56 essential questions to ask your parents to capture their personal history

If you’re reading this, congratulations—you’re on your way to a most enjoyable and important journey! Who are you interviewing? A parent? Grandparent? Beloved aunt or uncle? Whomever it is, clearly their stories matter to you, and I am thrilled to be able to help you capture them through an oral history interview.

Print out this guide or use it as inspiration to develop your own list of topics and questions for your loved ones. I’ve got three key tips at the bottom of this post to help ensure that you capture these important family stories successfully, and I am always here as a resource to help guide you on your journey. Whether I can one day help you turn your stories into an heirloom book or help you get the ball rolling on a DIY project, my message to you is this:

Start now. Don’t wait. I can recount too many tales of people telling me “I wish I had asked my father…” that it saddens me deeply. It is my mission to convey a sense of urgency to everyone. Perhaps you have a little extra time on your hands right now… Please, ask your parents and grandparents the questions that matter now, before it’s too late.

Family history interview questions

Childhood & Family Life

• Describe the home you grew up in.

• What were you like as a child?

• Do you have memories of what your parents said you were like as a baby?

• What was a typical day like in your family when you were little?

• How does your family tend to show their love for one another—through physical affection including hugs and kisses, gift giving, reaffirming through saying “I love you” or some other phrase, etc.?

• What would you say makes your family unique from other families?

• What did you do when you were bored as a child?

• If you had to create a family motto, what would it be?

• How did you feel about school, and what type of student were you?

• Did you have a best friend, and if so, how did that relationship play out over the course of your life?

• When you were little, what did you answer to the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

• What were you like as a teenager?

Food Memories

• What meals would be in your family’s cookbook—the foods that make you feel nostalgic for your childhood or for home?

• What are your oldest recipes and where did they come from?

• What smells transport you to this day right back to your childhood?

• Who are/were the best cooks in the family? Tell me about them.

• What family dishes would you miss the most if you never tasted them again?

If cooking and food were an integral part of your subject’s life, explore 20 more food-themed questions here.

Life Transitions & Milestones

• Tell me about your experience…

…deciding where to go to college

…pursuing your career

…getting married

…getting drafted into the war

…serving in the military

…becoming a mother/father/grandparent

…falling in love for the first time

• Tell me about your first job.

• Did anyone ever throw you a surprise party?

• How did you feel on your wedding day? What memories of that day stand out for you?

• What can you tell me about the first time you experienced loss? Who died? Did you go to the funeral? How old were you? How did it effect your outlook on life?

Decisions & Lessons

• What is the best decision you ever made?

• What is a memorable time you have failed, and how did you recover from that experience?

• What lessons(s) do you most recall learning from your parents? Grandparents?

• Did you have a favorite teacher in grade school, or another role model who had a major impact on your life?

• Can you share about any hardships (in history, such as the Depression or a war, or in their personal life, such as a divorce or unemployment) that you experienced in your life, and how you survived/thrived/coped?

• Tell me about a significant time you said “no.”

• Do you have any regrets? (Encourage elaboration here; sometimes a prolonged silence is the best invitation to speak.)

Traditions

• What holiday did you most look forward to while you were growing up?

• What were some of the traditions your family observed related to that holiday?

• Do you have any family traditions that have been passed down for generations in your family?

• Does religion hold a strong place in your family? (If “yes,” there are a variety of follow-up questions to ask to pursue this thread!)

• What is the most memorable gift you have ever received? Given?

• Are there any specific family heirlooms you inherited? Why do they hold meaning for you?

• How are/were birthdays celebrated throughout your life?

• In what ways have you/your family kept your culture alive (through language. foods, cultural traditions, for example)?

Fun & Games

• What songs have held special meaning to you over the years?

• Who was the trickster in your family?

• Do you have any funny stories from your past?

• What’s your favorite family story to recount around the dinner table?

• Did you play sports growing up, and if so, what were those experiences like?

• What was the main form of entertainment in your family when you were a kid (board games, listening to the radio, playing music/singing, reading books, putting on shows, etc.)?

• Describe what family vacations were like, and if there were any destinations that you traveled to often?

• Tell me about a time you were incredibly embarrassed.

Big-Picture Questions

• What values would you like to pass down to the younger generations of your family?

• How did you learn resilience?

• What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

• What would you like your legacy to be?

• Are there any questions you wish you had asked your own parents?

3 keys to capturing the best stories

1. Ask open-ended questions.

   Sometimes simply planting the seed of a memory yields the most thoughtful and meaningful stories. “Yes” or “no” questions do not promote conversation, so avoid them in favor of questions that help set the scene (“remember when…”) or probe your subject’s personal history in unique ways (“imagine if ________ hadn’t happened…” or “what about _______ do you wish you remembered better?”).
   
   

2. Consider this a conversation more than an interview.

   Listen generously, ask follow-up questions, and let your interview subject go off on tangents that yield interesting stories and prompt unexpected memories. Your goal should be to get the most meaningful stories from your loved one, and if that means waiting another day to discuss what you thought today’s topic was, then so be it!
   
   

3. Ensure successful preservation.

   Use more than one way of recording your interview. If you are using a voice recorder, use two. Ensure your subject feels comfortable, that the environment is quiet, and that the recording device is close enough to capture their voice. Find more specific tips (including equipment recommendations and even more family history–themed questions) in this guide from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

More free resources

Visit my Resources Toolkit to for more free downloads, including lists of questions to spark Thanksgiving and Christmas story sharing; a guide on how to use family photos as prompts for writing life stories; plus more tips for writing about your life in short vignettes.

Get inspired to preserve your family stories