How to Interview Family Members About Genealogy
Interviewing family members is helpful -- necessary even -- when researching your family tree. By interviewing people, you will gain firsthand eyewitness accounts of family events. According to Dictionary.com, genealogy is "a record or account of the ancestry and descent of a person or family." Use your interviews to either confirm facts or to guide you in the correct direction of research. As a bonus, you can also gain family stories passed down from generation to generation.
Instructions
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Create a list of questions. Use it as a guide as you are talking with your relative. Do not give the list to them. The problem with giving them a copy of the list of questions is that they will either read through the questions while you are at question three still and therefore respond with absent-minded answers. Another problem with giving them the list of questions is, depending on how long your list is, they may look at it and feel overwhelmed.
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Allow the interviewee to lead the conversation. Do not necessarily stick to your list of questions. Use those only as a guide or a memory device. Instead, if your great-aunt is going on like the town gossip, let her. Take note of the names she mentions. Some friends may actually be cousins. Depending on your religion, some sisters or brothers may not be blood relatives but rather sisters or brothers in Christ. The point of interviewing about genealogy is to verify dates and places and names. While the family stories are interesting, use the interview to confirm dates of marriages and births and deaths.
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Ask why and how. Ask when and where too. Most people will hate interviews that are just regurgitations of facts, so combine your questions or phrase them differently. Many people also do not recall specific dates or get frustrated when they cannot recall. Instead of asking for a specific date, especially if they are flustered because they can not recall, ask instead if the event occurred before or after they were married or graduated. Use world events - like the famous 1939 World's Fair in New York- if you think an event occurred near that time and need to confirm.
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Use photographs to jog memories. Ask about the people in the picture. Ask what was happening in the picture or when and why it was taken. An odd photo can yield interesting results as well as confirm dates and relations. A photo of a man laid out in a coffin surrounded by a large crowd, presumably family members, could be explained this way, at least in one city: In the early 1900s, such photos were commonly sent back to family in the Old World to show the person had truly died. Your interviewee may be able to identify aunts and uncles and cousins, thus adding to or enhancing your growing genealogy.
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Tips & Warnings
Record -- with permission -- your conversation.
Date and time your interview -- both on tape and on paper.
Once you conclude your interview and are just chatting, ask questions that offer the opportunity to gain insight through family stories.. For example, you might ask your grandmother how she and your grandfather met or about her school years. Ask your grandmother about her childhood and about her parents. Ask how holidays were spent or going to church as a child. Ask about school activities and childhood friends.
References
- Photo Credit woman with parents image by Pavel Losevsky from Fotolia.com
