Back in December, Lady Libertine suggested somebody write a diary on interviewing and getting oral histories from our elderly family members. I know this is a bit late, but since I didn't notice anyone else write about this I thought I'd share my experience.
First of all, just let me admit right off the bat that I am not claiming to be an expert on this topic. My Dad is the only person I've interviewed. I'm just sharing what I've learned and hope that others can add their suggestions in the comments.
The catalyst of these interviews was receiving a copy of my Aunt's memoirs from a cousin last year. When I gave it to my Dad, I told him I wanted to start interviewing him in order to write his own biography. He is turning 90 in July and my intention is to have it complete in time for his birthday. Since he lives halfway across the country, I'm having to do these interviews via telephone. I was hoping my sister (who he lives with) would have done this several years ago. But, it's really more my cup of tea, not hers. So I finally decided to buck up and do it.
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Technical Details
Like I said, these were phone interviews. So I bought a microphone for my computer and talked to him on speakerphone in front of the microphone. I just used the Sound Recorder program in Windows to record the conversation and saved it as a .wma file. Then I could go back and listen to it over and over again. This allowed me to write out a transcript. I'm sure there is software out there that might have done this for me, but writing it out actually helped to remember more of the details.
Preparation
Before I started, I prepared a list of questions broken down in groups in sort-of-chronological order. These groups included:
- What he knew of his family history (prior to his parents)
- Information about his parents
- Dad's early childhood (when he lived in Idaho)
- Dad's youth
- Dad as a young adult (prior to marrying my mom)
- Dad's middle age (meeting my mom and their life together)
Of course, him being my dad, I already had an idea of what his life was like. A lot of my questions were just getting him to repeat (on tape) stories that he's already told numerous times. I also spent a lot of time asking about his parents since they had both died well before I was born. The most I had heard about them was "If your grandmother saw you do that she'd tan your butt!"
Other questions were meant to confirm things I thought I knew or stories that I thought I remembered hearing in my childhood. Growing up over the years there were several things that I sort of knew, but never quite understood the details. So this was a great opportunity to hash it all out and get things straight in my mind.
For a couple weeks prior to the first interview and ever since, I would be constantly adding to the list of questions as new ones popped into my head. Sometimes just an everyday experience would trigger a question about my parents or grandparents.
Interviewing
So now I had my questions and my computer setup, it was time to call my Dad. After a little chit-chat I started the recording and started in on my questions. Here are some pointers I've come up with along the way.
Open-Ended Questions: These do NOT work on everyone. One problem I had was that my dad doesn't respond to open-ended questions very well. For instance, if I asked what his mother was like, all I got was "oh, she was a good mother - but very strict". Not a whole lot of detail there. I found if I wanted detailed answers, I'd have to ask more detailed questions.
Go Off On Tangents: A lot of times we would be talking about one thing, but somehow it would go off on another subject. Sometimes this was just a result of him not hearing or understanding what I meant by a question. I'd just let the previous point go and listen to what he had to say. Often times the tangent turned out to be more interesting than what I had wanted him to talk about.
Love the Pauses: I learned to love those awkward pauses - when he had finished talking and I was thinking about what to ask next. Most times this pause would give him time to think about something else - adding more stories and information that I would not have heard if I had quickly moved on to another subject. I ended up purposely waiting a little in between every question just to give him time to think of something else to say.
Review Previous Talks: Each time I called, I would back up to review some of the questions I had asked previously. Sometimes to clarify something (after writing up the transcript) or just to ask some new questions I thought of that related to something we had talked about earlier. It's always good to discuss something twice in case there was a little confusion. One thing I'm glad I cleared up was the identity of someone in a photograph. I had thought the picture was of his aunt still in Russia, but it turned out to be his other aunt's daughter of the same name.
Keep It Short: I didn't want to exhaust him, so I kept our conversations limited to 30-60 minutes.
Pictures: This isn't something I'm able to do over the phone, but want to add it here anyway. One of the best ways to hear stories is to go through old photos with your interviewee. The person you are interviewing might be one of the few people left who know the identities of people in old photographs. Going through the photos will help jog memories and a wealth of information will flow out. You'll hear about people you never knew to ask about and they probably wouldn't have thought to talk about. Be sure to capture as much of this as possible on camera.
Compilation
So soon I'll be done with the interviews (yes, I'm only part way through). From there, my plan is to compile them all into a nice coherent narrative. I haven't decided whether I should write it in the first person from Dad's point of view, first person from my point of view (referring to him as "Dad"), or third person (referring to my Dad by his name). Anybody have thoughts on that? I will be sending him an electronic copy to proof-read and make clarifications or changes. So I think writing it from his perspective would be fine since he'll have "editorial control" on the contents even if he doesn't actually write it.
Well, this didn't turn out to be as comprehensive and useful as I thought it might. But as I stated from the start, I didn't intend this to be a comprehensive how-to guide. I wanted it to be a conversation starter to get everyone else to chime in with their own experiences and tips. So have at it! Who have you obtained oral histories from? What techniques did you find helpful? What pitfalls did you encounter? Enquiring minds want to know!
Here are some links that I was given last year when I asked for advice on this topic. They helped me get the ball rolling on formulating my questions.
Genealogy.com Oral History Tips
Sample Questions
Minnesota Historical Society Oral History Collection
As always, it IS an open thread, so no genealogy-related comment is off topic.