What questions would you ask

[SingaporeSlinky]

I have recently been able to get in touch with a few much older relatives, in their 90s, on various lines of both mine and my DH’s sides of the family. Their memories are great, and they’ve been confirming names in the family tree are correct, and filling in gaps I had etc. I’m trying to think of what specific questions I could ask them, while I have the chance. Obviously official records give me names, dates, addresses and occupations. A few things have naturally come up in conversation, like nicknames, or if someone generally used their middle name. But all I could think to ask was ‘how did your parents meet?’.

So please help me think of more questions to ask, that only they would know.

Ask them to identify people and locations in very old photographs. You could also ask them whether they remember any family addresses, and people's occupations, funny stories about them etc.

Please do bear in mind though, that they may not always know the truth about certain circumstances, and there may be other things which were kept secret at the time and they don't want to tell you about them. Illegitimacy, for instance, or a criminal in the family.

I've started just chatting with my DMIL and recording her. I ask about her childhood - schools, things she remembers, did she go on holiday anywhere, first job etc and stories just come out. From that you can expand on names, who was there, etc. If you're recording rather than writing things down it all flows much more smoothly. Maybe take along a print out of the family tree you have up to date and then ask about family lines and if there are any family history stories they remember.

Ask if anyone had a job that was thought strange at the time. For example, in their family there was a catholic nun but the rest of the family were primitive methodists. I find it comes out more easily if you're just having a conversation with them.

Good luck! I love doing this, it's amazing the information you can glean over a cuppa.

Forgot to add that obviously my DMIL knows I'm recording and she's happy about that :)

Thanks both.

Yes photographs have been gone through and they’ve confirmed any we weren’t 100% sure about.
Holidays is a good one, I’ll make a note. Maybe honeymoon destinations as well.
Religion is a good point too. I know they were all baptised, but don’t know if the families then attended church regularly.

Keep any suggestions coming.

Any odd locations for records, such as if evacuated or relocated in ww2. Also any family rumours or stories , especially circumstances of births and deaths, babies perhaps raised by other family members or who lost touch.

It might be worth checking names with them. Great-uncle Jimmy for instance he might have been a James, but equally it could have been his middle name or nickname, and he was actually a Frederick John.

Oh yes, ww2. I found out my great-grandmother’s sisters packed parachutes.

Thanks fluffy, yes we’ve covered nicknames as that one came up naturally as we went through the tree.

You could ask them about their school days. It was very different back then... my Mother had her left hand tied behind her back to force her to write with her right hand.

How they chose their job/career, if they have ever been in the forces, what family meals they liked in childhood, when did they first travel abroad, what music they enjoyed...I'm sure you'll get some fascinating answers.

Unfortunately, all the things I would like to know are unaskable, or liable to prove upsetting (was your mother impregnated by someone other than the man she was married off to?) because they involve clashing narratives .

Locations of graves you might be interested in visiting. That is info sometimes not easy to find, even a tip off about which cemetery is a good start.

@Yodel294 actually, I’ve been able to provide 2 of them with photos and locations of graves, thanks to Find A Grave. In one case, they were then able to visit their own grandparents who they had forgotten the location of. But thanks for the tip, might help someone else reading.

Did anyone in the family emigrate?

Any scandal in the family?

What food did they eat

Music did they listen to

Were cars a new thing? Do they remember that horses were still used?

What about WW2?

Just to pick up on your point about their grandparents. I think @Gruttenberg makes a very good point:-

"Maybe take along a print out of the family tree you have up to date and then ask about family lines and if there are any family history stories they remember."

This really can start some interesting conversations, asking about their recollection of their own grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins etc.

To give you a couple of examples. I had researched our family tree on Ancestry but there were a few dead ends. I asked if she remembered her cousin XXX (who I could find no trace of except for a birth certificate). That suddenly brought out a whole story about her cousin and meeting the US soldier that she married and his friend.

That story then led me to go back and do some more research which led to the story of her cousin getting pregnant at 15 sometime around Christmas 1945 to a 19 year old US soldier, they then married in 1946, when she was 16, just before she got on the boat to go to the USA as a war bride. Interestingly, on all the immigration documents, she stated her age as 19 even though she was only 16.

That then led on to finding out that the cousin's sister (who I also knew nothing about) had been adopted in the 1930s and then she also married a US soldier and emigrated in 1952.

The other example is one of the grandfathers fought in World War 1. He had forgotten that but just mentioning that got to him to talk about stories that his grandfather had told him about fighting in France and then Salonika.

I think this is a really great prompt for getting people to recall stories from their youth.

Thank you @Another2Cats

On one side, I’ve now managed to ask about family holidays, when they first went abroad, found out about ww2 evacuations, including a photo of them with the host family, first jobs, and some other bits. It’s lovely to have the opportunity to learn this stuff and pass it on.