Documenting what you know

A way of keeping four different kinds of thing apart, so that later nobody — including you — has to untangle them.

The First Tell Project
firsttellproject.com
v1.0 · 2026-08

This is yours. Nobody sends it anywhere. Nobody reviews it. There is no right amount to write and no deadline. You can stop at any point, and an unfinished record is still a record.

The eight labels

Every entry gets exactly one label. If an entry seems to need two, it is really two entries.

Label	What it means	Why it matters
I remember this	A direct memory, held now.	It is yours and first-hand. Being a memory does not make it weak.
Partial memory	You remember some of it and not the rest.	Saying so protects you. Filling the gap does not.
Approximate date	Roughly when, not exactly when.	Approximate is normal and usable. False precision is not.
Learned later	Something you were told or found out afterwards.	Stops second-hand information hardening into memory.
Document	Something that physically exists.	A letter, report, photo, record, message, receipt, diary.
Corroboration	Someone or something else that supports it.	A person who could confirm a detail, if they chose to.
Interpretation	What you think it meant.	Legitimate and important — but it is not evidence, and it must be labelled.
Unknown	A gap you are naming as a gap.	Recording an unknown is a positive act, not a weakness in your account.

Six rules that make a record usable

Keep it somewhere only you can reach.
Date every entry twice: the date it refers to, and the date you wrote it.
Write in your own words. Do not tidy them up later.
When you add to an entry, add. Do not overwrite — keep the earlier version visible.
Keep interpretation in its own labelled space, never mixed into the account.
If you take it to a lawyer or an investigator, take the whole thing, unedited.

Never fill a gap to make a record look complete. A record with clearly marked unknowns is stronger than one that reads smoothly. The gaps are part of the truth.

This template is general information, not legal or clinical advice, and it is not a memory-recovery exercise. It contains no prompts designed to help you remember anything, and it never will. If you want support alongside this, the resource directory at firsttellproject.com/resources lists services with the date each was last checked.

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Entry

One event, one entry. Print as many of these as you need.

The First Tell Project
Entry sheet · page ______ of ______

Date this refers to

Date I wrote this

Entry no.

I remember this Partial memory Approximate date Learned later Document Corroboration Unknown

What I am recording — in my own words

Where this came from — document, person, or my own memory

Interpretation — what I think it meant. Kept separate on purpose.

What I do not know about this

Added to this entry later? Do not cross anything out. Start a new entry, note that it relates to this one, and date it. The order in which you came to know things is itself information worth keeping.

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