Family History Interview Guide

---
name: family-history-interview-guide
description: >
  Walks a user through interviewing an aging family member. Provides a 45-60 minute
  structure, specific question categories, comfort-setting openings, permission-to-record
  language, follow-up rules, and guidance on silence, pauses, and painful topics.
  Usage: /family-history-interview-guide. Triggers: user wants to interview a parent,
  grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older relative about their life.
---

# Family History Interview Guide

This skill prepares a user to sit down with an older family member and conduct a loving, structured interview. The goal is not a journalistic exposé. The goal is a conversation the user will be grateful to have had, with enough structure that it doesn't dead-end after ten minutes, and enough looseness that it doesn't feel like a deposition.

## Who this is for

A user who wants to capture a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older cousin's stories before the chance is gone. They are not a reporter. They are a family member. The interview is a gift in both directions — to the person being interviewed, who gets to be really listened to, and to the user, who gets to carry something forward.

## What the skill produces

When the user invokes this skill, it produces:

1. **A short pre-interview briefing** — what to bring, how to set up, what to say in the first thirty seconds.
2. **A 45-to-60-minute interview plan** with five question categories and specific question suggestions in each.
3. **A rules-of-engagement page** — when to pause, when to circle back, when to let silence happen, what to do if the interviewee gets upset, what to do if the interviewee gets tired.
4. **A post-interview checklist** — what to do in the first hour after the interview so the material doesn't disappear.

## Pre-interview briefing

### What to bring

- **Something to record with.** A phone is fine. Open the voice memo app before you sit down, not after the interviewee has started warming up. Test it — say "testing, testing" and play it back. Do this before the interview, not during.
- **A backup recording.** If you can, run a second recorder on a different device. Losing a 50-minute interview because of a file error is the kind of regret that lasts a lifetime.
- **A written list of topic areas**, not a written script. Scripts make people freeze, including you.
- **Water for both of you.** Talking for an hour is dry work, especially for an older person.
- **A photograph or two.** Old photos are the best interview-starters in the world. Bring one or two from the period you want to talk about and put them on the table between you.

### What to say in the first thirty seconds

The opening matters. The interviewee needs to know why you're there, that it's okay to say no to any question, and that you're recording. Say something like:

> I want to spend some time asking you about your life — about things you've done, people you've known, things you remember. I've been meaning to do this for a long time. I'm going to record our conversation so I don't lose anything. Is that okay? You can stop the recording any time, and you can skip any question you don't feel like answering.

Wait for the answer. If they hesitate about recording, ask if you can take notes instead, and respect that answer.

## The 45-to-60-minute plan

The interview has five sections. You will not get through all of them in one sitting. **That's good.** Plan for one or two sections this time, and come back next month for more. A good interview is a reason to visit again, not a one-shot extraction.

The skill presents the sections in this order, and the user picks which to focus on based on the time available and what the interviewee seems to want to talk about.

### Section 1 — Childhood and place (12–15 minutes)

The goal: anchor the interviewee in a specific place and time so memory has somewhere to stand.

Questions to choose from:

- "Tell me about the house where you grew up. Can you walk me through the rooms in order?"
- "Who lived in that house? Where did everybody sleep?"
- "What was breakfast like on a regular weekday?"
- "What did the neighborhood smell like in summer?"
- "Who was the adult in your childhood who wasn't your parent — a teacher, a neighbor, an aunt — who you remember clearly?"
- "What did you do when you got in trouble? Who did you avoid?"
- "What was the first job you ever had, even an unofficial one?"

### Section 2 — Work and craft (10–12 minutes)

The goal: learn about what they did with their days, the thing they made or served or fixed or taught. Work is where a lot of older people's pride lives, and it's often the part the family knows least about.

Questions to choose from:

- "Walk me through a typical Monday at [job]. What time did you get up, what did you do first?"
- "Who was the best person you worked with? What made them good?"
- "Was there a day at work you'll never forget? What happened?"
- "Was there a thing you did well that nobody else knew you did well?"
- "Did you ever have a boss you hated? How did you handle it?"
- "What's the thing you made or did at work that you're proudest of?"

### Section 3 — Love and marriage (10–12 minutes)

The goal: the personal history that isn't usually told at the dinner table. Go slowly. Watch the interviewee's face. If they seem to want to tell these stories, you've unlocked something rare.

Questions to choose from:

- "Tell me about the first time you met [spouse / partner / the person you loved]. What did you notice first?"
- "What was your first apartment or house together like?"
- "Was there a fight early on that you remember? Not the content — the feeling."
- "What's something they did for you that nobody else knew about?"
- "What did you learn about being in love that you didn't know when you started?"

If the interviewee was never married or prefers not to discuss this section, skip it gracefully: "We don't have to go there. Let's talk about friendships instead — who was your closest friend when you were in your twenties?"

### Section 4 — Regrets, forks, and what you'd tell your younger self (10–15 minutes)

The goal: the reflective ground most people rarely get invited onto. This is often where the most moving material lives. It is also the section most likely to produce silence — and that's fine.

Questions to choose from:

- "Was there a moment when your life could have gone a completely different way? What made it go the way it did?"
- "Is there a decision you'd make differently now?"
- "Is there someone you wish you'd kept in touch with?"
- "What's something you used to worry about that turned out to be fine?"
- "What's something you didn't worry about that you should have?"

Ask one. Wait. If the answer is long, don't ask the next one. If the answer is short, wait a little longer before asking the next one — short answers sometimes bloom into long ones when you don't rush to fill the silence.

### Section 5 — Advice and what matters (8–10 minutes)

The goal: what they want the next generation to know. This section is short on purpose. You are not fishing for wisdom-on-demand. You are giving the interviewee a chance to say something they might want said.

Questions to choose from:

- "What's the thing you know now that you wish you'd known at 25?"
- "Is there a message you'd want [a specific grandchild, great-niece, future descendant] to hear?"
- "What do you hope people remember about you?"
- "Is there anything you want me to know, that you've never said out loud?"

End here. The last question is the one the interviewee will think about for days after you leave. Let it land.

## Rules of engagement

### When to pause

Pause whenever the interviewee pauses. Their silence is not your cue to fill the air. It's often their brain pulling up something they haven't thought about in thirty years. Wait. Count to ten in your head if you need to. The best answers often come after the second or third beat of quiet.

### When to circle back

If the interviewee says something you want to follow up on but they're mid-story, write it in your notebook — don't interrupt. "Ship in 1952" in the margin is enough. When they finish the current thread, say: "A minute ago you mentioned a ship in 1952 — can I come back to that?"

### When to let silence happen

If the interviewee gets quiet and their eyes go somewhere else, don't rescue them. They are not stuck. They are remembering. Silence is part of the interview. You are not obligated to fill it. You are obligated to be there for it.

### If they get upset

If the interviewee gets teary, don't apologize and don't change the subject unless they ask you to. Say something like: "Take your time. We can stay here, or we can move on, or we can stop. What would feel right?" And then do what they say. If they say "stop," stop.

### If they get tired

Older people often tire suddenly. A person who seemed fine at minute 30 may need to stop at minute 40. Watch for it. Offer a break. Offer to come back another day. "We've done a lot. Want to pick this up next week?" is always a good question. An interview ended early is a future interview promised.

### What you do not do

- You do not argue with their memory, even when you think it's wrong. Write the contradiction in your notebook and look it up later.
- You do not ask "leading" questions that put words in their mouth. Not "weren't you so angry when that happened?" — instead, "how did you feel when that happened?"
- You do not skip a section because you assume they won't want to talk about it. Ask. Let them decline.
- You do not finish their sentences.
- You do not check your phone for any reason other than to confirm the recording is still running.

## Post-interview checklist

Within the first hour after the interview:

1. **Back up the recording.** Upload it to cloud storage or email it to yourself. Losing it later hurts twice.
2. **Write down five things you heard that surprised you.** Not a summary — just five things. Do this while they're fresh.
3. **Note any fact-checkable claims** you want to verify later (dates, places, names). These are the starting points for the [Genealogy Sleuth](/agents/soul-the-genealogy-sleuth) or the [Genealogy Research Kit](/agents/prompt-genealogy-research-kit).
4. **Schedule the next interview before you leave the room, if possible.** "Can I come back in two weeks and we'll do section four?" The best follow-up is the one that's already on the calendar.
5. **Send a thank-you** in whatever form they like best — a note, a call, a visit. Say what you heard that mattered to you.

Later, when you're ready, bring the recordings and notes to the [Memoir Chapter Builder](/agents/skill-memoir-chapter-builder) to start turning the material into chapters. Or just keep them safe for the grandchildren who'll listen one day.

## The hard truth

The best time to do this interview was ten years ago. The second-best time is this Saturday. People who are here now will not always be here, and people who would talk today may not be able to next year. This skill exists because "I'll get to it eventually" has cost more families their histories than anything else. Pick a date. Send the message. Bring the recorder.

## Scope refusal

This skill will not:

- Write the interview for the user — the questions are prompts, not a script to read off.
- Fabricate questions about topics the user didn't list.
- Offer therapeutic interpretation of anything the interviewee says.
- Tell the user how to "get" their relative to talk about something the relative doesn't want to discuss. Consent is not a tactic to work around.
- Replace the human judgment of being in the room. The guide is a scaffold. The interview is the user's.