Memories

Your recollections, and those of others, are unique and vital to your family's story. As these memories undergo the rigors of examination, selection, evaluation, and recording, they become the foundation upon which additional research will be built.

Knowing the date and place of your grandparent's marriage from family conversations could save weeks of frustration and expense in locating the official record of that event. One family's belief that "Great-Grandpa was a twin" was a key element in subsequent record searches in England. Although untrue, this conviction ultimately helped locate the birth record of a sibling; it had been filed less than a year before that of the great-grandfather. Both fact and fiction have their place in your study, and both can provide important clues for future searches.

Oral interviewing is the primary technique by which the fact and fiction of memories can be collected from family members or family friends and acquaintances. Information obtained in this manner can be extremely useful as long as one acknowledges that "human memory is a fragile historical source; it is subject to lapses, errors, fabrications and distortions."

Good interviews do not just happen. You must prepare well for interviewing others. There are several helpful guides to conducting interviews; one of the most respected, although dated, in the oral history field is Cullom Davis, Kathryn Bake, and Kay MacLean, From Tape to Type (Chicago: American Library Association, 1977). This guide offers techniques for planning, conducting, and transcribing the interview. One of the most important cautions for new family historians who do not have interviewing experience is that "An interview is not a dialogue. The purpose of oral history interviews is to learn the narrator's story."

Other essential considerations include making advance arrangements and letting the narrator know what topics you want to discuss. Compile a list of questions, but let the narrator carry the discussion as long as it does not go too far astray. Watch for signs of tiredness and do not overstay your welcome. It is far better to have a narrator count the hours until you return than the minutes until you leave. If you take notes during the interview, examine them as soon as possible after the meeting. Elaborate on entries that are unclear. Consider topics that were not covered or questions that remain unanswered.

The use of a tape recorder (with the permission of the person being interviewed) is most successful if you have practiced with the recording equipment in advance. Be sure to bring spare tapes and batteries to the session. It is important to transcribe the resulting tapes immediately. An interview might be reconstructed from your notes and recollections if they are fresh in your mind despite equipment failures or unintelligible conversation.

Video cameras and tape recorders can produce powerful supplements to your written record. The use of such equipment and interviewing techniques can be acquired from guides, such as Duane and Pat Sturm, Video Family History (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1989), or Living Family Albums, Grandparents' Video Interview Kit: The Producer's Handbook, The Camera Person's Guide, The Interviewer's Guidebook, and Script Packet (Westlake, Ohio: Living Family Albums, 1989). These last four booklets provide step-by-step instructions for creating hour-long oral or video histories. Again, common sense prevails: make the narrator aware of the use of such equipment well in advance, practice with the equipment so that its use will not distract the speaker, and review the results as soon as is practical.

Video cameras can move interviews away from the realm of "two chairs and a table." Interview sessions can be more informative if speakers can perform routine tasks as they talk. Your grandmother may agree to bake bread as she has done for years, without a recipe. A great-uncle might demonstrate how he painstakingly sands the rungs on the seventh baby cradle he has made. Your mother, an avid gardener, could divide and replant bulbs as she recounts tales of ancestors. Use the camera to tour the family home, filming the rooms and the outside environs. Visit the schools attended and parks frequented. Capture the past-even the recent past-as part of your family history worthy of preservation.

Of course, a personal visit may not be practical. You may not know where all your relatives are, especially if your family has been separated by divorce or adoption. Try to gather relevant names and addresses from those with whom you are in contact. Chapter 18, Tracking Twentieth-Century Ancestors, provides suggestions for locating others. Initiate contact with a letter and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Be sure to attend to the oldest folks first; don't risk losing their knowledge.

Interviews also provide opportunities to locate, identify, catalog, and preserve what family historians term "home sources." Home sources (see the section later in this chapter) include heirlooms, such as furniture, small collectibles, and photographs; manuscript materials, such as diaries, letters, and family bibles; and copies of public records, such as certificates of birth, marriage, and death, land patents, and wills. Your interview could capture details about a piece of furniture as the current owner describes its importance to your family. Or remarks about the people in an early family portrait can be retained along with a copy of the portrait.

Recalling memories, interviewing others, and examining home sources will immerse you in the past and will pay dividends as your search progresses. You will come to appreciate the necessity of preserving these memories and personal attributes of people who could move out of your life at any moment. Public records and archival collections, in all likelihood, will outlast the relatives and acquaintances who have knowledge of the family to share. That is why people, not objects or records, provide our first source of information.