The "Interview" - Before it's too late!!!

There's one thing that nearly always comes up when I'm talking about genealogy with new family researchers.  The typical story is that there are many things that they'd like to know more about, but the person that might have helped them is long gone. There's always someone's grandmother or grandfather or aunt or uncle...Someone who was "there" when this or that happened.

I have somewhat of a solution: Interview them!  It sounds as though I'm overreacting by using the word "interview" but at the same time, I believe it's essential.  It should be an important part of you personal research, especially if the people you 'd like to talk with are still with us!!  I think many of us make the mistake of asking a few basic questions that results in meager results.  "What's your date of birth" or "Where were you born"  are important questions, but merely scratch the surface of a gold mine of stories that just need to be teased out a bit.

So, how do you "tease out" a story?  The first step, of course, is finding a living relative who you think may have stories to tell.  Just about anyone who is a generation or two older than you will have stories! the trick is to ask the right questions and use some means to record the conversation.  Next, you'll need a strategy.  In other words, what are you going to ask? Where are you going to go to conduct this interview?  How are you going to make sure that you get everything that was said recorded so it will be useful at a later date?

My humble suggestions!  Once you've decided on who you'd like to talk with, simply ask him or her if it's OK with them if you could get together to discuss family history.  There are probably some rare instances when you'll get shut down "faster than a speeding bullet" so be prepared, just don't be discouraged!  But 99.9% of the time, you'll be able to set something up where you can be comfortable and get the process started.  In my own experience, I've casually interviewed many of my now deceased relatives. But in one case, I found a cousin whom I had never met or known anything about.  When I described what I had in mind, she happily invited my wife and me to her home to get acquainted.  Which brings up the next vital component:  I asked her permission to record the conversations.  Truthfully, she was somewhat reluctant but agreed nonetheless.  I simply used a digital recorder, smaller than a deck of cards and just left it on the dining room table where we talked.  By the way, she invited 2 of her surviving siblings to join us.  What was planned as a one hour get together turned into a 5 hour discussion!!  Today, I might simply use my smartphone which would make it easier.  I might even add that sticking to a timetable would be respectful of the other persons time.  In my defense, we were encouraged to stay!

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="350"] The momentous interview (1849): 10th illustration by Phiz for David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

Here's the core element of this interview.  Be prepared!  And by that I mean have you questions all written up and ready to go.  Conveniently, I have a list that you can take a look at and take several to the interview.  Most are simply thought starters that are meant to elicit some degree of emotion.  Many times, you might ask just one question and sit back for the ride!  Using this technique, I recorded my 87 year old great aunt admitting that it was her that painted the neighbor's cat back when she was about 8 years old!!  She tried to convince me that she never told anyone that story.  But she was a talker so I find that a little hard to believe!

I've compiled a list of questions that you can pick and choose from.    Click this link to download and save or just read the document.  I've saved it in my Dropbox folder for everyone's use.

Now that you've gotten hours and hours of family history recorded, what are you going to do with it?

Stay tuned, we'll get to that tomorrow!

Old Bones on LCTV---Interviewing Relatives

Here's the video of my interview with "Mrs Buttercup" for Ludlow Community Televisoion. I'm describing the value of contacting relatives for the purpose of learning about their childhood, where they grew up, what their family life was like, what games they played as children and dozens more questions. All of this in the interest of making the cold dry facts of genealogy research come to life by "putting some meat on the bones", telling a real family story, give your family history some color and make it interesting.  Click this link and take a look: Old Bones on Interviewing Relatives for Family Research.  The sooner a good family researcher gets to their family members, the better the chance to capture the treasures of their memories.

Questions are tailored to trigger those memories.  Here are some examples: "Did you go to your grandmother's for special dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc?", "Do you have pleasant memories of the aromas in her kitchen?", "Can you still "smell them at times?", "Did your family eat dinner together at the table?", "Did everyone have their own place to sit?".  These questions should elicit more than a one word response; they should be the foundation of stories as the person you are interviewing begins to remember their childhood and how they interacted with their family.  Good or bad, you're sure to get some great stories.  When I interviewed my Great Aunt Sarah, we got to talking about some of the mischief she was involved in.  She admitted to me (and I was the first to hear her "confession"!) that she was the one who painted the neighbor's cat blue when she was about 7 years old.  She never really liked that cat!!

If you're going to take on this as a project and get some interviews, I strongly recommend using a digital recorder.  Get permission to use it in the interview.  Some people can be very intimidated by a recording device and small digital recorders can just sit on the table without microphones and other recording technology.  Very soon into the interview, everyone will just forget that it's there.  After you get permission, ask AGAIN after the recording starts.  You may be getting along just fine today, but you want to make sure that the person's voice can be clearly heard agreeing to taping the interview .  Not that you're going to publish the recording or put it in the public donain, but it's a good idea to get approval!  Take your time...you're probably not going to get this done in one session.

I'll be hosting some classes in the interview process and possibly record a "lesson" to post on YouTube wich I'd link here.

Stay tuned!