Observation, Not Question

Question

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a workshop with a small group that is beginning an Oral History project in our town.

The information, techniques, and hints are equally applicable to doing genealogy research with our older relatives. Learning what their lives were really like, how they reacted to events (like WWII, Viet Nam, 9/11,Oklahoma City Bombing) is perhaps more valuable to the family than a list of censuses in which they show up.

Please donʻt think I am against reliable citations, we need those. But the life stories will make the bio so much better.

Find a book or an article on Oral History. And donʻt wait until you are my age and all the parents and grandparents are gone.

Comments

I am lucky in that both of my Grandmothers wrote down stories of their life. My maternal grandmother wrote a set of booklets over many years and gave them out as annual Christmas presents.

My paternal grandmother only wrote one pamphlet, but we also have a video of her being interviewed by 5 of her kids (she had 7), which was kicked off by a daughter reading the newspaper account of her wedding.

I also have some stories written by my great-grandparents, about their early life in 1800's North Dakota.

I have tried to continue this by recording video of my parents and their siblings talking about the early days (sometimes recorded surreptitiously). Eventually I'll have to collect them or transcribe them into one source.

Genealogy is the long game. I didn't make the recordings to be used that month or that year, but decades down the road. I've had a video camera since 1992, and it's interesting to see some of that early stuff, the things I captured and remembering the things I missed.

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You really have a treasure. I envy you having ancestors that recorded (on paper) the events of their lives.

Great that you have taken the opportunity to record your family. How much we forget.

Answer 1

Yes, stories definitely breathe more life into a person’s profile. Unfortunately all of my grandparents and my dad were gone by the time I was 12.

Comments

That really is unfortunate, I had two grandmothers who lasted into my 30s - but I did not have the sense to learn much from them.

Do you have aunts or uncles who could fill in some areas?

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Unfortunately I never knew my dad’s side of the family and his two brothers and their wives have passed. Fortunately my mother did tell me some stuff plus wrote down some stuff years ago as she now has dementia.