How to tell your family story
You don't need to be a writer or a genealogist. You need one person who still remembers, another who asks the questions, and a place where what gets said is not lost.
What "telling your family story" means
It is not the list of births and marriages, it is what the archives don't hold. How two people met, why a family left a village, what a grandfather did with his Sundays, the phrase a grandmother kept repeating. None of this is written down anywhere. It lives in three or four heads, and it leaves with them.
Who to start with
With the oldest person who still wants to talk. Not with ancestors from the 18th century, the archives are waiting for them and will not move. Firsthand memories have an expiry date nobody knows.
Start with what they lived through themselves, not with what they know about their own grandparents. People tell best what they saw.
The questions that get people talking
Broad questions ("tell me about your life") shut people down. Concrete questions open them up. Here are a few that work every time.
- How did your parents meet?
- What was the house you grew up in like? Who slept where?
- What did you eat on Sundays?
- What is the first world event you remember?
- What did your parents never tell you that you understood later?
- What are you proudest of?
- What would you like your grandchildren to know about you?
One question, then silence. Don't fill the gaps, that is where the real answers come.
Record instead of writing
Taking notes while someone talks breaks the conversation. Put a phone on the table, start an audio recording, and listen. Three minutes of voice are worth pages. The tone, the accent, the pauses, the laugh in the middle of a sentence. That is what the grandchildren will want to hear.
Video if the person is comfortable with it, otherwise audio is enough and is forgotten faster.
Bring out the photos while you talk
A photo triggers memories no question can reach. Take the box of photos with you and ask for the names of the faces, the places, the years. Write them down right away, on the scanned photo or next to it. A photo whose names nobody remembers is lost within a generation.
Where to keep what you collect
This is where most projects die. The recordings stay on a phone, the notes in a notebook, the photos in a folder. There are three formats for bringing it all together.
The life story or family book. A fine result, often made with the help of a biographer. It freezes everything at the moment of printing, and it takes months.
The classic family tree. It puts names and dates in order, it does not carry the voice.
The living tree. Each person in the family carries their photos, recordings, videos and stories. It takes an hour to start, you add to it each time you learn something, and the whole family contributes through a link. This is what Parenthèse does, a tree anyone can view without an account, where memories surround each portrait.
The right order. The living tree first, because it collects. The book later, if one day you want to give it as a gift. Each one feeds the other.
Get the family to contribute
One person collecting on their own stops at what they know. Send the link to the tree. A cousin adds the missing photo, an aunt corrects a date, a nephew records his grandfather on his side. In Parenthèse, the family views the tree without an account and contributes with a password. You approve what goes into the tree, or you let it go straight in.
Frequently asked questions
How do you learn your family history?
By asking the oldest members of the family while they are still here, with concrete questions, by recording their answers, then by gathering what you learn with the family photos and papers in one place the whole family can open.
Who should you start with?
With the oldest person who still wants to talk, and with what they lived through themselves. The archives will wait, firsthand memories won't.
Do you need to write a book?
No. A book is a fine result, but it freezes everything and takes months. A living tree takes an hour to start and grows as the family contributes. The book can come later, from what the tree has collected.
Start with a voice
An account, a family name, a first recording. The rest comes with the family.
Start your tree