After
setting up your files, incomplete though they may still be, the next step in
the process is to ‘interview’ other members of your family, preferably older
members who might remember the generations you never knew. Interviews are simply casual question and
answer sessions in which you try to fill in the gaps in your research. It’s a good idea to record the conversation
for later review, but if your subject is uncomfortable with this, copious note
taking will probably work just fine. Use
your research as a guide for questions, but keep in mind that interview
subjects often wander in conversation as one memory leads to another, so just
write down everything you hear, even if it seems insignificant, and plan to
organize it later. Also, don’t
challenge the accuracy of your interviewee’s information, but be prepared to
verify or disprove almost everything he or she says. Often, a name or date might be slightly off,
or an old ‘uncle’ might really have been simply a close family friend. Don’t worry about this, though; it’s easier
to disprove something than to work from scratch. If you have trouble thinking
of questions to ask your relative, you can find lists of such questions on most
genealogy websites.
You
can also use interviews to get more complete information about the life of your
subject. Most people like to talk about
their life experiences, and taking notes on these stories will yield a
well-rounded, thorough family tree. You
will quickly find that it is the personal memoirs and memories – not just
names, dates and locations - that make the data meaningful and interesting.