Family gatherings are often when those all important reminiscences emerge. But capturing stories from a family member during the holidays of family gathering isn’t the most productive way to collect stories. Here are some tips offered by professional personal historians:
• Interview your subject alone in a quiet room of his or her home, away from other people, noisy appliances, ringing phones, and interruptions.
• Use a good tape recorder with a separate microphone, or a quality digital recorder. Test your equipment before going to the interview and periodically throughout. Bring extra batteries. Check the recorded sound level to make sure it’s loud and clear.
• Listen attentively and let the person talk. Don’t interrupt. Give the person time to call up memories. The older the subject, the more pauses you’ll encounter. Wait them out.
• Pay attention and show interest. Don’t rush to the next question. Strive for objectivity, even though that may be difficult. Practice keeping quiet, no matter what the person says.
• Show respect for the person’s integrity and choices even though you may disagree with decisions that were made. Remember, you want to capture the narrator’s story from his or her point of view. Resist the urge to correct, or worse, to judge.
• If a person’s account of an event differs significantly from the historical record, gently say so and ask if that’s how he or she remembers it. Often people honestly don’t remember exact dates or sequences of events or get things mixed up. Gentle questioning can help discover the proper order of events.
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