Questions to Ask Older People
Questions for sitting down with an older relative to record their story while you still can: names and dates, the house they grew up in, the recipes nobody wrote down, and what they want passed on.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Can we start with your full name, where you were born, and your parents' names?
Why ask it
Dull to ask and the single most useful thing on any recording, because names and spellings are what later researchers cannot reconstruct. Get middle names and any name they were known by that differs from the official one.
What is the earliest thing you can remember?
Why ask it
An easy opener that gets them into narrating rather than answering, and it usually sits somewhere around age three or four. Ask how they know it is a memory rather than a story they were told, since the difference matters for a record.
Who is in this photograph, and when do you think it was taken?
Why ask it
Bring a stack of prints, because unlabelled photographs become worthless the moment the last person who recognises the faces is gone. Write the names on the back in pencil while they are speaking, not later.
Describe the house you grew up in: the rooms, the heating, who slept where.
Why ask it
Walking through a building room by room gets far more than asking about childhood in general, and it produces the domestic detail nobody thinks to record. Expect outside lavatories, shared beds and one heated room.
What did your family do on a Sunday?
Why ask it
The weekly pattern captures religion, food, visiting, work and what was forbidden all at once. Ask who came to the house and who they went to.
Which relatives did you know that I never met?
Why ask it
This is where the record gains a generation, and the descriptions are usually vivid because they were formed in childhood. Ask what each of them did and how they died, since that is often the missing information.
Where did the family live before here, and who was the one who moved?
Why ask it
Every family has a migration, whether across an ocean or two counties, and the person who made the move is usually a known figure in the family story. Ask why they left, which is often less romantic than the version handed down.
Is there a story about our family that gets told a lot? Is it accurate?
Why ask it
Families polish their anecdotes, and someone who was actually present can usually name the exaggeration. Recording both versions is better than choosing between them.
What do you cook that nobody has ever written down?
Why ask it
Ask for quantities, oven settings and the point at which they judge it done, then cook it once with them if you possibly can. Recipes held in hands rather than notebooks vanish faster than any other family knowledge.
Is there something in the family that stopped being talked about?
Why ask it
Ask this quietly, late in a session, and be prepared to hear about a death, an illness, a debt, a child given up or someone cut off. Ask what they want done with the answer before you decide anything yourself.
What was your wedding day actually like, beyond the photographs?
Why ask it
You will get who paid, who disapproved, what was worn, what went wrong and where they went afterwards. If there was no wedding, or more than one, that account is equally worth having.
What do you remember about the day I was born, or the first time you met me?
Why ask it
This gives them something easy and warm to talk about, and it produces detail about your own history that you cannot get anywhere else. It also tends to settle nerves early in a recorded session.
Which things in this house have a story attached?
Why ask it
Let them walk you round if they can, because objects prompt memories that questions do not reach. Note which item goes with which story, or the connection is lost when the things are divided.
Can you take me through your working life, job by job?
Why ask it
A chronological list is more useful than a highlight, and it usually reveals unemployment, illness or a move that reframes other stories. Ask what each job paid and what ended it.
What did you live through that will be in the history books?
Why ask it
Ask where they were and what changed in their own household, not what they think of the event. First-hand detail about rationing, a strike, a flood or a closure is what makes a family record historically useful.
Do you still have anything you wrote, kept or collected?
Why ask it
Letters, diaries, service records, ledgers and photograph albums are often in a box nobody has opened in thirty years. Ask now, while they can tell you what any of it is.
What would you like done with your things?
Why ask it
Asked in the middle of an ordinary conversation about objects, this is much easier than raising it as a separate discussion. Note the answers plainly and tell whoever else needs to know, since informal wishes are otherwise forgotten or disputed.
Which traditions do you hope we keep, and how do they actually work?
Why ask it
The mechanics matter: who does what, in which order, on which day. A tradition described only in the abstract does not survive the first year that the person who ran it is not there.
What do you want your great-grandchildren to know about you?
Why ask it
Aimed past the people in the room, which frees them to say something they would not say to your face. Let them speak to the recording directly if they want to.
Is there anything you want on the record that I have not asked about?
Why ask it
Always the last question, and often the one that produces the most important few minutes. Say nothing after you ask it and let the silence do the work.
Recording a Life Story
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before You Start
Ask Permission Twice
Once for the recording and once for what you intend to do with it, since agreeing to be recorded is not the same as agreeing to be shared with cousins or posted online. Get it on the recording itself.
Plan Several Short Sessions
Forty minutes is plenty, and three sessions produce far better material than one long afternoon that ends in exhaustion. It also gives them time to dig out photographs and remember more between visits.
Fix the Sound Before the Questions
A phone on a cushion close to them, a closed window, a television off and a room without a hard echo will do more for the recording than any equipment. Test thirty seconds and listen back before you begin properly.
State the Basics Aloud
Name of the person speaking, your name, the date and the place, at the start of every file. Recordings get separated from their notes within a couple of years.
Running the Session
- Work in chronological blocks; jumping between decades tires people and confuses the recording
- Ask one question at a time and then wait, even when the pause is long
- Ask for spellings of names and places as they come up, out loud
- Ask how old they were rather than which year, and calculate afterwards
- Do not correct a date or a fact mid-answer; note it and check later
- Keep your own contributions short, since your voice will be the part nobody wants in twenty years
- End the session when they tire rather than when your list ends, and agree the next one before you leave
Afterwards
- Back the file up the same day in two places, one of them not your phone
- Write an index with timestamps for the topics covered, which is what makes a recording usable
- Label photographs in pencil on the back, with names, place and approximate year
- Type up the recipes properly, including the quantities they had to be pushed on
- Keep their uncertainty in the transcript rather than editing it into a clean fact
- Send them a copy and remove anything they ask you to remove
- Ask a second relative the same questions, since two accounts of one family are more accurate than one