Your Family Tree – Interview Your Relatives For Family History Stories and Other Treasures

As you build your family tree, you may find that all you have are names, dates, and places along with a few documents to prove each detail. However, this simply gives you the bare bones of your line of descent from ancestors. To enrich the family history of your relatives and your ancestors, you will need more details and stories. Here are some ideas on how to find stories and other treasure which will give you more of a picture of your ancestors’ lives and times.

Start by looking at your basic family tree and identify several gaps or very limited information on individuals. For instance, you see that you know very little about your grandparents and their brothers and sisters. If you have their birth dates and birth places, where they lived when growing up, you could ask questions of any of the older living relatives. Not sure if they would be interested in answering your questions? You might find that relatives will be happy to cooperate and are interested in what you are doing. And, glad that someone else is doing this research!

At any time when relatives get together, use the opportunity to ask questions. Some of these questions may be about clarifying data you have: such as occupations, residence moves, immigration, engagements and marriages, burial places. But here are some other questions that could bring out more stories, and may encourage your relatives to bring out their old photo albums and other genealogy treasure!

Mail a list of some of the following questions for your relatives before you go to visit, or telephone them. Don’t overwhelm them with too many questions! Then, go over these and other questions with your Aunt Ethel or your Great-Uncle Hal over a cup of tea. You may find it helpful to bring a recorder as well as a few photos of the older relatives.

• Did Grandma and Grandpa ever talk about their engagement or wedding? Or about other relatives’ weddings?


• Do you remember if anyone in our family joined the military, fighting in WWI or WWII, or other battles?


• Did anyone in the family die in the battles? buried where? any medals given?


• Those who did not join the military, what did they do at home?


• Do you know why Grandma and Grandpa moved from Ireland to England, or when?


• Do you remember hearing how they travelled across Canada to BC in 1914?


• Who in the family has been in touch with any of the relatives who stayed in England?


• How did your parents and/or grandparents celebrate holidays or birthdays?


• What kinds of jobs did our grandparents (and/or their parents) do when they were young, when they were older?


• Did anyone in the family like to play pranks on others? or tell jokes? or love to tell stories?


• Do you know if anyone in the family loved to dance or sing, or play an instrument?


• What did they do in the evenings together? What card games or other things did they do?


• What was it like growing up in that time? What were the days like? the weekends? the holidays?


• I saw on the censuses that the family lived in one town for over 20 years – did they own property there?


• What do you remember about the area, the town?


• Where did the kids play, and what kinds of games did they like to play?


• What did your parents or grandparents die of – do you remember?


• Was anything special handed down from one person to another in the family?


• What did you and your best friends do during the days, the weekends, the summers?


• What do you remember about getting sick, about what your parents did about illnesses?


• Were there any funny sayings or things one parent said a lot that you remember?


• Do you know if anyone got divorced? and how that was done? how other relatives felt about that?

Have you found that one line of family relatives seem quite cool to the idea and not very helpful? Other researchers have found that one can get some cooperation by asking very politely for “corrections” to the family history and details, and deliberately make a few errors in dates! Sneaky, but effective!

Bring a few older photographs out of your photo albums, if you have any. You could also bring a 4 or 5 generation family sheet, with a few family group records as well, that they may be able to look at and fill in a few gaps or give you some stories. Sometimes it just takes a photograph and a question to start the details flowing. Happy searching!

Retired from the fields of individual rehabilitation and family counselling, Celia is excited to offer quality information, resources, and services for beginners in Genealogy. If you are a beginner, check out the RootsBasic booklet, at http://www.rootsbasic.com – an inexpensive guide to help you get started, including 16 practical forms to help keep you organized. FREE resources: articles, newsletters, online links and more on RootsBasic: Genealogy for Beginners.