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Bring ‘Em Back Alive! Capturing Ancestors Today
Mary Clement Douglass
Using the format of who, what, when, where, why and how, learn how to prepare for and capture the lives of our living ancestors to enhance your genealogical research.
Today we will cover some of the issues involved with capturing our living ancestors alive. We will discuss why we should collect these personal histories and who we should interview. We’ll also examine what background research and equipment is necessary to conduct a successful interview. We’ll look at when and where to interview. We’ll give you an outline of how to conduct an interview. And finally we will touch on how to preserve this information for the future.
There are three basic formats for discovering oral history, “informal conversations, informal settings; informal conversation, formal occasions; formal conversations, formal occasions.” The first, informal conversations, informal settings, are stories told to children by their elders, information shared at the neighborhood store, the barbershop or beauty shop, wherever people congregate and chat. The second, informal conversations, formal settings, are the times people gather for a specific purpose, reunions, weddings, funerals, and holiday celebrations. This presentation focuses on “formal conversations, formal occasions” audio recording only, but the format is appropriate to video taping as well.
Why should you do it? There are three principal uses of oral histories: to supplement the written record, to complement the written record, and to provide information about the past that exists in no other form. Oral histories also help break research roadblocks, capture precious memories and personalities, and introduce new generations to the old. What may seem to be an insignificant event to the person interviewed may be just the story you need to break down a brick wall in your research.
Who should record their memories? Oral historians use several methods to determine whom to interview. One method used to decide who to interview is to define the problem to be solved and then determine who is best qualified to provide information that will solve the problem. Another is to select someone whose life illustrates certain historical processes such as farm workers moving to a town job or women moving into the work force during war. A third option is someone who occupied a unique position in a historical event, movement, or institution, such as the superintendent of public works when paving was first installed, or being in an office building across the street from the Oklahoma City federal building when it blew up. Who do I, as a genealogist, think needs to record their memories? Everyone! We all have stories. Capture as many of them as you possibly can, including your own. Whose story would your descendants most like to hear in a hundred years? Keep these people in mind when determining who you will interview first: the keeper of the family stories; the “life of the party” at every family gathering; the quiet one; the oldest living relative; the veterans. And don’t forget those who did a previous oral history and where can it be found?
What do you want to learn? That is a very personal decision. I wanted to learn more about my father’s childhood as a motherless son and the youngest child in a large family.
StoryCorps suggests you focus on two or three key stories or moments you’d like to capture. Linda Shopes suggests three broad categories: the impact of major historical events and trends such as racial segregation, technological developments, or the post World War II housing boom on the family; the relationships of various aspects of social life such as work, religion, community life, or class status and mobility to individuals with in the family; and the structure and dynamics of family life itself, including household membership, relationships among family members, and family values. Family folklorists are concerned with the forms a family uses to preserve its experiences through family stories, traditions, customs, and beliefs. Kyvig and Marty suggest choosing from these broad categories: family details, personal matters, geographical and physical matters, economic concerns, social and religious practices and outlook, education, political attitudes and participation, and the military.
What preparation is needed? Background research into the subject’s life focuses the interview. Get everything you can from the written record before the interview. Remember the purpose for the interview is to supplement and complement the written record and learn information that doesn’t exist as written record. As genealogists, we probably already have assembled the basic data, but have we studied those individual lives within their broader historical context? There are several in-print and on-line timelines to provide historical context. [insert slide with URLs] Reading deeply in the history of the time and place is critical to understanding the basic pattern of events in family members’ lives. Reading sources contemporary with historical events, such as letters, diaries, journals, newspaper accounts and magazine articles give a researcher a taste for the times. You also need to be aware of your personal biases about issues and events so that you don’t unintentionally skew the interview through your questions. Knowing the social circumstances of an individual’s life helps to stimulate recollections. Photographs and family albums are an excellent starting point.
When should you interview someone? Do it as soon as possible before the subject is no longer available. Interview them over coffee, at the family reunion, on vacation, on snow days, at holiday gatherings, when a roll of film is developed, when the scrapbooks are out, when ever possible.
The formal interview has a timetable of its own. [See Oral History for the Local Historical Society for a step-by-step outline of procedures.] Select the person to be interviewed; contact them for permission; determine if the interview will be chronological or topical in focus; suggest time periods or topics for them to be thinking about; prepare your outline or specific questions; practice to make sure the equipment works and you are familiar with it and comfortable using it; schedule the appointment; conduct the interview, sign the release, create the typescript, review the typescript with the narrator, and make it available for use. Limit interviews to one and one half to two hours or less as it is very tiring to both the interviewer and narrator. Repeat as necessary to gather a complete life story.
Where should you do it? Wherever the subject is comfortable and you can get a quality recording. Most subjects are most comfortable in their own homes. I have found that sitting at a table with the recorder and microphone on the table between interviewer and subject works well. It is important that the setting is quiet and free from interruption. Turn off the telephones, the television, and send the kibitzers to another room.
How should you do it? These tips on equipment, methods, and procedures help make the task enjoyable for all.
Equipment—portable cassette tape records, professional reel-to-reel equipment, lapel microphones, table microphones, extension cords, batteries, note paper, questionnaires. It is vital that you use the best equipment you can find. Professional quality reel-to-reel recorders are best, but may be a bit intimidating to the subject. If you have access to such equipment, a 5-inch reel is recommended. A good quality cassette recorder is acceptable. A lapel microphone is best for capturing the essence of the personality, especially for elderly or ill subjects whose voices are often softer than normal. Turn the microphone volume all the way up. Another suggestion is to put the recorder and microphone on a table, at which are seated the interviewer and narrator. Be sure to bring extension cords for equipment not battery-operated. Bring extra batteries for equipment using them. Bring the background information, organized on one sheet of paper, your questionnaire, and a notepad. Note-taking helps you listen more closely. Attentive listening is hard work.
Method—questions from a pre-written script, scrapbook stories, table talk
From your background and family history research, prepare a questionnaire that will encourage the narrator to talk. Use open ended questions. Allow them time to think about their answer. Silence, on your part, encourages them to speak. Gently return the subject to the topic if he strays. The alternative is to follow his train of thought into a new area of focus. Subjects may not want to talk about sensitive subjects. Don’t force the issue. Photograph albums scrapbooks are also good conversation starters. Use your notepad to keep a list of subjects covered, in what ordered they were covered.
Procedures—releases, notes, transcriptions
What do you do with the completed interview? Information captured on audio tape has to be turned into readily available information. Oral historians and archivists go into much detail in processing an interview. The audio tape is raw data that should be analyzed and put into useful, retrievable form. Minimally the tape needs to be duplicated and indexed. This can be as simple as a chronological list of topics. Consider these tasks when transcribing the audio tape to the written word: a table of contents, indexes of people and places, events, and topics and a minute meter of where to find topics on the tape. Transcriptions then need to be audited and compared with the spoken word. It usually takes six hours to audit a one hour tape. This step is frequently combined with editing. Oral historians recommend a typed transcript that is edited to create a document that reads cleanly and clearly. It should also preserve the rhythm and distinctiveness of the oral source, capturing the essence of the interview. Allow the narrator to review and approve the transcript. Revisions are negotiable. Indexing the manuscript will make it more easily used. Baum’s book on transcribing and editing has samples. See also the Chicago Manual of Style, various editions.
If you are going to use the information for publication, even among family members, or donate the tape and the transcript to a library or archives, a signed release from the narrator must be executed, preferably at the time of the interview. Sources of sample releases are to be found in footnote 5 of your syllabus for this lecture. Most of us will keep the tapes and transcripts for our own uses. However, you may want to consider donating them to an archival repository, such as the local public, the state historical society, or a university library with similar collections. While there you might also make arrangements for them to accept your genealogical papers when you have no further use for them.
Today we’ve covered some of the issues involved with capturing our living ancestors alive. We’ve discussed why we should collect these personal histories and who we should interview. We’ve also examined what background research and equipment is necessary to conduct a successful interview. We’ve looked at when and where to interview. We’ve given you an outline of how to conduct an interview. And finally we’ve touched on how to preserve this information for the future. I hope you enjoy capturing your ancestors alive!

For further study
Consult Cyndi’s List for more excellent resources on capturing oral histories.
http://www.cyndislist.com/oral.htm
The following are the links I found to be most useful.
http://www.bgct.org/tbhc/oralhist.htm http://www.byubroadcasting.org/capturingpast/
http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/2_oralhs.html?Welcome=1072709644
http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/70_afteroral.html
http://www.genealogy.com/00000030.html?Welcome=983765712
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/1minute.html
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/oralhist.htm
http://bob.ucsc.edu/library/reg-hist/ohprimer.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~cshm/techniques.html
http://www.cimorelli.com/pie/library/intrview.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~lineage/famhist.htm

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project has some very useful tools for conducting interviews with veterans and related civilians at http://www.loc.gov/vets/guidelines.html

Barbara Allen, and William Lynwood Montell, From Memory to History Using Oral Sources in Local Historical Research, (Nashville, TN: The American Association for State and Local History, 1981), pgs 40-45.
StoryCorps is a national initiative to instruct and inspire Americans to record one another’s stories in sound. http://storycorps.net/about/
David K Dunaway, and Willa K. Baum, eds., Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1984), pg. 241. Particularly useful is chapter 22, “Using Oral History for a Family History Project,” by Linda Shopes. This chapter has an excellent bibliography.

David Kyvig, and Myron A. Marty, Your Family History: A Handbook for Research and Writing, (Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1978), pages 26-32. See the chapter, “What Questions to Ask.”

David K Dunaway, and Willa K. Baum, eds., Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1984), pgs 242-245.

Willa K. Baum, Oral History for the Local Historical Society, 2nd ed., (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History), 1974. An excellent introduction to the how’s and why’s of an oral history project.

Willa K. Baum, Transcribing and Editing Oral History, (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1977)

Who?

Who wrote it? Who is named? Who are the witnesses? Who else is named? Who had a reason to not be truthful? Who has a bias in recording this event?

What?

What is it? What type of document? What does it concern? What clues to other records does it contain? What were the circumstances and consequences of this event?

When?

When was it written? When was it recorded? When in this person’s lifetime did this event occur: infancy, childhood, adolescence, young, middle, old adulthood?

Where?

Where did the event occur? Where was it recorded? Where did you find it? Where does it lead you?

Why?

Why did the event occur? Why was it recorded? Why did you choose to obtain this record?

How?

How will this record advance your research? How will you use it? How does it add to your understanding of your ancestor’s life?

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