Module 1 Mini-Project: Interview a Relative

Mini-Project: Interview a Relative

It's been said that "when an old person dies, a library burns to the ground." One of the most important things we can do as family history researchers is to record the important stories our ancestors have to tell while they're still able to tell them. This mini-project is designed to help you do just that.

Scheduling, conducting, recording, and preserving an interview with a living relative is one of the best ways to get your genealogy research off the ground. If you're like some, you've heard your grandmother's stories a hundred times, but never once thought to write them down or record them in any way. This project will walk you through the best ways to accomplish this, whether you're conducting your interview face-to-face with your ancestor or virtually, across time zones.

Step 1: Schedule your interview

It's important that you conduct this interview with the full cooperation of your ancestor, and that means getting their permission and scheduling the interview well in advance. This allows you time to make all the necessary preparations and ensures that you'll be ready for the interview when the time comes.

First, make sure your relative would be willing to chat with you about your family history, and that they can set aside a significant amount of time to talk with you. Keep in mind that these interviews can last at least an hour, but if your relative has lots of stories to tell (and they always do!), don't be surprised if the interview stretches to two hours or more. You may also consider setting up numerous sessions with your relative, focusing each one on a specific area of that person's past.

So schedule a time well in advance, and stick to it. When the appointed time comes, make sure you're free of distractions and well-prepared.

Step 2: Plan your interview

Going into an interview unprepared is a recipe for failure. You run the risk of forgetting to ask an important question, failing to properly record the interview, or wasting time with technology malfunctions. Ask yourself these questions:

How do you plan to conduct the interview? In person? Over the phone or via online video chat? Where will you meet? Who will initiate the phone call or video chat? Does your relative have any necessary equipment? Consider what will work best for you and your relative, and communicate these details to your ancestor ahead of time.

How do you plan to record the interview? Tried-and-true paper-and-pencil notes might work for you, but you risk missing important details. Consider recording in-person interviews with a digital audio recorder or a video camera. StoryCorps has a really useful smartphone app Links to an external site. for just this purpose! If you're conducting the interview over the phone or via online video chat, you might want to investigate legal ways to record a phone call Links to an external site. or record a video call with a screencasting tool Links to an external site.. Make sure any equipment is in working order and do a test run ahead of time!

What questions do you plan to ask? Refer back to our discussion or write your own; just remember, open-ended questions ("Grandma, what was it like to live during the Great Depression?") are much more likely to get you valuable information than less open-ended questions ("Grandma, was it hard for your family to live through the Great Depression?"). 

Step 3: Conduct & record your interview

It's the day of the interview! Make sure all of your questions are prepped, your recording equipment is set up and ready, and you have a pencil and notepad handy, then make the call and press "record"! To make things easier on yourself and on future researchers, introduce the interview by stating your name, your relative's name, the date, and the purpose of the interview, so no one has to put these details together themselves. Ask follow-up questions when necessary and make notes about details you'd like to come back to later. When you're done, don't forget to thank your interviewee and definitely don't forget to stop recording!

Step 4: Preserve your interview

Now that you've recorded your interview, you'll want to preserve it for your benefit and for the benefit of anyone researching your family's history after you. Good preservation starts with good description: provide each document with a title, date, etc. and make reference to those documents in your research log. Consider transcribing what was said in the interview to make the interview full-text searchable. Make copies of your completed documents and store them in locations separate from the originals. Also consider digitizing paper documents and preserving any born-digital files. The Library of Congress has a great guide to Personal Digital Archiving Links to an external site. that you might find useful, and here we've compiled a playlist of videos Links to an external site. from the State Library of North Carolina that teaches you some of the basics of digital preservation.

Have fun!

It goes without saying, but this process should be enjoyable! How fascinating it is to hear your family's stories told by those who actually lived them. A well-planned and successfully executed interview will help preserve these stories for generations to come.

In the next module, we'll start to verify the information you've recorded on your ancestor chart with information from the US Census.