragraph.
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A good day now. What does a good day look like for you now, from waking up to going to bed?
Who do you talk to? What do you look forward to?
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The people you will never meet. What do you want your grandchildren to know about your parents, whom they will never meet?
What did they look like? How did they laugh? What would your parents have made of your grandchildren?
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The last page. What would you like the last page of this book to say?
If they only read one page, which one should it be?
The list as of October 2026. We may sharpen a question after our first families finish their year.