A model can draft a card from one conversation. They can pause, skip, or stop. You read and approve before the wider family sees it.
Starting does not enrol or consent for your parent or relative.
Prefer to talk it through with us first?Nan · 12 March · 1:49 · sample
Hear it in Nan’s original voice
0:00 / 1:49
Betty sewed her own dress the week before the 1962 Camperdown dance, working at night so no one would see. She wore it with her sister's good shoes, a size too small. Tom asked her to dance twice — she said yes both times.
“I didn't tell my mother — she'd have said it was too much fabric for one girl.”Tellby is on their tablet. One tap opens a story session.
A voice asks one question at a time. Every word appears in large print. They can pause, skip a question, or stop.
Written story and original recording stay together. Pauses and all.
You (the person who set it up) read the draft. Nothing is shared with the wider family until you have approved it. That rule is enforced in the product, not offered as a setting.
During the conversation
After they have told it
The wider family cannot see the card until you have approved it.
If you join through the guided pilot, a researcher may also guide or support parts of the session. We say so beforehand.
If they say a topic is off-limits, it is not asked again — not reworded, not revisited.
The wider family does not see a story until you have read and approved it.
You (the person who set it up) read and approve each card before the rest of the family sees it.
Tellby staff see only what is needed to support a session when help is requested. We do not use family stories as advertising.
Most family-story tools ask someone to write for a year, or they hide the model. Tellby is smaller: one conversation, the original voice kept next to the written story, and a person decides what is shared.
The fear worth answering is not “does it use a model?” It is: will something polish, invent, or publish a parent without them.
Other tools hide the model. Tellby puts the session controls on their side, where they can see them: pause, skip, stop, and off-limits. You approve before the wider family sees it.
One relaxed 10–15 minute conversation. A private written-and-audio card.
Starting does not enrol or consent for your parent or relative.