Genealogy Chat

Hi all.. looking for some suggestion's.. I'd like to prepare a questionaire to assist in prompting replies, stories, from my older relatives.. 75 to 90 years age range. I'm sure it's an approach tried by many before but haven't been abre to find any examples beyond the usual birth, baptism, school, marriage stuff.. looking for examples that would promote responses re their social history.. life & events.. Appreciate all tips, suggestions. Thanks Wayne

I' m not sure that a questionnaire other for your own (Prompting) use is such a good idea. Most people are not keen filling out such things.

Far better if practical to have a face to face chat with your older relatives and preferably in their own home at their convenience. In such circumstances they are likely to feel much more comfortable when answering. You are much more likely to get a better response. An answer to one of your questions might well be expanded into areas that you had not previously thought of.

Another advantage of being face to face is that you can then judge the emotion of their response much better.

One tip that I would pass on is that it sometimes pays to ask a question, the answer to which you already know the answer. Throw in the occasional red herring such as "Your father was Bill wasn't he?" the answer you may get back something like, "Well everybody called him Bill but he was christened John William".

Once you start the ball rolling you may find that one of their answers triggers a further memory so you might end up learning far more than you expected to"

A final point being use the words Who, Why, What, When, Where and How when forming your questions. It is not possible to respond to those with a simple Yes or No.

Good luck.

Also, don't disregard any snippets of info, even something like 'his father died when he was young' can narrow down a search. My Mum said her elderly Aunt used to talk about 'Aunt Musson from Harley St'. I wrote this down, and years later found her, the Aunt's father's sister, married to a man called William Musson.

A tape recorder is all you need, old folks just love to reminisce and let them tell their stories, about the war, hard times, aunties and uncles, scandals etc

Appreciate all but should have said.. I'm in Oz & those I'l like to get such memories, stories from, range from 100 miles away at the short end, to several times that for others & a round of face to face visits, with the time needed for conversation is not a viable option at this point in time. With failing hearing etc with many, the phone doesn't work either.. some get quite frustrated with it.
The tape recorder is a great tool & many of our Regional libraries have a program in place where they gather such oral history, I'd like to be a tad more focused though, the individual's history and memories of the family as well as the influence of events, conditions of the time & thought that having some prompting Q's might encourage pen to paper.. particularly when All of the older generation were great letter writers in the 1930's & 40's. Cheers

Hi Wayne,

Maybe use open ended questions, so you might ask say where they went to school, then you might ask what was your favouite teacher, what was your strongest memeory/impression of the school etc,

Often with elderly relatives I have found that they are better at giving descriptive answers and don't feel constrained with a yes/no.

I think a good question is to ask them have they achieved what they wanted to in their life? What is something they would reccomend for anyone else following in their footsteps.. (Sometimes these become the nicest memories)

I'd ask questions too about the personalities or traits that relatives have shared, as photo's can only tell you so much..

Anyway just my two cents worth!

Cheers

Rachelel (in Aus as well1)

What is your first memory? ( that gives you place and people around usually) .

Where did you go to school, what was school like?

who was at your wedding?

How did you celebrate VE/VJ day and who with?

One that might be interesting is where physical characteristics came from, e.g. "where did the red hair come from?" Through a process of elimination and because of a remarriage, I was able to trace my husband's distinctive white-blond colouring back as far as his g.g.grandparents.

Another might be how they met their spouses - sometimes you find connections between families.