Appropriate way to add family interviews about relatives

Question

Hello All!  New and trying to figure out best practices on where to put stories, memories or commentary I get from my family about ancestors that I'd like to put in their WikiTree profiles.  One quick G2G comment said something like for people who passed a while ago, put the personal stories/memories/commentary in the comments on the bottom of the Profiles.  That can make sense for people that we are relying on the sources to tell us most of the story.  But for example, my mother told me her own story as well as her parents, and I'm struggling with the best way to put that in there.  Should her story be the profile, and then I put sources in their where I can?  Obviously since she is still living, there aren't sources to prove her entire story, and her story is very long.  So I assume I put her in as the source?  And then where do I place it if I'm writing many paragraphs with her as the source - once at the top of the whole thing?

Then for one generation up - her parents - the memories are shorter and offer some information that may or may not have sources, and the sources may offer some information not in her memory.  And when we go to her grandparents of course her stories get shorter and the sources get longer.  So does the way I incorporate her stories change as we go up in generations - is there a point where I put it right into the Biography, or do I put a section under the verified sources in the biography, or do I put it in the bottom under comments?  

Sorry I am confused :).  I am trying not to do the whole thing incorrectly and then have to do it over again.  Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

You can make a free space page.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Free-Space_Profile

 There you can add the records/memories in any order you wish. Then you can add a link to it, on each profile you want to.

Comments

Thanks for the response and suggestion Marion!  Would love more information on the suggestion: Would you recommend one free space profile for her memories about everyone?  If so, then would I create separate "images" for each memory or just do a huge dump into the profile space?  Should this include her memories about herself or should that be directly in her profile?  Has this been done before by others?  Thanks!

Answer 2

As you say: the family member telling the stories are the sources. So you reference to them as a source. In most cases they are still living, so I use something like "recollections by Living @LastName@, date, place". The date and place make it clear when and where they told it.

If they have written it down, you could describe that as well.

And as you say: the source might be unreliable (one's memory is a proven mix of truth and ideas), so it is always good to add paper sources. But for the time span of lets say past 75 years, those paper sources might be closed/unavailable.

If the stories go big, you might do as Marion suggests and create a free space and on there write down who told/recollected the story. You are then actually creating a written source so to say.