50 questions to ask your family elders

One unhurried conversation with a grandparent can add twenty names to your family tree. These questions are grouped so you can move from easy memories to the details that are hardest to find anywhere else.

Before you start

Choose a quiet time, sit with a printed copy of your family tree, and point to names as you talk. Seeing the tree jogs memories far better than questions alone. Ask permission to record on your phone, keep each sitting to under an hour, and do not worry about finishing the list in one visit. Many of the best answers come on the second or third visit, once people have had time to think.

About them

1. What is your full name, and did you have a pet name as a child?
2. Where and when were you born? Which house, which village?
3. What were your parents' full names, and where did they come from?
4. How many brothers and sisters did you have? Where did each of them settle?
5. Who were you named after?
6. What was your first school, and until which class did you study?
7. What work did you do, and what work did your father do?

Grandparents and beyond

8. What were your grandparents' names on both sides?
9. Do you remember anything about your great-grandparents?
10. How many children did your grandparents have? Who were they?
11. Were any children in the family lost young? What were their names?
12. Which of your aunts married into other families, and which families?
13. Did anyone in the family remarry? Were there children from both marriages?
14. Was anyone adopted into the family, or given in adoption?
15. Which relatives lived with you in the same house when you were young?
16. Did two relatives share the same name? How did the family tell them apart?

Places and moves

17. What is our native village, and which taluka and district is it in?
18. Did the family always live there, or did they come from somewhere else?
19. When and why did the family move to the city?
20. Did we own land? Where was it, and who inherited it?
21. Is the old family house still standing? Who lives there now?
22. Which relatives still live in the village?
23. Did any branch of the family settle in another town or state? Where?

Kul and customs

24. What is our kuldaivat or kuldevi?
25. What is our devak or gotra?
26. Which temple does the family visit for important occasions?
27. Where did the family perform last rites, and did anyone record our names with a priest there?
28. Are there customs only our family follows at weddings or festivals?
29. Is there a family story about where our surname came from?

Marriages

30. How did you meet your spouse? Who arranged the marriage?
31. What was your spouse's family name and native place?
32. What was your spouse's name before marriage, if it changed?
33. Where was the wedding held, and who from the family attended?
34. Do you still have the wedding invitation or photographs?

Life and times

35. What was an ordinary day like when you were a child?
36. What did the family grow, make or sell?
37. What big events do you remember, such as floods, famines, or Independence?
38. Who was the person everyone in the family went to for advice?
39. Who was the funniest person in the family?
40. Were there any quarrels or partitions that split the family? How did they happen?
41. Did anyone serve in the army or police, or go abroad?

Papers and photographs

42. Are there old photographs? Who is in them?
43. Are there old letters, diaries, or account books?
44. Where are the land papers and old certificates kept?
45. Did anyone in the family write down a family tree before?

Before we finish

46. Who else in the family remembers the old days that I should talk to?
47. Is there a story you have never told anyone that you would like remembered?
48. What do you want your great-grandchildren to know about you?
49. Is there anything you wish you had asked your own grandparents?
50. Can I come back and ask you more another day?

After the conversation

Add the new names to your tree the same day, while the conversation is fresh. Mark anything uncertain as to be traced, and write in the details field who told you and when. Then print the updated tree and take it back on your next visit. Elders enjoy seeing the family they described, and it almost always brings out more names.