collect an oral history of my family

At Christmas, I had everyone share a holiday memory from childhood. Then I spent several hours typing stories as my 79-year-old mother talked. We are planning to have her come once a week and do more. We made a list of topics to cover. I plan to write to other family members and ask them to send stories and photos to scan for her 80th birthday in March. Not much time – must go faster.

well, i’ve started, anyway.

about 25 years ago, my dad recorded his parents reminiscing by hiding a tape recorder under the kitchen table (a blue formica number that is now mine!). now that both of them are dead, the tape is important to everyone in the family.

about 2 years ago, i went to my maternal grandmother’s house and recorded an interview with her about her early life. no one else knows i did this. she doesn’t want them to (until “later”). i haven’t transcribed it yet but plan to soon.

even if you can only get someone to sit down for an hour or two, and even if you have to do it without the person knowing, this is definitely a worthwhile activity. there are lots of websites online with helpful questions you can ask.

it can sometimes be good to let the person see some of the questions before you talk, especially if they’re nervous.

I have sent out a request for family members to share their stories. Some have begun sending me tales.

I hope it continues and grows and then I will use CafePress to publish the stories all together for each family member.

Should give this a shot over the Christmas weekend. . .

I actually woke up at 5:30 am.

Me.

The girl who didn’t know that there was day before noon.

And I went to Target, and waiting for the doors to open, and raced to the electronics section to grab my new camcorder.

So I’ll be able to start torturing my family with questions about their memories over Christmas.

I’d love help in how I should go about it.

I’m already looking at digital camcorders, so I’m thinking if I can grab one right before Thanksgiving, I could use that, and have oral AND visual.

But I’d love help/advice on what kinds of questions to ask, etc., because I’ve never done anything history/geneology before . . .

My mother-in-law actually has a lot of experience with oral histories (she’s a cultural anthropologist)... so I had a really great conversation with her this weekend about this.

It dawned on me that I can begin to collapse all of my tasks together and start to streamline - so rather than speading myself thin… I can actually work smarter -> like I can send time with my family and while I am doing it begin to collect the stories with them.