Your Living Family Tree

Who were your ancestors? Your family tree might tell you their names, where they lived and what they did for a living, but wouldn’t you like to know more? What were they were really like? Did you inherit any of their looks or personality traits? What kinds of experiences did they have and who were the people who shaped their lives?

You can discover the answers to these questions and more, by recording conversations with your living relatives about your family’s history. Interviews recorded in a familiar conversational setting are an ideal relaxed environment where family members might also reveal details about their lives that they would not normally consider sharing. Who knows, they may even reveal the answers to some family secrets or unleash a skeleton from the family closet!

Twenty years ago, I discovered that my aunt and uncle had been interviewed by the National Library of Australia Oral History Program. When I listened to the recordings I heard family stories being told that I’d never heard before and I learnt lots of interesting information about my ancestors. I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be wonderful if other people could listen to their family’s history being told and wouldn’t it be even better if they could hear it from their living relatives’? So I learnt how to conduct personal interviews – what equipment to use, what questions to ask and the best way to ask them – and for the past twenty years I have been professionally recording family and community oral histories.

However, along the way people said to me: ‘I'd love to record my own family history but I don't know where to begin. So I created this easy, step-by-step guide, to give you a basic understanding of what you need to know to get started on recording conversations with your relatives about your own family history. It’s an entry level text, written with the assumption that you, the reader, are a novice interviewer, but if you’ve got experience in this field already, so much the better. There’s no complex jargon and you don’t have to spend frustrating hours searching the internet for instructions on how to interview or what questions to ask. I’ve drawn upon my years of experience as a family history interviewer to provide you with tips on just about everything you’ll need to know to get the most out of your interview. Some of these tips are repeated throughout the book because they are relevant to more than one section but you don’t have to follow them to the letter. They are simply offered to give you confidence as you commence, and then progress, with your interviews. Don’t be too concerned about ‘doing it right’. It won’t take long for you to develop your own process. Just keep an open mind, stay calm and do the best you can.

Before you start, it’s a good idea to think about what you’d like to know about your family and who would be the best person to ask first (we’ll call them your ‘interviewee’). Then you can decide which questions to ask using the list in Chapter 7 as a guide. Questions designed to elicit candid, relaxed responses from your interviewee, are grouped into logical, chronological sections: your early family years and relatives; your childhood family home; family life when you were growing up; primary and high school years; further education; your adult life and career; love and marriage; your first home after marriage; starting a family; the war years; religion, travel and other interests and looking back and taking stock. When the fascinating patchwork of answers is stitched together, a living branch will appear on your family tree.

Your family memories can be preserved by using a variety of media which captures in real time, people’s feelings, expressions and nuances of language, but for the purposes of this book and to give you the full benefit of my own experience, I have concentrated on the practice of audio recording.

By way of wider background, the recording of a person’s story in their own words is also known as ‘oral history’. Many oral histories have preserved the memories and unique life experiences of people who have become rich and famous or who have been involved in historical events or have excelled in a particular field, but history often misses out on recording the everyday memories and experiences of people from ordinary walks of life, of all ages and backgrounds. They too have interesting experiences and wisdom of historical importance to share.

A family tree provides valuable genealogical information based on detailed research of available written records but oral histories can help us to understand society’s changing values and attitudes and the events that have shaped it into what it is today and live recordings of our own family history can provide a link to also connect and inspire current and future generations. When we listen to our family members – each with their own different memories and perspectives – describing the people and experiences that shaped their lives and telling the stories behind family anecdotes, photos, letters, heirlooms and other family memorabilia, we develop a unique familial connection with our ancestors and often become inspired by their struggles and achievements, which in turn helps us to gain a clearer insight into the events in our own lives and even to understand more about our own purpose in life.

In the past, when generations of families shared the same house or lived close by, the elders passed on the family history by word of mouth in the form of stories, experiences, traditions, beliefs and wisdom. However, in today's rapidly changing and increasingly mobile society, families are often geographically separated by work and other commitments. They don’t always have the opportunity or the time to sit down and talk with the older folks about their recollections of the past and unless someone records these stories before they pass on, their precious memories are lost forever.

Did you know that you could be the link for up to five generations of the branches on your family tree? Your great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren, as well as your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and even family friends, all have stories to share about their lives and about your family’s history. So it is very important that you continue to collect and add as many stories as you can to create and perpetuate the ‘living’ branches on your family tree for future generations of your family to enjoy.

Whilst the purpose of recording your family history is generally to share the recorded information with others, even if you’re only going to share your interviews with your immediate family, you should always ensure that the person you’re interviewing signs a general Release Form. This form should clearly state their permission for you to use the recordings and should include any conditions that they may wish to place upon that permission. An example Release Form is included at the end of this book.

If you don’t have the time to interview your relatives, or if a planned interview seems as if it might be too daunting for them, turn on a recorder at family gatherings to catch an informal exchange of stories or encourage your family to record or write their own histories using the questions in this book as a guide. People of all ages can apply the techniques included here so why not ask someone in your family to record your own life history or you could keep an audio journal using the questions in this book as a guide.

So now is the time to get started and create a living branch on your family tree. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Ask your relatives to tell you the stories they know about your ancestors and at the same time, ask them to share their own unique life stories too. And as you begin this fascinating journey to discover and preserve your heritage, enjoy the experience . . .