Interviewing Relatives - don't fall at the first hurdle

Before you draw up a list of questions and set off to interview Great Aunt Mary or Grandpa John take a moment to consider the points below.

For a full guide see Annie's eBook - Unlocking Your Family Stories©. This goes into more depth and tackles how to deal with refusal, "black sheep" and handling sensitive issues - illegitimate children, criminal records, bankruptcy etc

Have you interviewed yourself?
Begin with yourself; it will make talking to others far easier and enjoyable if you can share your experiences and stories to encourage your relatives. Sharing gives you greater insight and draws out similar responses from your subjects.

History from the Heart's unique Memory Cards™ (developed over 15 years of family history interviews) will help you identify the key people and moments in both your life and your subject's -the result is a person-specific interview that gets to the heart of the matter.

Who is your family's Story Keeper?
Many extended families have one person who knows most of the family's history - the names of people in old photos, the romances, the secrets, the skeletons and probably even who has the family bible.

This is the person you need to talk to early on in your quest to help lay the foundations of your family stories.

Tip: Leave a pack of Memory Cards™ with your interviewee and let them jot down the things they remember as they browse the fifty topics. This will save you time and allow you to ask clarifying and follow up questions to add more depth and meaning to the story.

Avoid a standard list of questions.
Quite often family historians begin with a standard list of questions which is used for everyone -one size fits all. In theory this is fine but what tends to happen is that you receive a dull series of Yes/No answers or responses that all sound the same; this can be quite disheartening and demoralising.

Finally, the big one. Are you prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth...?
You need to decide your approach at the very beginning and refuse to be diverted. Is this just a happy family story or is it going to be a true account -warts and all- of the people and events that have shaped your family?

Promise yourself that you will not believe everything you hear. You will look into the contradictions, the missing years, the disappearances and the unusual.

A true historian is an investigator looking for the facts to help uncover the truth. This is your commitment to those who will read your family history in the generations to come and to those to whom you will pass the torch.