Oral Histories - Interviewing Relatives and Collecting Oral History

Learn how to conduct a family interview or collect a meaningful oral history. Plus, browse extensive online oral history collections, get help from various oral history associations, and find groups which collect and preserve oral histories.
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21 Articles in: Oral Histories - Interviewing Relatives and Collecting Oral History - About Genealogy
Oral Histories Online
Discover fascinating oral history interviews, stories, photos, and other oral histories available online from a number of different sources.
Oral Histories & Narratives of US Veterans
Learn about the personal experiences and memories of U.S. Veterans in the online digital collections of these oral history projects, programs and collections dedicated to recording and preserving the experiences of veterans and civilians in the United States from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
getty-conversation.jpg - Stefan Berg / Folio Images / Getty Images
10 Tips for Digging Up Great Family Stories
The next time you're conducting an oral history interview, try these tips for making the conversation flow and getting the family stories that will be treasured forever.
Why Oral History?
Learn how to gather family history and stories from your relatives and ancestors with this easy step-by-step guide to collecting and recording oral histories.
Mature woman and daughter sitting on window sill smiling at each other - Dan Dalton/Digital Vision/Getty Images
50 Questions to Ask Relatives About Your Family History
What to ask when you get a chance to quiz your relatives about their lives and their family history.
How To Interview a Relative
Step-by-step tools and ideas to get you started interviewing your relatives. You will probably be surprised at the stories they can tell.
To Our Children's Children: Journal of Family Memories by Bob Greene and D.G. Fulford
10 Best Family Memory Books
Encourage your family members to record their memories for posterity with one of these wonderful memory books full of thought-provoking questions and space for recording the sure-to-be-cherished answers.
Conducting Effective Oral Interviews
Tips for taking a successful oral history, from OnBoard, Volume 2, Number 3, the newsletter of the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
Capturing the Past
A four step series on how to prepare and conduct an oral history interview from KBYU television, Brigham Young University.
Association of Personal Historians
Feature articles, memory sparks, and a bulletin board to help folks recording personal or family history.
Get Nosy with Aunt Rosie
How to conduct an oral history interview, from Genealogy.com.
Family Folklore - A Questionnaire
An outstanding list of sample questions geared toward learning more about the traditions, stories and folklore which have been handed down in your family. From the Migrations in History project of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Importance of Oral Histories
Lyman D. Platt, Ph.D., explains what types of information oral histories can reveal and how to get started creating your own.
Guide for Interviewing Family Members
Questions collected from various sources by genealogist, Dick Eastman.
How to Collect Your Own Family Folklore
An excellent guide from the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs.
Oral History Interview, Questions and Topics
A list of ninety questions, courtesy of the Jewish Genealogical Society.
Oral History Primer
Courtesy of University of California, Santa Cruz.
Oral History Questions
Ask yourself or your family personal questions from this extensive list courtesy of RootsWeb.com.
Organizing Oral History Information
Learn what to do with those great stories, from Genealogy.com.
Resources for Planning & Conducting Oral History Interviews
Find interview tips, how-tos, worksheets, and questions, courtesy of the Southern Oral History Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Script for Video or Audio Interviews with Family Members
Courtesy of USGenWeb.
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