50 Questions for a Life-Story Interview With a Parent or Grandparent

Your mother is halfway through a story about the summer she worked at a hotel by the sea, a story you have never heard, and then the kettle boils and the moment is gone. Later you realise you don't know the hotel's name, what year it was, or why she left.

A life-story interview is how you catch those stories on purpose. The best life story interview questions are open, specific and asked roughly in order, from earliest memories to what they've learned, with time left over for "and then what happened?" Below are 50 to choose from, plus how to set up the conversation so it feels like a visit, not an exam.

Before you start: what you need

• A recording device. A phone works. Test it first and put it on flight mode so calls don't interrupt.
• A quiet room. Turn off the television and the radio. Kitchens are cosy but fridges hum.
• Old photos. A shoebox of prints is the best memory jogger there is. A face or a house in a photo brings back stories a question can't reach.
• Their permission. Ask whether you can record, explain who'll hear it, and tell them they can skip anything or ask you to stop.
• Time. Plan 45 to 60 minutes per session and expect several sessions.

How to run the interview

1. Start easy. Name, date and place of birth, said aloud on the recording. It warms everyone up and labels the file.
2. Pick five to ten questions per session. Don't try to cover all 50 in one go. Follow a stretch of life, like childhood or working years.
3. Listen more than you talk. Silence is fine. People often add the best detail after a pause.
4. Follow the energy. If a question sparks a long story, abandon your list. The list is a map, not a schedule.
5. Ask for details. "What did it look like?" "What did you say?" "Who else was there?"
6. End on something light. Finish with a happy memory, and thank them.

50 life story interview questions

Earliest memories and childhood

1. What is the very first thing you remember?
2. Where were you born, and what do you know about the day you were born?
3. Describe the house you grew up in. What did your bedroom look like?
4. What did a normal day look like when you were seven or eight?
5. What games did you play, and who did you play with?
6. What did you get in trouble for?
7. What smells or sounds take you straight back to childhood?
8. Who was your favourite relative when you were small, and why?

Family and home

9. What were your parents like? What did they do for work?
10. What were your grandparents like, and what stories did they tell you?
11. What did your family eat on a normal day, and on special occasions?
12. How did your family celebrate holidays, birthdays or religious festivals?
13. What was a family rule you'd never forget?
14. Did your family ever move? What was that like?
15. What did your family argue about, and what made everyone laugh?

School and growing up

16. What was your school like? How did you get there?
17. Which teacher do you remember most, and why?
18. Who were your best friends as a teenager?
19. What music, films or fashions did you love?
20. What did you want to be when you grew up?
21. What was the bravest or most rebellious thing you did as a teenager?
22. What did you do on a Saturday night when you were seventeen?

Young adulthood and work

23. What was your first job, and how much were you paid?
24. When did you first leave home? Where did you go?
25. What was the hardest job you ever had?
26. What work are you proudest of?
27. Did you ever do military or national service? What do you remember about it?
28. Was there a moment when your life could have gone a completely different way?
29. Who helped you most when you were starting out?
30. What did you do with your first real pay cheque?

Love, partners and family

31. How did you meet your partner? What was your first impression?
32. What was your wedding or commitment day like, if you had one?
33. What do you remember about the day your first child was born?
34. What was the hardest part of raising a family?
35. What was a typical Sunday in your house when your children were young?
36. What is something your children don't know about you?
37. What do you hope your grandchildren know about you?

Places and the wider world

38. Which places have you lived in? Which felt most like home?
39. What's the farthest you've ever travelled, and what did you see?
40. What big events in the news do you remember living through? Where were you when you heard?
41. How has your town or neighbourhood changed over your life?
42. What invention changed your daily life the most?
43. If you moved countries, what did you bring with you, and what did you leave behind?

Looking back

44. What are you proudest of in your life?
45. What was the happiest period of your life?
46. What was the hardest time, and what got you through it?
47. Who influenced you most?
48. What do you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young?
49. What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self?
50. How would you like to be remembered by the family?

Follow-up questions that unlock the real story

The questions above open doors. These keep them open:

• "What happened next?"
• "How did you feel about that?"
• "Can you describe what it looked like?"
• "Who else was there?"
• "Why do you think you still remember that?"

For more prompts, StoryCorps publishes a well-loved list of great questions, and the Oral History Association shares guidance on interviewing and consent that's useful even for a family project.

A few gentle tips

• Use photos as prompts. Hand over a print and ask, "Tell me about this day." It works especially well with older people whose memory for recent events is patchy but whose early memories are vivid.
• Let them skip. Some subjects are painful. "We can leave that one" builds trust, and sometimes they come back to it themselves.
• Don't correct them. Dates may be fuzzy and versions may differ from your aunt's. Record their version; it's their story.
• Bring a grandchild. Older people often tell stories differently, and more playfully, to a grandchild.
• Do it in their language. If they think and dream in another language, interview in that one. The stories come out more fully.

After the interview

Label each recording with the date, the session number and the main topics. Write a few lines summarising the stories, and note names and places to check later. Keep copies in more than one place.

Turning hours of talk into a readable life story is the slow part. In Glow, a guided life-story conversation (out loud or on screen, in English, Hebrew or French) uses the family's own photos as memory joggers, and the conversation becomes a biography in the teller's own words. Nothing is invented; every name and year comes from what they told you.

Your first question

Choose five questions from the first section and ask if you can call or visit this week with a shoebox of old photos. Start the recording, say the date, and begin with: "What is the very first thing you remember?"