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It may seem like the most natural thing in the world to sit down with your relatives and extract information, but in reality a great deal of planning ought to go into this process, not only to focus your attention on what you need to find out, but also to put your family at ease. After all, you don’t want them to think they’re about to face the Spanish Inquisition! It can be rather unnerving for both interviewer and interviewee at first, so you need to go out of your way to make the process as simple and fun as possible. For example, if you’ve set up a family gathering, you could even have a bit of fun and turn it into a game – initially asking the same few questions to everyone and comparing the answers afterwards to see who remembers the most, stimulating discussion and allowing you to focus on the most likely source of further information.

However, if you are spending time visiting members of the family individually, make sure you’ve compiled a clear set of questions, topics and people that you want to ask them about. Who was Great-aunt Alice? When was she born? Who was her husband, and when did they marry? Where was the ceremony? Did they live in the same area? So, Great-uncle Herbert was a farmer? Where was the farm? It’s also important to focus on one family member at a time, so that neither you nor your relative becomes confused. In general, you should concentrate on obtaining initial information about:

• Names, including Christian and nicknames, surnames and maiden names

• Dates of birth, marriage and death

• Places of birth, marriage, death and abode

• Occupations

Once you’ve obtained as much biographical data about a person as you can, it’s then time to ask about what the people were like. Having found out that Great-aunt Alice was born in London, but ended up marrying a farmer called Herbert in a remote part of Norfolk, the burning question is how did they meet? How did she adapt to life on a farm, having been brought up a Londoner? What was she like as a person?

This is where you’ll have to exercise your diplomatic skills, as people can ramble on a bit, and memory will play tricks if the events being described took place a long time ago. You will need to balance the desire to learn about a particular subject with the ability to let someone talk about their past without too much interruption, because we all love telling anecdotes. However, your relatives may not want to talk about everything that’s happened to them. Attitudes to illegitimacy have changed over time, and what to us is an interesting story might be a stigma that’s caused pain and misery for decades. If you sense that someone is uncomfortable talking about certain matters then do not force them to continue. It is better that you leave that topic of conversation so your interviewee does not feel pressurized. They may even decide to come back to talk to you about it at another time when they feel more comfortable.

‘If you are visiting family members individually, compile a clear set of questions, topics and people to ask them about.’

Alternatively, they might want to talk to a third party or non-family member about what’s happened to them. This is particularly true of painful memories that relate to war. You would be amazed how many former combatants don’t tell their families about their experiences to shield them from what they went through, but will happily talk to a military historian who they believe has a greater understanding. As a final resort, you can always suggest that your relative writes down their secrets in a sealed envelope and leaves it to you in their will. Although this may appear frustrating, it does give them the opportunity to take their secrets to the grave with them, yet still reveal what it was that they thought too sensitive to talk about.

If there is a particular story or person that fascinates you, it’s going to be important to talk to as many members of the family as possible, and compare different versions of the same tale – where accounts agree or overlap, there is likely to be a greater degree of truth. However, it’s going to be your job as a family historian to verify everything you hear, which is why good note-taking is essential to this process.

Oral history is invaluable to genealogists and historians, creating a living link with the past. It is preferable if you can record your interviews, because as each generation gradually dies out there are fewer and fewer people to speak to who remember a way of life that will never return, and can tell stories about colourful characters that would otherwise be forgotten by time. There are many ways of recording interviews now, so, if your interviewee gives their consent, make the most of the opportunity to video-record the conversation using a camcorder or digital camera. This way their memories and stories are preserved for future generations to watch and enjoy, and you could find a way of incorporating this material into a digital presentation of your research once you have finished. Ian Hislop made a very poignant observation when reviewing old cinefilm footage of his family on holiday: most of the time the camera was pointed not at his father, but at him – yet it was his father’s thoughts, feelings and stories that he wished to hear in later life.

‘Oral history is invaluable to genealogists and historians, creating a living link with the past.’

This is your chance to record your family, and you should urge them to be filmed – always respecting their decision to decline if they are really not comfortable with this process. At the very least, with permission try to keep a tape recorder handy to catch gems of information, and be sure to take clear, detailed notes that you will be able to go back to at a later date and decipher how each person is related, what details are relevant to which people, and who told you each scrap of information. It is important to keep a track of the sources of all your information so that you can return to that relation if you need to ask any further questions once you have begun your research.