Digging up Your Family Roots: Intermediate Level (Part II)

You’ve begun delving into your family history. You’ve already filled in all the names of your great-grandparents on your family tree. You’ve begun collecting the legal documents that record the milestones of your ancestors’ lives: birth, marriage and death certificates. You’ve even located your family in a few census records. But before you push further back, why not stop and really get to know these people? After all, that’s the purpose of tracing your family roots: knowing more about your ancestors.

If you have names, dates and records through your great-grandparents, you have fifteen lineal ancestors to get to know, both living and dead. To get to know your deceased ancestors better, you have to dig deeper on the paper trail. To better acquaint yourself with your living ancestors, start conducting oral history interviews. Both of these techniques are explained in more depth in this set of articles. Part one discussed digging deeper on the paper trail, while part two is an introduction to conducting oral history interviews.

Digging up Your Family Roots: Conducting Oral History Interviews

There is one topic that almost all people love to talk about: themselves. Luckily, this tendency provides a wealth of knowledge to genealogists, who want to know more about their relatives anyway. To begin, start with your oldest living relative. Expect each interview to last a few hours. The length and number of interviews will depend, however, on the age of your relative and the level of detail of his or her memory. Interviewing is tiring for both parties; if possible, interview over a series of days for an hour or two at a time.

Schedule your appointments with you interviewee; don’t just drop in. Calling ahead allows your relative to prepare, possibly by making notes of favorite stories or even gather other resources to show or give you. In-person interviews provide the most information, not only in additional resources but in physical cues. Telephone interviews are better than nothing.

It’s best to record the interview in whatever manner possible: cassette recorder, camcorder, still camera, paper and pen, etc. Always have a back up. Even if your camcorder or cassette recorder has never had a problem before, take notes. Bring extra paper, pens, tapes, batteries, etc. The rule here is "If it can go wrong, it will," so plan ahead and be flexible.

In addition to calling ahead and bringing the necessary materials, come prepared with questions. Some relatives need no prompting, others do. Try not to let the interview turn into information harvesting. Ask questions about details and really try to get to know your relative better.

If there is a particular family story that you’d like to hear, be sure to ask, but let them do the telling. Remember that important dates need to be verified independently. Family stories have a tendency to get better with each telling and while there is probably a kernel of truth, take these stories with a grain of salt. They are excellent to collect as a part of your ancestor history, but should not be the basis of all research or supersede any and all contradictory sources. However, do not correct or interrupt your relative as he or she tells you a story, even for clarification. Make a note and ask when he or she is ready.

Begin your interviews by discussing your relative’s own life in detail. Try to hit early childhood, later childhood, teenage years, education, courtship, marriage, children, professional and later periods of life. Ask for physical descriptions of people and places mentioned, especially close relatives and residences. If you know of major moves, military service or major world events (the Depression, wars, etc.) during his or her life that he or she doesn’t mention, ask. Be sensitive, however, to painful memories that they decline to discuss. Pushing too hard in these areas will end the interview very quickly.

After you have explored your relative’s life completely, ask them about the oldest relative they remember. Ask for a physical description of this person and his or her surroundings, the occasions when your interviewee interacted with him or her, stories and anything else they can remember about this relative. From there, work backward in time toward the present discussing relatives’ lives.

In addition to the wealth of information your relatives can provide in various areas of your family history, they might also have additional resources. When you schedule an interview, ask your relative about these other resources. These include family photographs, newspaper clippings, old letters, family papers/documents, a family Bible, journals, heirlooms, etc. Your relative may be kind enough to let you have some of these valuable resources, or you may be able to scan, copy or photograph them. Record them in some way, even if you can only write a detailed physical description. Often, these family artifacts lead to more stories and information. For photographs, for example, get the full names, ages and relationships of every person in the picture.

Transcribe the interview(s) as soon as possible. You may find you have more questions after hearing the interview a second time. Collect all the resources your relative gave you and document them as well, including letters and photos.

If you plan to use or publish any of the information your relative provides you in any way, get permission and get it in writing. Even if you’d only distribute the stories among your family, make sure your relative is comfortable with this. There may be some things he or she would only share with you and would rather not share with the rest of your family. If your relative asks for any part of his or her life not to be shared, always honor her request. The feelings and wishes of your relatives are more important that "historical" or "journalistic" integrity in these cases. It may be best to send your interviewee a copy of what you’d share for approval before distributing it further.

Interviewing your relatives is an ongoing task. You’ll always find aunts, uncles, cousins and more that you can interview and it could take weeks or years to complete the interviews with one person. Despite its daunting size, collecting family histories is a task that is easy to start, and start you must. You don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to interview your relatives. Get to know them better today. The genealogist’s lament is "I wish I’d asked him when he was alive." Don’t let it become your cry, too.

A quick example story: my father, an avid genealogist, worked with a man we’ll call "Bill." One day they were discussing family history, as my father often does, and Bill mentioned that his great-grandfather was over 100 years old and still living. My father urged him to interview his great-grandfather, who was the grandson of slaves. Over time, my father repeatedly urged Bill to conduct this interview, but his friend put it off. A few years later, the great-grandfather died. My father asked Bill about it and was surprised to learn that Bill had finally interviewed his great-grandfather. Unfortunately, the tape recorder failed, but Bill had wisely taken notes of the interview. Those notes are now the only record his family has of his great-grandfather’s life and memories. Bill is eternally grateful, as anyone would be, to have these memories preserved.

Real family history research is more than recording names and dates. Digging up your family roots is more than gathering birth, marriage and death certificates. The goal of family history is coming to know your ancestors better. Start getting acquainted by fleshing out your family roots for both your living and dead ancestors.

A descendant of many avid genealogists, Jordan McCollum works for 10x Marketing, an Internet marketing firm. For more information on fleshing out your family roots or professional genealogy research, see Heirlines Family History & Genealogy.