New Series » Speakers’ Corner » featuring Jennifer Jones & Guests

Announcing a new place where members can step on a Soapbox to tell their own stories. At this new Speakers' Corner, you can tell your story to a friendly audience of like-minded family historians.

This classic wooden soapbox was built for the distribution of Ivory Soap by the Procter & Gamble company. (Modified version of an eBay photo by @AtticGemFinds, see item at Trademark Ivory Soap Hinged Wooden Box.)

Since starting Projectkin, I’ve been focused on inspiring families to share their stories. It starts from the premise that everyone has a family and that each of our stories is important.

Sharing these stories can be a challenge, however. In the two years since our founding, we’ve started to form a big tent that welcomes family history storytellers with tips, tricks, and inspiration. Our live and recorded events offer a platform to share valuable resources, including guides and project recipes. As we’ve gotten to know each other, we’ve also started to care about each other’s success.

Through live events and detailed discussions, a warm and supportive community has developed around Projectkin’s live events. Our shared interests have led to empathetic comments and creative suggestions.

Yet, we overlooked one thing.

We have been missing a place to share and celebrate the stories themselves.

Jennifer Jones

helped me see this now-obvious hole. Most of our programming has centered on “how-to” sessions. They provided guidance on basic techniques or recipes to implement creative storytelling forms. Though many are inspiring, none created a direct platform to tell our stories. That made us realize that it’s high time we created a space for storytellers: A right-sized stage for family storytelling.

Announcing a virtual Speakers’ Corner.

With Jennifer’s enthusiastic support, I’m delighted to announce an entirely new series that gives our storytellers a soapbox to step up to at the Projectkin Speakers’ Corner. Starting on August 14th and 15th, and on the second Thursday or Friday of each subsequent month¹, Jennifer will produce a curated collection of up to three speakers on a cohesive theme. Events will be held live and recorded in the same manner as other Projectkin events. Unlike written essays, these programs will be optimized for live storytelling, though the format can vary depending on our speakers’ preferences.

I expect these programs will fall between a written essay and a theater production. We want to celebrate programs that take advantage of the live and interactive venue and avoid forms that would do just as well in print or on TikTok. While sharing photos or film would be wonderful, we’ll draw the line at using slides to present bullet points. This is storytelling, not a pitch.

Some of the inspiration for this program series came from one of Projectkin’s most memorable events presented as a film by

Lori Olson White

for the occasion of Valentine’s Day, 2025:

Howard & Elvira: Love and the German Chocolate Cake

That event was scheduled as a “Project Recipe,” but it made me realize how one person telling a story can inspire so many others. As it turned out, this was one of our most successful events. The film was only about 13 minutes long, but it engendered a joyful discussion that filled the room for the balance of the hour.

Since the live performance creates a deliverable, I’ll offer each speaker a digital video file of their talk during the program. This will be the kind of thing you can preserve to share with your family. Our speakers’ Substack publications will also be highlighted during the live program and in the video post we use to share the recording with subscribers.

Event times will largely alternate between our two Atlantic- and Pacific-friendly time windows with a deference to our speakers’ preferences.² Though it’s a global community now, we all need some sleep. 🤫

Our first event on August 14th and 15th will feature Jennifer Jones, joined by guest speaker Anne Young, to share two perspectives on Caroline Chisholm, a remarkable English-born humanitarian who became one of Australia’s most respected social reformers in the 19th century.

To learn more, visit the Speakers’ Corner event page and register.

This program is free, but please register to get your personalized Zoom link.

Are YOU ready to step up to the Soapbox?

So, you probably have that story you’ve been thinking about sharing. Perhaps it’s even one you’ve written about before, but you don’t think the world has appreciated why it’s so important to you. Maybe now is the time to step up and share it with us.

We’re currently working on the fine details to fill in the calendar for the remainder of the year, and we’d love to include you. Jennifer has stepped in as the producer of the event with the formidable challenge of balancing speakers, timing, and topics. If you’d like to join in with a story to share or learn more about the program, we have a simple form to complete that will put you into the Soapbox queue at Projectkin.org/speakers-queue

Join the queue at Projectkin.org/speakers-queue

Last thoughts

It may seem scary to speak extemporaneously, but actually, you do that every day. Think about the stories you share with strangers at a park or cafe.

This will be like that, except that you’re talking to a community of people who want to hear your story. Join us in the audience, or step into the queue to speak. You can do both, too! You’ll be proud of yourself, and your descendants will thank you.

1. Thursday from the view of the Americas, that is. You’ll recognize that as Friday on the far side of the date line.

2. At Projectkin, we benefit from genealogists worldwide and host events from our home in California during strategic time windows:

• “Atlantic-friendly” — best for Europe & the Americas

• “Pacific-friendly”— best for Pacific Rim & the Americas

The map below shows these time windows on different sides of the globe.

See local times in our “Pacific” and “Atlantic”-friendly time windows.

One of Jennifer’s super-powers is her ability to participate in programming during our Pacific or Atlantic time windows. That’s no mean feat from Victoria, Australia, where our Atlantic time window generally opens at 3 am local time.