Start with a conversation

Sitting someone down and announcing that you want to record their life story can make the whole thing suddenly feel important.

Perhaps too important.

Instead, begin with a conversation.

What was your house like when you were growing up?

Who did you spend time with as a child?

What was Grandpa really like?

Do you remember your first job?

One question may be enough.

Give the story somewhere to begin and see where it goes.

Ask about the ordinary things

We often ask about the milestones first.

Where were you born?

When did you get married?

When did you move?

What work did you do?

Those facts matter.

But some of the stories you may treasure most later are hidden in ordinary life.

What did your mother cook?

Who got up first in the morning?

What did you do after school?

Where did everyone sit at dinner?

What did Saturdays look like?

Did your family have sayings or expressions everyone knew?

What made your father laugh?

The answers may seem small.

They aren't.

Ask about people, not only events

A name can lead to a date.

A person can lead to a story.

Instead of only asking:

When did you meet her?

Try:

What was she like?

Instead of:

Where did your father work?

Try:

What do you remember about him coming home from work?

Ask what someone sounded like.

What they wore.

What they were good at.

What irritated them.

What made them laugh.

What everyone knew about them.

These are often the details that allow someone who never met that person to glimpse who they were.

Let photographs do some of the asking

Bring out an old photograph and leave some space around it.

You don't need to know who everyone is before you begin.

Ask:

Who is this?

Where were you?

What was happening that day?

Who took the photograph?

What do you remember about that house?

What was happening outside the frame?

And perhaps the most useful question:

What does this photograph remind you of?

The photograph may begin one story and end somewhere completely different.

Let it.

Don't worry about chronology

A life rarely returns to us in order.

Your mother may be talking about school and suddenly remember something from twenty years later.

Your father may begin telling you about his first car and somehow arrive at the story of meeting your mother.

That's not a problem to correct.

That's remembering.

You can organize dates and events later if you need to.

For now, follow the story.

Let silence stay for a moment

When someone stops talking, our instinct can be to ask another question.

Wait.

They may be remembering.

A pause doesn't necessarily mean the story is finished.

Sometimes the detail that comes after the silence is the one they had to travel furthest to find.

Record their voice if they are comfortable

Writing down someone's stories is valuable.

But there are things writing cannot completely preserve.

The way they say a familiar name.

Their accent.

The phrase they always use.

The laugh halfway through a story.

The pause before remembering something.

The sound of their voice.

If they are comfortable being recorded, a simple voice recording can preserve the conversation while allowing you to stop worrying about taking notes.

Then you can listen.

Don't make every conversation about the past

Stories often appear when nobody is officially collecting them.

While making dinner.

Driving somewhere.

Looking through a cupboard.

Passing a familiar place.

At a family gathering.

Someone says:

“We used to have one just like that.”

There it is.

Ask one more question.

You don't always need to turn on a recorder immediately or make the moment formal.

Sometimes simply remembering that there is a story there is enough to return to it later.

Ask the questions only they can answer

Some facts can be found elsewhere.

A birth certificate can preserve a date.

A census can preserve an address.

A family tree can preserve a relationship.

But records cannot always tell you:

What were you frightened of?

What did you dream of doing?

Who made you feel safe?

What were you proud of?

What did you love about your mother?

What did you misunderstand when you were young?

When did you feel most at home?

What do you remember that nobody ever asks you about?

Those answers can exist nowhere except within the person sitting beside you.

Let siblings remember differently

If you are recording a parent's stories with brothers or sisters, you may discover that everyone remembers things differently.

One person remembers the holiday as wonderful.

Another remembers the rain.

Someone remembers the hotel.

Someone else remembers getting lost on the way there.

Your parent may remember something else entirely.

You don't have to decide which version is the official one.

Different memories can sit beside each other.

Together they may preserve more of what happened than any one version could.

Don't correct the story while it is being told

You may know that the year was different.

You may remember who was there differently.

You may be certain the car was blue, not green.

There will be time to clarify details later.

While someone is remembering, let them remember.

A conversation about accuracy can happen afterwards if it matters.

The story itself may disappear if every detail has to be verified before the person is allowed to continue.

Preserve their words

Later, you may want to organize what you've recorded.

You might add names, dates, photographs, or context.

You might remove repetition or make a transcript easier to read.

But be careful not to polish away the person.

The expressions they use.

Their way of telling a story.

The details they thought mattered.

The places where they wandered.

Those things are part of what you are preserving.

The goal isn't to make their story sound like someone wrote it for them.

It is to help their story remain theirs.

You don't have to ask everything

There may be things your parents don't want to talk about.

There may be memories that are difficult.

There may be questions they simply don't feel like answering.

Let them decide.

Recording someone's life is not an entitlement to every part of it.

Their story still belongs to them.

Begin while the stories are still here

It is easy to imagine there will be another opportunity.

Another holiday.

Another visit.

Another afternoon when everyone has more time.

Often there will be.

But you don't need to wait for the perfect moment to begin.

The next time a story appears, stay with it.

Ask what happened next.

Ask who was there.

Ask what they remember.

Listen.

You may be preserving something your family didn't even realize it was in danger of forgetting.

One conversation is enough to begin

You don't need to record your parents' entire lives.

You don't need one hundred questions.

You don't need a microphone, a studio, or a carefully planned interview.

Sit together.

Choose a photograph.

Ask about a person.

Remember a place.

Listen to a story you've heard many times before.

And when something you've never heard before appears, give it somewhere to stay.

One conversation is enough to begin.