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| Here's my mom with her father, paternal grandmother and paternal great grandmother -- I wonder if when she was older, if she interviewed any of them? Copyright 2013 Diane L Richard |
As we celebrate Family History
Month, let’s talk about some ways to take advantage of this month-long focus on
family + history.
Let’s start with
opportunities for children and grandparents (or great grandparents or even
parents) to engage and learn the stories of the older generations.
I was reminded of
this when I read One listened, one
spoke, two drew closer in my local newspaper in August.
The Legacy Project’s National Listen to a Life contest as mentioned in the article is currently underway. Full details are here.
In fact, a high
school project is what got me started with my own personal genealogy research,
please read this post on Upfront with NGS, Dreading the Family Tree Assignment to see my first family tree. Unfortunately, my grandparents lived in England and Virginia England . The same was very true for my Grandma who lost
her mother as a child, her husband while young, and had a father commit suicide.
Talking about the family was a
non-starter.
Fortunately (and I
was thrilled) when my kids were in Girl and Boy Scout troops, they each worked
on a merit badge that was about family. Because of that, they interviewed (via e-mail)
their three surviving grandparents (who live across the country) and learned
some really neat stuff. With so many
templates out there on questions to ask, it is now easier than ever for
grandchildren to interact with their grandparents. One such list to get you
started is Fifty Questions for Family History
Interviews:
What to Ask the Relatives (Kimberly Powell, About.com
Genealogy). And, feel free to vary from
those listed. The key is to remind the
grandchildren to not ask questions that can just be answered Yes or No!
Nowadays with all
the technology, even if grandparents and grandchildren don’t live near one
another, they can still conduct an interview and record it. Read Recording
Interviews When You Are NOT in the same room? What's a Genealogist to Do? for some suggestions on how.
Might such an interview lead us to the next generation of
genealogists? My high school assignment
got me started and then after college I picked up the reins and I haven’t
looked back since!
Have the grandchildren in your family interviewed their
grandparents? What worked? What didn’t
work? What was the “neatest” or most “unexpected”
thing a grandchild learned?
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