“If you cannot get rid of the
family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
– George Bernard Shaw.
Welcome to day four of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge! Everyone
has a story to tell. It is important
that we record these stories while we have access to the people who can share
them with us, so today we are going to focus on interviewing family members.
We are fortunate to live in a time when technology allows
for us a variety of ways to conduct an interview. We can use our laptops, iPads, or iPhones to
record either audio or video. There are
programs available in app form for the sole purpose of interviewing and
sharing. If the latest technology has
you baffled, there are still tape recorders that will do the trick!
While at the recent RootsTech
conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, I met some wonderful innovators who created
new platforms that offer a variety of ways to obtain stories from our living
relatives. One of these companies was StoryCorps. You can read about their program and how to
incorporate your interviews into your family history by visiting my previous
blog entry titled Sharing Family Memories. StoryCorps happens to be a company that
piqued my interest, but there are others on the market you may find to suit your
needs.
Genealogical sites such as FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com
allow for you to upload recorded interviews into your tree. In Ancestry.com
you need to go to your ancestor’s profile.
Select GALLERY. On the left side
of the screen you will see the prompt SHOW.
Click on that and then select AUDIO.
In FamilySearch.org you will
go to your ancestor’s profile page and select MEMORIES, and from there, select
AUDIO.
We are getting ahead of ourselves. Before we can upload our interview, we have a
few things we need to do.
Plan
Brainstorm and make a list of the relatives you would like
to interview. Of course, they need to be
living. (Oh how I would love to
interview a few of my long deceased ancestors!)
When you have chosen a person you would like to interview, reach out and
ask him/her if you may visit and conduct an interview for family history
purposes. If you are turned down, don’t
be offended. This may not be a good time
for them. You can ask again in the
future. If you receive a positive
response, set a time and date for you to visit and conduct your interview.
Prepare
Show up on time and be prepared. Showing up to the interview late and
unprepared gives the message that you are not serious about your task. Be respectful of your relative’s time. An interview should not be exhausting. Limit the amount of time to somewhere between
15 to 90 minutes. As the interviewer,
you will not be doing most of the talking, but instead, prompting your relative
to share memories. A few days before your
interview, send a few questions they can review and prepare to talk about. You may even want to bring with you a few
pictures to use as a prompt. Pictures
are a great tool to open the memory floodgates!
Here are samples of some interview prompts.
“Tell me about your childhood. What were some of the chores you were
required to help with?”
“Did you
have any family pets when you were growing up?”
“Did you
have a favorite movie or movie star you idolized as a teen?”
“What kind
of laundry machine did your family have?”
“Who was the disciplinarian in your
home? Were there any times you got in
trouble that you look back now and laugh?”
The types of questions you can pose are limitless!
Bring with you the recording device you wish to use. It is wise to bring a back-up device as well.
If you are recording “old school” with
a tape recorder, you may want to bring two with you. If you are relying on modern technology of
the iPhone, you may want to bring along an iPad or a tape recorder. You will record with both devices at the same
time. If one fails you, the other one
will hopefully come through.
Test
Test your recording devices!
Record yourself saying, “Test!
Test! “ and then play it back so you are certain the device is working.
Back in 1993, my husband scheduled an interview with his
grandparents who were visiting from Utah.
The interview was amazing! Grandpa Shifflett had a lot of great stories
to tell us and we learned a lot about his life as a young man. Unfortunately, we failed to do a test with
the tape recorder before we commenced with the interview. It wasn’t until much later when we went to
listen to the tape that we learned the volume had been turn to the lowest level
and not one word of the interview was recorded.
Grandpa Shifflett is gone now, and with him went those amazing
stories! What a lesson for us to
learn. I still cringe when I think about
it.
Once you are convinced all systems are GO!, then you may
begin your interview. As you begin,
state your name, the date and time you are conducting the interview, who you
are interviewing and where the interview is taking place. Here is an example:
“Good afternoon. My name is Melyssa Webb and today is February
28, 2016. It is currently 3:15 in the
afternoon. I am sitting with my grandfather, Frank Watts,
in our dining room.”
Now, why do you think we gave that information? It is important for documentation to know who
conducted the interview. Knowing the
date allows us an idea of how old the interviewee may be (assuming we already
know their birth date) and when the interview took place. By having an idea of the time of day and the
location being the dining room, any background noise picked up will make sense. Keep in mind, if you conduct an interview in
the house, don’t have the dishwasher or laundry machine running in the
background. It may overpower the voices
and some words may be lost.
Listen
You have completed your interview and thanked your relative
for their time and for sharing their memories.
Once you have returned home, be certain to play back the entire
interview. As you listen, take
notes. You may be prompted to write down
questions for a follow up interview. You
may have received details about people, dates and places that you can enter
into your family tree. Some of this
information may be just what you need to help tear down a genealogical brick
wall!
Transcribe and Share
Transcription is not something you should procrastinate for
a number of reasons. Transcription is a
part of the process you began and you will want to see it through to
completion. Tapes go missing. Recordings get deleted. It would be a shame for you to lose the
interview.
Schedule a time within 3 days of the interview to sit down
and transcribe. Once you have
transcribed the interview go back and check for errors and omissions. When you feel confident that the interview
transcription is ready to present to others, share all – or select portions –
on your family tree. With the permission
of your interviewee, which you should have obtained before the interview,
upload the interview into your genealogy program. Offer a copy of the transcribed interview to
your relative. It is, after all, their
interview, too.
Here is your 5 Point
Review:
·
Call a relative and request the interview and
plan the date.
·
Prepare questions and provide your relative with
a copy so that he/she may have time to think and recall memories.
·
Test your recording device before the interview.
·
When you return home, listen to the entire
recording and take notes.
·
Within a few days of the recording take the time
to transcribe the interview.
Congratulations!
You have completed day four of the 21 Day
Genealogy Challenge! Clearly this
will take more than one day, but you are on your way to preparing for one of
many interviews that will take place in the future.
If you have any questions or comments, feel
free to post them in the Blog Comment section below. Invite your friends to join this challenge by
sharing this blog with them on Google+,
Twitter and Facebook. The share icons
are just below this blog entry.
Thank you for
joining this challenge and remember…..
History not shared is History forgotten!
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