1. Set a Goal

Some ideas:

o   Write the history of one nuclear family.  Choose a family, your own, the one you grew up in, the family your father grew up in, the family of an ancestor… just that family though.

o   Write a ‘Sketches from the life of’ or ‘A Day in the Life of’ for your favorite aunt or an ancestor.

o   Choose a married couple and record their interactions with one another

o   Write about the major events in the life of one person.

o   Write one detailed story from the life of yourself, your mother, your grandfather, or an ancestor.

o   Make up a question and answer book… and make sure the participants finish it.

o   Create an annotated time line of someone’s life.

o   Write a detailed explanation of a photograph.

 

1. Decide on questions

The questions that you are going to ask depend on the goal that you have set.  If you are writing a question book this will be the major part of your project.  If you are writing about an ancestor that you never knew personally, you may get a good outline now, and add questions later as you find out more about their life.  Be detailed and as exhaustive as possible with your questions.  Also don’t limit the scope of your questions.  For example, asking questions about the general history of the place someone lived will give you better insight into what their life was like.

- See the ‘Got Questions?’ page

 

1. Determine the sources that are available to help you answer these questions

There are basically three different kinds of sources that can help you answer your questions.

      Documents: journals, vital documents, military records (often these have physical descriptions!), letters, old bills and ledgers, town and county histories, and it goes on and on…

      Material objects

                  Many of our families have artifacts that have stories attached to them, write them down!  Artifacts can tell us a lot about a person.  Photographs, jewelry (inscriptions?), maps, trophies, clothing, athletic equipment, medals, anything at all!

      People

                  Learn to interview well and do it often

- See the ‘Source of Some Sources’ page

 

1. Evaluate the sources

How are these sources going to help you answer your questions and what new questions do they bring up?

 

1. Organize the information

Now that your living room table looks like Great Grandma’s attic (PERFECT!).  What do you do with all of this stuff?  Create an outline or a time line for your project.  List your questions in the order you want them answered and list the sources you think will help you answer each one next to them.

 

1. Write

Yes, you actually do eventually have to sit down and write.  Some tips: Don’t make it too long or break it down into sections so you aren’t overwhelmed and ALWAYS, ALWAYS site your sources or all you hard work will be less valuable.  (And your historical minded grand daughter will doubt every thing you have written!)

 

1. Share what you have created

Family histories make personal and treasured gifts.  They may turn out to be the highlight of a family reunion, and don’t forget them at family home evening.

Got Questions?

 

Starting out broad and then getting more and more detailed is a good way to go when developing a list of questions.  This will also help you create your outline later.  Always ask open ended questions whenever possible.  You get more interesting answers.

 

Example:

What was her childhood like?

      Describe her home life?

                  What was her relationship with her mother?

                              What chores did they do together?

                                          How did they do the chores?

                                          When did they do the chores?

                                          What tools did they use?

                                          Why were they the ones performing this chore?

                                          Did they have any other help?

                              What special activities did they do together?

                              What did they disagree about?

                              When did they spend time together?

                              How did her relationship with her mother change as she grew?

                  With her father?

                  How did she get along with her siblings?

                  What were her responsibilities at home?

                  What were her favorite family activities?

                  What traditions did she participate in and pass on?

      What were her interactions with extended family?
      What was it like to live in her home town?

      What was it like for her to go to school?

      What were her experiences and interactions at church?

What was her young adulthood like?

What was her early married life like?

What was her later married life like?

What was her life like after the loss of her spouse?

 

Val D. Greenwood in her book The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy lists some of the questions she might ask and you get an idea of some detailed questions. (pp. 173-176)

 

“What were the circumstances of daily family life?  Consider such things as sleeping accommodations or even seating arrangements at the dinner table.  Our children, who today feel deprived if they don’t have their own private bedrooms, would be greatly surprised at some of the arrangements in the homes of their ancestors where large families shared restricted quarters.  What were the household furnishings like?  What about the household tasks and the tools used to perform those tasks?  What chores were assigned to children?  What fuel was used for heating and/or cooking?  How was it obtained?  How stored?  What about food preservation methods and insect control methods before the days of refrigeration and modern insecticides?  What about varmint control?”

Source of Some Sources and Resources

(say that three times fast!)

 

Here is, hopefully a little bit of help in finding and discovering some great sources and resources available for your family history.

 

Sources:

      Documents

                  There is an unending list of possibilities when it comes to documents.  You will not believe what you will find in the most unsuspecting places.  The best place to start is looking at home.  Look through your attics and basements and then look through your relative’s attics and basements (I recommend you get their permission first!)  Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because you don’t know about it must not exist.  I have had to declare myself a repository because I have collected so many old documents that no one else knew my grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. had.  I was the only one that ever asked, so I was the one that got to see them and in many cases, take them home.  Also, don’t forget to visit old friends.  You will be surprised at what people keep.

                  After you have exhausted all of the “home” possibilities you can move onto other repositories.  Libraries, churches, county courthouses, and of course our own wonderful FHL.  You can now search the FHL catalog for keywords which means you can combine surname with a place or an occupation! (FANTASTIC!)

      Material Objects

                  Photographs are always very valuable.  You will be surprised at how much information you can get from a photograph when you start asking questions about it.  Look at what they are wearing, how are they standing, the looks on their faces.  What is the occasion, and the location?  Pay particular attention to the background.  What is hanging on the walls?  What is on the table?  What is the furniture like?  Whose car is that in the background?  Who does it belong to?  Ask about every detail.

                  Other artifacts can be just as telling.  Why did they keep that old handkerchief?  Whose initials are on it?  What about this valentine?  Here is an old football with signatures on it.  How about the piece of wood I found in my mother’s cabinet that is labeled ‘Salt Lake Temple handrail’… yep, I found out my great-great grandfather helped to build the Salt Lake Temple, and now I have a scrap from one of the handrails.

      People

                  Interviewing other people is one of the most important ways that we record family history.  The benefits are evident.  We not only get the history, we get the recordings of that person’s voice.  When we interview multiple people about one event or time period we get a better understanding of what really happened.

                  We need to learn to interview and do it well.  There is a right way and a less effective way.  It is so important that I have attached another handout on how to do it properly.  For more extensive information on how to conduct an interview see An Oral History Primer by Gary L. Shumway and William G. Hartley.

                  - See Conducting an Oral History page.

 

 

 

Resources:

 

Books:

      - I have mentioned a couple of books that I really like, I will list them here again for you

                              -An Oral History Primer by Gary L. Shumway and William G. Hartley

                              -The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood

      -There are dozens of other books out there about writing your family history.  I’m sure some of them could be helpful, but I don’t think any of them are good enough that I own them.

 

Websites:

      - I have a few favorite websites that I use.

www.ourtimelines.com  This website allows you to enter 10 personal events from your ancestor’s life (back to 1000 AD) and then adds those 10 personal events to a time line of major historical events.  They also include the age of your ancestor at the time of the event.  It is a fantastic tool for understanding the context of the world for your ancestor was living in and I have found it invaluable for preparing an oral interview.

www.cyndislist.com  This is the biggest index of genealogical and family history websites anywhere!  You could spend hours and days looking at all the sites she has indexed (I know I have!)

www.usgenweb.org  This is a volunteer organization that also has created an index, but they index all sorts of resources (not just websites) by location, starting with the entire US, then each state and finally each county in that state.  It is a wonderful resource for some areas, and non-existent for others, but always worth looking at to see if someone has listed resources for the county your ancestor lived in.

www.genuki.org.uk  Same thing as USGenWeb only for the UK.  It is also better organized and more reliable.

www.genwriters.com  This is a site I just found.  I haven’t explored it completely yet, but it looks promising.

 

Other:

-          The FHL has created “Historical Backgrounds” for all of the US states and some places outside the US.  These are available on their website under the Search/Research Helps tab.

-          Don’t forget to do a surname search on the FHL catalog and on HBL Library’s catalog at BYU (available on their website www.byu.edu) They have a large collection of journals, personal histories, biographies, and autobiographies.

Conduction an Oral Interview

 

Preparation

A.    Select and prepare your interviewee.

Showing up at your aunt’s front door with a tape recorder is not the best way to go about this.

-          Call or write to your relative or friend and ask them if they will be interviewed.  Only interview one person at a time.

-          Give them a few very broad topics to think about before the interview, but ask them not to write anything down.  This tends to inhibit the free flowing conversation you want to achieve.

-          Set an appointment during a time and place that you will have plenty of time, that you can be alone together, and that you will not be interrupted.  You never want to interview multiple people together at the same time.  One person will always dominate the interview and people will alter what they would otherwise tell an unbiased listener when a spouse of child is in the room/

B.     Prepare yourself

-          Do basic pre-interview research about your interviewee.  You should not have to ask them basic things like when and where they were born, who they married, when, etc.  Have this information all ready available to you when you start the interview.

-          Create a time line of major historical events that they have lived through.  I use the webpage www.ourtimelines.com to do this in preparation for an interview.

-          Create a list of open ended questions, things that cannot be answered with a word or a sentence.  “Tell me about your wedding day is much better than “When, where, and by whom were you married?”

C.     Select and practice with your equipment

-          You need a good quality tape recorder, preferably one with an external microphone, but an internal one will work if it is high quality.  You don’t want to have to ask your interviewee to speak up or hold a microphone.  Never use a mini tape recorder; they are not of sufficient quality.

-          Buy tapes that are nor more than 60 min, 30 min on each side, any longer and the tape wears out faster.  This one time that name brand matters.  The known name brands are of high quality and will last longer.  Again, never uses a mini tape.

-          Practice using you equipment prior to the interview so that it won’t cause a distraction

Interviewing

A.    Show up early to set your equipment so it doesn’t cause a distraction

B.     Make sure your interviewee is comfortable

C.     Start my stating into the tape

-          your name, who you are interviewing, your relationship to that person, the date and the place of the interview

-          Play this back to make sure your volume is good and everything is working well.

D.    Begin with your first question (remember always open ended)

-          let your interviewee talk without interruption.  We love tangents and will take as many as we can get.  Don’t worry if they get off the topic of your questions, let them go.  I have had interviewee talk as long as 20 min straight.

-          Keep a notebook and pencil handy to write down questions as that come to mind as they talk so that you don’t have to interrupt them, but you don’t forget either.

-          Encourage them occasionally with a “really?,” a quiet “um-hum” or just a smile.  Be sincere.

-          Only add to the story (even if you were there) to state into the tape who Dad, (their father or husband?), Tim (Jr. or Sr.) etc.  Think about a complete outsider listening to the tape and what they would need to know about the relationships.  Do this discreetly.

-          Be sensitive to the time, it will go quickly.  If they have somewhere else to be in an hour or two, be sensitive to that.  Don’t be upset or try to rush if you don’t get all of your questions, just ask if you can do another interview and set up another appointment.  I once interviewed my grandmother for 2 hours and only asked her 6 questions.

-          Be sure to thank your interviewee for sharing themselves with you.  This can be a very special experience for both of you.  You will grow closer to one another.

Transcribing

A.    Some colleges and historical societies have transcription machines available to borrow.  If you can’t get one, do a little at a time, it will be done before you know it, and it will be well worth the effort.

B.     Try to stay as close to the actual conversation as possible.  You can leave out false starts, your encouragement remarks, sneezes, etc.  Do, however, indicate emotion such as laughter or close to tears.