Interviewing
The art and technique of eliciting stories from others
Interviewing Family At Thanksgiving: What Happened Last Year & This Year’s Plans (Updated)
What can you do to interview family and collect histories and memories of elders and relatives when you get together with family at Thanksgiving or for the National Day of Listening?
I wrote about this last year, with a collection of ideas I culled from the internets. I adapted one of those for our family gathering last year. I’ll describe what we did, what I learned, how this year will be different, and brainstorm some variations on a theme.
I started with Beth Lamie’s idea, Draw From A Hat. Put a set of questions in a hat and draw one out and ask. Repeat. That was the inspiration: That, and “Get the kids involved.”
But of course, somebody has to think up the questions that get placed into the hat. I focused on this with my nieces—two girls, aged 9 (nearly 10) and 4. Let them be the ones to come up with questions for everyone.
What we did to prepare for Dinner Conversation
I arrived at their house, got them to step away from the computer and the Tee vee (sigh. yes. true.) with an aunt-ish scheme: Think of some questions to ask people at the dinner table. Instead of generic questions that would apply to anybody, I decided to get as specific as possible. What question do you want to ask your Dad? Your Mom? Grandma? Uncle J?... Read More
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Interviewing Family: Kim von Aspern-Parker of Le Maison Duchamps, Part 2
In this second half of my interview with Kim von Aspern-Parker (Kim von Aspern-Parker, Part 1) about interviewing family, Kim talks about her approaches to get permission from people for her interviews, describes her hardest interview (and why it’s hard), and she gives her final morsels of advice (plus, I put all her advice in one handy list).
Kim is one of the four people I interviewed about interviewing family at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree this past June. (Series introduction)
Kim von Aspern-Parker blogs at Le Maison Duchamp. Highlights of Part 1: For Dad to start talking, he had to be in an altered state. Using a genealogy chart to interview? Surprise! Advice for interviewing: remember to listen for the stories, don’t interrupt people, and work from photo albums.
Disclosure and Permissions
In the first half, while Kim talked about her visit with her 90-year old aunt and the misunderstanding over the genealogy chart, she described putting her recorder out on the table with a bunch of other items (keys, phone, etc.), and interviewing her aunt, and letting her know after the fact. We revisit a bit of that conversation for this later section on disclosure and permissions.
Kim von Aspern-Parker: I said, “You know, all these stories you’re telling me. They’re all about our family, It’s not so much that they’re dead people but they’re our family.” And I said,... Read More
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Interviewing Family: Kim von Aspern-Parker of Le Maison Duchamps, Part 1
The first interview in this “Jamboree Genealogy Bloggers talk about Interviewing Family” series is with Kim von Aspern-Parker, who blogs at Le Maison Duchamp. I started by asking her to tell me of her experience interviewing family members. She began by describing her experience interviewing her dad.
This interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and to remove, you know, a few, like, forms of spoken word that don’t, um, work as well as the written word. There are also places in the interviews where I withhold information at the request of the person interviewed.
Kim von Aspern-Parker: When I started interviewing my dad, I started asking him questions about his family, cause I was doing my genealogy. The first indication that I got from my dad that he was going to be a hard interview:
“What was your grandfather’s name?”
He says, “Mr. Gilchrist.”
“No, like first name, Dad.”
“Grandpa.”
(Probably not.)
So, every time I interviewed my dad it was like draaaaagging information out of him, except this one time - he was having congestive heart failure—so he was on oxygen, and his oxygen saturation got low. Well, when your oxygen saturation gets low, you... Read More
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How does genealogical research differ from interviewing family?
Back in June, at Jamboree in Burbank, I spoke to four people about their experience recording interviews with family members. Next week I will start publishing a series of posts where you get to hear (or, read) from them directly.
Jamboree, by the way, is the Southern California Genealogy Society Jamboree — the annual June conference in the greater Los Angeles area. It’s well-attended by genealogy bloggers.
The four people:
- Kim von Aspern-Parker of Le Maison Duchamp
- Joan Miller of Luxegen
- Donna Wendt of Another Day With Donna
- Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist
(Listed in the order I interviewed them)
But first, imagine the following scenario.
You decide to contact the government agency that can give you some vital records for Great Great Great Grandma, which are stored at the Grove County Records. You want her birth certificate and marriage certificate.
The usual procedure for that is to write a request for the information. Maybe they have a PDF form online that you can fill out and print. Or maybe you just write Great Great Great Grandma’s name and whatever other information you have. Along with the request, you write a check to cover the processing fee and mail your request to the Grove County Records Department.
And then you wait.
One day, an envelope with... Read More
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Roundup of my posts regarding interviewing family (the “not at Rootstech because I’m sick” edition)
I’m not at Rootstech because I’m sick (I was registered, tho). Dang. As tweets and posts emerge from it, I figured I’d do a roundup of my “how to interview family (how to + tech + tools)” posts from the last year that will interest people who are attending Rootstech. I’ve written quite a few posts about interviewing family, both procedural, and technical over the last year. Here’s a guide to them:
Interviewing family series
I wrote this series ahead of the Southern California Genealogy Society’s Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank, CA (where I spoke on interviewing family, and digital tools) It’s about different ways to come up with good questions to ask your family member when you sit down to interview him or her.
Three Weeks to Jamboree: Interviewing Family
Curiosity. Non-Judgement. The underlying attitude to everything.
Interviewing Family: Why not Why?
Why is asking “WHY?” not a good idea when interviewing family members?
Interviewing Family: What Should I Ask? Major Life Events
When you think about the major events in a person’s life, the questions start asking themselves.
Also: How family communication can go weird
The research of Deborah Tannen (who shares my birthday!) sheds light on ways things go weird within families.
Interviewing using Photo Albums
More on interviewing family: Very practical tips for when you pull out the... Read More
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Your turn (Open thread): Did you interview anyone over the holidays?
Did you interview anyone over the holidays? Who did you interview? What happened? How’d it go? What did you use to capture what the person said? (paper and pen? an audio recorder? a video recorder?)
Here’s an open thread for you: Tell your story about getting someone else to tell a story over the holidays.
I’ll start with an oh-so-brief recap:
There were three interview events between Thanksgiving and New Year’s:
- Thanksgiving: I put one of the suggestions from this roundup to use: Helped my nieces think up questions to ask everyone. She wrote them on 3x5 cards, shuffled them, and then began asking questions. I had the recorder on and recording, and we all learned new things about each other. (more on that experience to come.)
- Last week: I attended a memorial service for a man who was a mentor to my mother, and a teacher to my brother and me. I recorded the audio of the service. At the reception, I set up a dual mic at a table where people could sit down and offer their recollections.
- Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: Interview a friend about a couple of very significant family photos. This is where family
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Interviewing while looking at photo albums (Part 2)
For Part 2 of this two-part series about interviewing using photo albums, I made you a movie!
Using the writerly maxim, “Show, don’t tell,” I show you what it’s like to view photos while listening to people talk about them. I’ve written the important lesson before — describe out loud what you see on the page — but it’s easier to watch and listen to see how important it is to put what you know into the recording. The movie features the glorious album of my Great Aunt Doris, the painter and horsewoman. (See Part 1)
I put this movie together from the audio recording of an interview I did with my mother a few years back. I just started up the audio and we looked through the album in two long sessions. Don’t worry, this movie is much shorter than the long afternoon we spent poring over its pages. You’ll join us as we look at one spread in the album and talk about the photos on its pages.
You get to step into the shoes of someone who comes along later—someone who wasn’t present at the interview—and try to make sense of the photos by looking at the photos. It’s 4:46 minutes long.
[note: if you are reading this using a feed reader (Google Reader, Feed Demon, Bloglines, NewsGator, Net News Wire, Cyndicate, NewsCrawler, etc.), the above movie will not appear. Please click through and visit this actual post and view the movie. Have troubles... Read More
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• Interviewing
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Thanksgiving table talk and the National Day of Listening
Here’s a roundup of practical Thanksgiving Day advice for ways to collect family history around the Thanksgiving table. (Or before or after). I offer these in hopes that it adds some depth to your family holiday. These are blog posts and articles by others around the blogosphere.
Oh, and are you aware of a holiday tip that’s not mentioned here? Please let me know. I’m happy to make this collection grow to reflect the good advice and suggestions that are out there.
Paula’s Genealogical Eclectica has a list of good conversation-starter interview questions. [via Little Bytes of Life]
I wish I had asked my Grandma Gert what it was like to be 21 when women earned the right to vote in 1922. I would have had asked her mother, Nana, for details on growing up without a mother and why did they leave Canada.
Here are a few of her questions (geared toward the women elders in her family):
- What was it like to make the decision to leave your home country and come to the U.S., Canada, England, or _____
- What was it like to walk the picket line during the ___ strike?
- What were the family... Read More
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Interviewing while looking at photo albums (Part 1)
When you get together with family at Thanksgiving, will you spend all your time in the kitchen and dining table? Make some time to hear family stories. One basic way to capture stories is to look at photo albums and ask questions about the people and places, and the events depicted therein.
Photos are a great means of eliciting stories. Photos (and photo albums) also provide a fantastic start on a journey of collecting family history stories.
More than one older relative has replied to the request for an interview with something like—“What? you want to interview me? But my life’s been so normal. So unexciting. What would I possibly have to say?”
That same person who objects to an “Interview” (with a capital I) probably finds it perfectly reasonable to sit down and identify people in photographs. “Why of course I’ll tell you who these people you’ve never met are.” Easy-peasy. Slam-dunk.
Now you’re off and running. Then the person will start remembering, and will tell you about the people and the earlier times.
This two-part series covers some of the mechanics of getting good stories while using photo albums.
There are more stories than just the photos in the album... Read More
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Genealogy Gems Podcast meets Family Oral History (at Jamboree)
I was interviewed for the Genealogy Gems podcast back in June, at the SCGS Jamboree in Burbank. Lisa Louise Cooke, podcast host and Chief Gemologist, released Episode #97, and it features our discussion. (Our interview happens about 24 minutes into the podcast.)
Thank you, Lisa, for interviewing me. Since Lisa and I spoke not long after I’d given two presentations (interviewing family/all about digital audio recording equipment), I happened to have all kinds of recording equipment with me, so I offered to also record the interview using my kit (scroll down for photo of my “recording studio in an Otter Box”—I also wrote a post to I describe how I bought it—it’s a few years old, and Things Have Changed Since Then.)
Oh, and also—click all photos to enlarge.
Show notes and Equipment Updates
When we recorded the interview (in early June), I recommended the Zoom Handy H2 (and compared it with the Marantz PMD620).
Since then, Zoom has brought out a new recorder the Zoom H1 Handy Portable Recorder—less expensive and simpler to use than the H2. The price is $99—a great price for full stereo quality sound. Better yet, it... Read More
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It’s Deborah Tannen Day - or how family communication can go weird
Why is this day Deborah Tannen day? According to Wikipedia, it’s her birthday. Which is the same as my birthday. Yippee! Tannen is the author of the books You Just Don’t Understand
In her book, I Only Say This Because I Love You
Connection vs Control
In my Why not ask Why? post, I touched on her tension between connection and control—everyone wants to be connected, and everyone wants to avoid being controlled, but sometimes, as a family member, you just can’t help but be controlling toward another. And, well, something that one person says with the intention of caring is received by... Read More
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Interviewing Family: What Should I Ask? Major Life Events
What questions should I ask? Here’s a strategy for coming up with questions based on what you know about the person. Create a rough structure of the person’s life. List what you know about the person. List what you know about the time period. Look at it and then let the questions suggest themselves.
The structure of your interviewee’s life
Image above comes with a hat-tip to my friend Symbolman, who’s animated some stories about life using Symbolpeople. check out Boy Meets Girl.)
The low-tech version uses a piece of paper. High tech version uses a spreadsheet that you can download.
I’ll use my dad as an example. He’s no longer alive (which is one reason I’ll use some specifics from his life)
- Create a document with a few columns across the top: Calendar year, Age (how many years old), and then more columns to note life’s events. A column for where he lived, a column for school and work, a column for major life events, and a column for historical events going on at the time.
- Start by noting the year of the person’s birth. Fill other years below (The spreadsheet does this automatically)
- Fill in information about locations lived, school, work, relationship and
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Interviewing Family: Why not Why?
What’s wrong with “Why?” In the previous post, I wrote about asking open-ended questions, that is, questions that would elicit a lengthy story or explanation. Something more than a yes or no answer. “Why?” is a question designed to get a lengthy reply. So why don’t I say to use “why?”
The answer is not “Because I said so.” But there’s something about that famous familial exchange (“Why?” “Because I said so!”) that gets at the heart of Why Not Why.
Remember the two parts of attitude I mentioned yesterday?
- Be Curious.
- Be Non-Judgmental.
Asking a question using the word “Why?” might sound judgemental.
Especially if you’re family.
When a family member asks another family member a question that begins with Why?, it might put the second person on the defensive in the same way as “Why didn’t you take out the trash?”
You want to elicit information and stories, not put the person on the spot.
(I’m indebted to Kim Leatherdale’s comments on the Lifetime Memories and Stories podcast for making this point explicit.)
I’ve gotten lots of insight on communication inside families from socio-linguist Deborah Tannen’s book I Only Say This Because I Love You
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Three Weeks to Jamboree: Interviewing Family
Countdown to Jamboree in Burbank, California — Family Interview edition. Rise and shine early Sunday morning, June 13 at Jamboree and learn some good info about interviewing family. I’ll be leading two sessions — one on the skills of an interviewer, the second on the skills of an audio engineer. This week at Family Oral History Using Digital Tools I’ll be discussing different ways to come up with good questions to ask your family member when you sit down to interview him or her.
“I’m going to interview my Uncle Al. What do I ask?”
I get asked this question—a lot. What do you ask someone that you’re going to visit?
I’ll get more into the specifics of strategies of how to come up with questions to ask, but for now, I’ll give you a few tips on attitude.
Your job as an interviewer is to elicit information and stories from the other person. Period. The rest is just details.
All the pointers I’ll be offering are consistent with your job as story eliciter. (not to be confused with Story Elixer, though perhaps you want your questions to act as a kind of story elixer) The job is to elicit stories. I’ll tell you more about different ways to do that.
Your attitude should be one of curiosity and non-judgement. (Being non-judgemental is especially important if you’re interviewing a family member).
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The Interviewer’s Goal: Enabling a Mental Journey into the Past
Stumbled upon this awesome description of The Interviewer’s Dream Moment, posted by Don Ray. It’s part of the setup for a story he’s going to tell, but it jumped out as the! most! perfect! description! of a kind of zen state of interviewing:
Countless times in my 30+ years as a reporter, producer, author and teacher, I’ve looked into the eyes of people I was interviewing and realized that they weren’t there with me—they had taken a mental journey into the past. They were somewhere else. I eventually learned to remain as silent as possible so that they could stay in that place—any questions would quickly bring them back to the present.
He goes on to talk about an experience where he was transported into hiw own past, back in Vietnam, trying to save a dog’s life. It’s a story worth reading for its own sake.
The unwritten part of this process for the interviewer is to ask the right kind of question that facilitates the trip into the past. That’s the subject for another post (I’m focusing on interviewing right now, so we’ll examine ways to ask good questions).
Contained in that description... Read More
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