A Non-Tech Tip
As useful as many of the technologies we use in our research can be, sometimes you have to turn it all off and get back to basics.
Just about every “Introduction to Genealogy” article or book you’ll read advises you to start with what you know (i.e. your personal information) then work backwards; the second step is to interview family members. But how do you interview a family member?
There are some great projects available (StoryCorps) that provide you with the facilities to record your personal narrative or those of your family . But what topics should you cover?
About.com has put together a list of 50 questions to help get you started on your family interviews. These are by no means the “definitive” collection but they should be enough to get you started.
If you’ve never conducted a personal interview About.com and Ancestry.com have put together some tips to assist you:
About.com: How To Interview a Relative
Ancestry.com: Tips For Oral History Interviewing
While being able to record these interviews with a video or audio recorder would be great, you don’t necessarily have to have them; good old fashioned paper and pencil will work great. I have tried to ease some hesitant relatives into the process by sending a list of questions and having them write back - then I can call or visit them to follow up.
Setting up lists of questions is also a great way to get kids involved in genealogy, have them develop a list of questions and get them to do the interview - older relatives may be more receptive to kids.