The Registry

The credentialed guild for human-made life-history work in the synthetic age.

Find Your Practice

Sondage credentials the independent professionals who make human life-history work possible at the highest standard. If your career has been built in one of the three fields below, you have something to bring to this work.

Humanities Scholars

Historians, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers, oral historians, and allied doctoral humanists. The Scholar holds the intellectual method of a Sondage Season, conducts the scholarly inquiry across twelve weeks, and officiates the Investiture that closes it.

Credential:Certified Legacy Scholar (CLS) · Ten modules · 1.0 CEU Formation: Doctoral formation required — Ph.D., Ed.D., Th.D., D.Min., A.B.D., qualifying M.F.A., or Psy.D./D.S.W. with qualitative research record. The Call to Scholarship →

Heritage Consultants

Personal historians, professional photo organizers, digital asset managers, family archivists, estate consultants, and independent curators. The Curator conducts the Accession Inquiry and the six-month Chapter through which a Senior Fellow's material legacy becomes a Sondage-Certified Primary Source.

Credential:Legacy Collection Curator (LCC) · Ten modules · 1.0 CEU Formation: Graduate formation in humanities or social sciences, plus 2,000 documented hours of non-custodial practice. Petition pathway available for distinguished outliers. Applications open Q3 2026.The Call for Curators →

Audio Professionals

Location recordists, documentary sound engineers, broadcast producers, podcast engineers, and voice-over directors. The Producer certifies the acoustic environment of a Season, engineers the dual-track recording to the Sondage Sound Standard, and signs the Season Technical Manifest that attests to the integrity of the master files.

Credential:Legacy Sound Producer (LSP) · Five modules · 0.5 CEU Formation: 2,000 documented hours of vocal sound in professional or semi-professional contexts. Petition pathway available. The Call for Producers →

What the Registry Is

The Sondage Registry is the public infrastructure of a credentialing standards body. It names the independent practitioners who have been accredited into the Sondage Guild under credentials governing the three disciplines through which a life becomes a primary source: scholarly oral inquiry, broadcast-grade archival audio, and non-custodial heritage curation. The Registry is not a directory of employees. Sondage does not employ the practitioners on this Registry. Each is independently established in their trade, credentialed through a structured course of study, and accredited to the Three Foundational Commitments that govern every Sondage engagement. The Registry is the mechanism by which Sondage, as a governance platform, makes the standard visible and the standing earned. The Registry is what makes Sondage a guild rather than a service.‍ ‍

Why a Standard, Why Now

The market for conscious legacy preservation has already emerged. Consumer apps collect prompts. Ghostwriters produce memoirs. Platforms compile audio. Technology companies offer to generate a synthetic voice that descendants can still converse with. The category is crowded, and growing, and in every direction the common feature is the same: no credentialed standard governs any of it. No such standard has ever existed for individual life-history work. Oral history was built for communities and events, not for the full interior of a single life. Biography interprets rather than records. Consumer products prompt rather than witness. Until now, a family asking what is the right way to preserve a life? has had no professional register to consult — because no professional register existed. The Sondage Registry is the answer to that absence. It does not constrain a market; it creates one. Standardization publishes the conditions under which legitimate life-history work occurs. It credentials the independent practitioners who can perform that work. It makes the standard citable to any reader who asks what they are evaluating. Standardization is what lets the category mature. The Registry is what lets the standard be found.‍ ‍The Registry does not constrain a market. It creates one.‍ ‍

The Three Foundational Commitments

Every practitioner accredited into the Sondage Guild commits to three non-waivable commitments that govern every Season conducted and every archive accessioned under the Sondage name. The Human Standard. AI is never used in the collection or interpretation of a Fellow's life. Every Sondage-certified archive carries attestation confirming human intersubjective production at every stage. Embodied Provenance. The chain of custody from first Sitting to Sovereign Accession is documented by human beings, about human beings, in the continuous presence of human beings. Every transfer is witnessed. Every handoff carries a name, a credential, and a signature. Radical Non-Custodial Sovereignty. Sondage retains nothing. The archive belongs to the Senior Fellow from the moment of its production. The Vanish Protocol erases all staging data within twenty-four hours of Sovereign Accession. A practitioner on the Registry is a practitioner who has committed, by credential, to these three non-waivables. Read the commitments in full at /standard/three-commitments →

The Sondage-Certified Primary Source

The three credentials govern the full arc of a life becoming a record. In a Seminar on the Self, a Certified Legacy Scholar conducts the twelve-week scholarly inquiry, and a Legacy Sound Producer certifies the acoustic environment within which it is recorded. In a Seminar on the Record, a Legacy Collection Curator conducts the six-month engagement through which a Senior Fellow's material legacy becomes an archive. Each engagement produces a Sondage-Certified Primary Source — a life-history archive that carries, through credentialed attestation, the provenance chain that makes it usable as historical evidence decades into the future. It is what no unaccredited platform, no consumer service, and no AI-driven product can produce: a record that will be legible, trustable, and attestable in 2075 — the year most families will need it to be. A record that will still be a primary source in 2075.‍ ‍

Joining the Registry

Accreditation to the Sondage Registry is awarded through a structured course of study in the candidate's domain. Each credential is earned. Each is maintained through annual platform standing and periodic recertification. Each is governed by published terms. All Registry practitioners are independently established in their trade outside Sondage. The credential does not create employment. It certifies that the practitioner has been trained to the Sondage Standard and is authorized to conduct work under the Sondage name. Practitioners build their own practice, find their own Senior Fellows through the Independent Pathway, and advocate for the standard in their own professional communities. The full terms of standing, lapse, and recertification are published at Registry Policies and Fees. The advocacy framework that accompanies every credential is published at Advocate for Human Intellect and Labor.

The Three Calls

If you are a humanities scholar whose training has prepared you to sit with a life — a historian, anthropologist, sociologist, ethnographer, or allied doctoral humanist — read The Call to Scholarship →If you are a heritage consultant who has spent a career helping families decide what an inheritance means — a personal historian, photo organizer, digital asset manager, genealogist, or independent curator — read The Call for Curators →(applications open Q3 2026)If your career has been built in vocal audio — location recording, documentary sound, broadcast, podcast engineering, or voice-over direction — read The Call for Producers →

Three Foundational Commitments · Registry Policies and Fees · Advocate for Human Intellect and Labor