Life Story Interview Tips
In a life-story interview you can ask questions that don't come up in everyday conversation. / Photo by Divinetechygirl via Pexels
Interviews are a great way to capture someone’s memories, stories and family history. Use these tips to create a rewarding process for both you and your interviewee.
Would you like to interview someone – about stories from their life, memories of another person, or their perspective – but you’re not sure where to start? Or have you tried asking questions, but don’t seem to be ‘getting anywhere’? These tips can help, whether the person is a family member, friend, or someone you’ve not met before.
These methods will help your interviews go more smoothly and improve the results. You can help your interviewee feel at ease, share what they wish, and feel heard.
Most of the examples are geared toward interviews with older relatives about their life and family history. They can be adapted to interview someone of any age, such as about their interests and aspirations.
“There’s nothing like hearing it in their own voice.”
Set your Main Aim
What is your main aim for the interview? Do you seek family history information? Would you like to hear stories from your relative’s younger days? Do you plan to make a keepsake book?
It’s good to prepare ahead of time for a life-stories interview. Thinking ahead will help you focus on what you’d like to achieve, and the types of questions to ask.
During the interview, it’s good to be flexible about your plan yet still keep your main aim in mind.
If you wish to hear your grandmother’s stories over a cup of tea – no problem – you need not plan much at all.
Research Ahead
Think of a radio interview. The host knows key points about their interviewee and the topic at hand. They have read an author’s book, know a musician’s song-list, and are aware of public issues that a person faces.
It helps to 'do your homework' and prepare in advance of an interview. / Photo by Chivalry Creative via Unsplash
It helps to find out some facts and details before a life-stories interview. Maybe you know where your grandmother went to school, where she lived at different times in her life, when she got married. Hopefully you won’t ‘grill your granny’, but you can use these points to lead into your questions.
If you’d like to ask about family history, find out what you can ahead of time. Then you have a base for your questions, to help you trace your ancestors. Perhaps you’ve heard family tales and wonder if they’re true. Even if don’t have much to go on yet, your interviewee may provide clues – or maybe lots of information!
Bring Prompts
If you can, bring items that might prompt memory and stories. They could be physical objects, printed photos, an audio clip of music, or images on your smartphone or tablet.
Perhaps you have photos of people and places to show your interviewee. Do you seek names of individuals? The stories behind the photos? Do you hope to ‘jog’ your interviewee’s memory? Maybe you can pull up a picture of the place they lived in a certain decade, or that shows the clothing fashions and cars from that time.
Like for you – pictures, objects and music bring up memories from a time in someone's life. / Photo by Anna Shvets via Pexels
Documents help, too. Do you have a certificate or letter from your family archives? Or a partial family tree that you’d like to fill in?
If your interview is in the person’s home, they may have heirlooms or pictures you could ask about.
Take care not to overwhelm your interviewee. If they were in a war, ease towards that topic before you bring out a war medal as reminder.
Set Time and Place
Find a time of day and a place that suits your interviewee. If it’s best for them to chat at home in the afternoon, go with that.
If it’s a hassle for them to take part, or if they lack energy at a certain time of day, they won’t be in good form to share stories – and they may feel ‘put upon’.
Meet in person if possible. If they’re far away (or if illness is a barrier) then a phone call or virtual meeting (e.g. FaceTime, Zoom) can work. Your interviewee will need to be familiar with the technology at their end, or have someone there to assist.
Choose How to Record
Choose a way to record the interview that doesn’t get in the way. This will allow you to listen fully, and the person to feel heard (versus you looking at your notepad or mobile device, or having a mic or camera in their face if they’re not used to that).
With their permission, you could record on a smart phone or other audio device set on a table nearby. Video interviews are fine if your interviewee agrees – the same goes for Zoom recordings.
The key is to record your interview in a way that's comfortable for both of you. / Photo by Ilya Ginzburg via Getty
It’s great to be able to play back what they said in their own words. You can use this ‘original material’ in your life stories project – either as direct quotes, or to draw from as you tell their story. An audio recording may become a keepsake for family members.
Start with Conversation
This may seem obvious, or perhaps a waste of time. Maybe you have your list of questions and are keen to begin the interview. But it helps to start with conversation. This helps your interviewee relax, and lets you get comfortable talking together. When you hear how they feel that day, it may guide how much time you spend for that session.
See how much you can keep your interview in a conversational style, even though it’s a question and answer format.
Come with Questions
It’s good to prepare some questions in advance, based on: what you know, think you know, or might like to know. No need to run through these like a test, but having some questions in mind will help guide your interview. Refer to your list if the interview gets off track, or when you need to switch to a new topic.
Invite Storytelling
Some ways to set the stage for storytelling are to:
let them know it’s not a test they need to get right, it’s to hear their perspective
use memory prompts specific to that individual to get them started
on a given topic: ask close-ended questions first, then open-ended, then follow-up questions
build trust, listen well, allow for emotions, and prompt them to say more
let them know how you plan to use what they say, and ask for their agreement and permission
give them the chance to let you know which parts they don’t want you to share
Types of Questions
With these basics in place, the main way to invite life storytelling is through the questions you ask. Many lists are available that provide basic questions about someone’s life, what they love to do, their favourite foods, and about their family history.
For this site, I focus on questions that will bring up a story, such as: when did your life take a major turn? how did it happen? what happened next? These are just some of the kinds of questions to prompt life stories.
You might choose some of these questions for one interviewee and not another, or ask them in addition to basic questions about their experience. You can ask yourself these questions to decide which stories to tell from your life.
You can only ask so many questions – choose ones that will shed light on a person's life and elicit stories. / Photo by Leeloothefirst via Pexels
Sometimes the follow-up to a basic question yields a story. If the first question is “what’s your favourite type of pie”, you might ask “what’s your strongest memory of eating that kind of pie?”.
Some people just start talking and keep going, or they circle back and repeat. You may need to bring them back to your question, or move to the next topic. Talking is not the same as storytelling, but things that come up may lead to stories or reveal family history.
Some interviewees need more prompting than others. My mother benefited from guided questions, whereas my uncle was a natural storyteller! Read about some of my experiences interviewing for life stories.
The following categories of questions each have their role in an interview.
Close-ended
This kind of question lead to yes-no answers or a brief reply such as a name, date, or place. Such as: did you have a family pet? Was it hard to be the new kid in school? When were you married? What was your grandfather’s name?
These types of questions are good to get information, frame your topics, and lead to further questions. They’re not likely to prompt someone to tell a story, but are useful starters.
Open-ended
Your interviewee will tend to give you a longer reply if you ask an open-ended question. Try to word it so they’re not likely to answer in one or two words. Such as: how was it for you to move to a new country when you were a child? What was it like to be raised in such a large family? What was the biggest challenge you faced in your career?
Follow-up
It’s good to ask follow-up questions to find out more about what someone remembers or has experienced. This may help your interviewee recall more, and tell more of their story. Such as: what was that like for you? what happened next? Did you ever see them again?
Tender Topics
Some topics and questions bring up difficult memories, and emotions such as sadness or anger. Someone’s strongest memories may relate to trauma. A certain smell or song or sound – or question – may trigger a strong memory. This happens on the happy side too. But be aware of the potential for troubling thoughts. It may be best to back off those questions and change the topic – unless you’re both okay with the emotion, and you can provide the right kind of support if needed. Or you may wait to bring up that subject another day.
The main example that comes to mind is where someone has been in a war, and not talked about it yet. You could ask your interviewee if it’s okay to bring up a certain topic.
Ask your interviewee if there’s anything they shared in your conversation that they’d like you to keep private and not share with others – and honour that request.
Ask about Family History
It’s fortunate if you’re curious about your family history while you still have relatives you can ask questions. They may or may not ‘get it all right’, but it’s worth it to ask and note all they say. You can use this as clues and leads for your research, and to compare to your other sources for correctness.
The Ancestry Blog has an article on family history interview questions and how the answers can further your understanding, story-making and research.
Use family history sources and methods to try to prove, disprove, or add to what you know about your background.
Allow Time to Respond
It’s important to give your interviewee time to think about your question. They may try to recall, or compare options before they reply (e.g. which was my funniest time at school?).
Pauses give some breathing room, so it doesn’t feel rushed. No need for you to fill the silence by talking, which could distract your interviewee. You may hear the best stories if you keep quiet!
You may begin the interview with a plan in mind. Your interviewee might go on a tangent about something else! This might lead to interesting new topics. Some tangents are stories in themselves.
If the person chats on about this and that, you may need to ask a question from your list or use other interview skills to get them back on topic. For example, “interesting… but you have yet to tell me about the time at the race-track; I’m curious what happened there…”.
Some people (me included) love to tell funny stories about things that happened to them. Even so, life-story questions can lead down serious paths, to do with birth families, marriage and divorce, perhaps the loss of a child. It’s good to ask about some of the lighter times and funny moments, to balance it out.
Save for Next Time
Maybe you only have one chance to interview someone, and only get to ask a few questions. Or you notice your interviewee is tired and it’s best to wrap up for that day. Hopefully, you could do a series of interviews. This provides breaks for your interviewee to think of memories they’d like to share, based on your questions. And you may come up with follow-up questions you’d like to ask.
Interview Others
It can be interesting and possibly eye-opening to hear from others who know or knew your main interviewee, are part of the same family or other group, or were in the same situation.
You can get a more well-rounded idea of a person’s character, personality, and way-of-being by asking people in different roles in their life (such as teacher, friend, spouse, sibling, co-worker). Of course, if the person has lost too much memory or has passed away, other people are the only ones you can ask.
Asking siblings or friends about someone will yield different memories than yours. / Photo by Julia M Cameron via Pexels
Their perspectives and stories are bound to differ. You can either find the main ‘thread’, or present different points of view.
Interview Alternatives
You may lack time and energy to interview someone about their life, don’t feel you should be the one to ask them questions, or think they would respond better another way.
Depending on the people and situation, you might:
ask a young relative to interview their elder, such as teenage grandchild and their grandparent
subscribe to a service such as Storyworth if your relative would write and send memories by email
give them a workbook that prompts life-story and memory questions, so your interviewee can respond in their own time
access the free app RecordMeNow so they can answer prompting questions in their own voice
hire an oral historian or life stories writer
Prepare Your Results
It’s easier to organize your material if you have a system in place at the outset, such as folders for your paper, electronic or audio files.
After the interview, review your material to add any notes, highlight key items to include in your ‘final product’, and flag topics for further questions or research. This will make it easier when you go write the stories, profile or book.
Once you have your material, you can collect and arrange it in within a format you choose to showcase someone.
written by Barbara L Campbell, 2024