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Record your loved ones' stories in their own words

History is the story of the evolution of a species, a race, a family unit. History is the conjoined tales of the people who lived it.

Within every family are human triumphs, failures and adversities, unique and common to all.

Each generation faces its own challenges anew. It may appear this is a challenge unique to the times; but reflection may show similar issues have been faced in the past, by people who have gone before us. Our family.

For some, it is too late to ask our immediate ancestors to tell us what happened. They are dead; their voices stilled, their memories gone from us. We can only rely on received reports from others whose own memories are fallible, and subjective.

A living ancestor is a deep and valuable resource to any teller of family tales.

Questions can be answered from memory. They can reflect on the past and offer perspective not available from written resources. In short, they were there. It is their history. It is your task to chronicle it before it is too late, and that voice, too, is stilled.

As much as each generation dresses in new clothes, each adapts to the mores and customs of the times they live through. Words used are different in each generation; popular references fade and can make little sense to a generation or two later. It is these references, these expressions, a twist in the language that makes for authentic telling of a family history.

It is important in the recording of an older person’s memories that the words they use are recorded. It is all too easy to make a summary later, if contemporaneous notes are not kept of the interview or conversation. Think of the children’s game of Chinese
Whispers where the first child is whispered a sentence to tell to the next and on down the line until the final child renders what has come through many mouths and understandings of the original.

The final message can bear little resemblance to the original, to hilarious effect. That is not what you want from a family history.

Recording the nuances of family storytelling is a difficult skill to master. Many gatherers of family stories use a voice recorder to good effect. The moment is recorded and transcribed later.

There is a second and important reason for recording the actual person that’s telling the story. And that is their unique voice.

Once recorded and archived, you have a valuable resource to consult when you lay out your story for telling. Most older people have grown up with new technology.

Introduction of a good digital recorder to the conversation should not present a difficulty.
If it helps overcome initial reticence you can assure the speaker that the recording is for back-up to your written notes. That their story is important to record and that you wish to be accurate and fair to the story you are about to hear.

It is the priceless story of a family.

© Brendan Nolan 2009
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