Questions to ask your grandparents about their life: a session plan and question lists

How do you start without it feeling like an interview?

Some people regret not asking their grandparents more. A survey reported by Forces News in 2019, of 2,000 adults, found that 44% of those whose grandparents had died regretted not spending more time with them.⁴ The article does not name the research company or the date of the fieldwork, so treat the figure as a press report rather than a measured study.

The way round that moment is to make it ordinary. Do not announce an interview. Take tea, bring a photograph and ask about the photograph. People who would shrug at “tell me about your life” will happily explain who is standing at the back and why they are all squinting.

Three habits make the difference. Ask one question at a time. Wait through the pause that follows, because the best answers often arrive after a silence. And ask “what was that like?” more often than “what year was that?”. Dates can be checked later in records; the feeling of a place cannot.

If you want a fuller route from conversation to finished book, our guide to writing your life story covers the writing side, and the memoir guide covers structure.

A session plan: four visits of 20 minutes

One long afternoon tires everyone and produces a muddle of notes. Short, repeated sessions are easier to fit around a busy week. This is an editorial plan written for this guide, not a tested method, so adjust it to the person in front of you.

Stop when the 20 minutes are up, even if it is going well. Leaving on a good moment makes the next visit easier to arrange, and it keeps the person from feeling that they are being worked through a list.

What are good questions about childhood and home?

Childhood questions work because almost everyone can answer them and few have been asked. Keep them concrete. A smell or a room gets a better answer than a general “what was it like growing up?”

• What was the first home you remember, and who else lived there?
• Which room did the family spend most time in, and what did people do there in the evening?
• What did you eat on an ordinary weekday, and what was different on Sunday?
• What did you do on your own on a long school holiday?
• Who was the person everyone in the street knew, and why?
• What were you in trouble for, and who dealt with it?
• What did you want to be when you were small?

Add a follow-up that asks for a picture: “Can you describe the front door?” or “What was on the mantelpiece?” A description of a physical detail is easier to write down and easier to check against a photograph, and it can jog a second memory.

Photographs help here. A person who cannot answer “what was your school like?” may answer “who is this beside you?”. Write names on a separate sheet rather than on the back of the print; if you must mark an original, our family history book guide explains the archive advice on pencil and storage.

What do you ask about the war years and evacuation?

A survey reported by Forces News found that 21% of people whose grandparents lived through the war but have died never asked about it.⁴ If a grandparent was a child or young adult in those years, there may be a great deal to ask. There may also be things they do not want to say, and that is their choice.

Ask permission first: “Would you mind telling me what you remember about the war, or would you rather leave it?” Let them set the pace, and do not push for detail on anything that visibly upsets them. Several of the following questions are about ordinary life rather than danger, which is often easier to talk about.

• Where were you living when the war began, and who was at home?
• Were you, or anyone you knew, evacuated? How did you travel, and what did you take?
• What do you remember about the first day in a new place?
• Who wrote to whom, and did the letters survive?
• What did the family do to keep going from day to day?
• What do you remember about the day it ended?

For evacuation in particular, the National Archives says the mass evacuation began in September 1939 and that almost all evacuees had reached reception areas by the evening of 3 September.¹ It also says it holds no evacuee records for individuals. Local archives and local authorities are the best sources, and the 1939 Register may help; entries for individuals are open only if the person has died, and living people can request a transcript of their own entry.¹ So your grandparent’s own account may be especially valuable.

This page does not give details of rationing or other wartime topics, because no source for them was read for this guide. Ask your grandparent instead, and record what they say as their own account.

What do you ask about school, work and national service?

Work questions get at character as well as history. Ask about the first job, the first pay packet, the person who taught them the trade and the one thing they would not do again. Then ask who they worked with and whether any of those people became friends.

• What was your first day at work like, and who showed you what to do?
• What was the best and the worst job you ever had?
• What could you do at work that people nowadays could not?
• Did you ever think of leaving the town you grew up in? What stopped you or made you go?
• Who gave you advice you still remember?

A UK reference point can open a conversation. In December 1959 ministers announced that there would be no further National Service call-up after 1960, and that men born on or after 1 October 1939 would not have to register.² If a grandfather was born earlier, “were you called up, and where did you go?” is a natural question. If he was born later, ask what he remembers about older brothers, cousins or neighbours who went.

Another date is easy to place: Decimal Day, set for Monday 15 February 1971.³ “Do you remember the first time you paid in new pence?” invites a story about shops, wages or confusion at the till, and it works for both grandmothers and grandfathers.

These dates are starting points only. Dates of birth and service vary from person to person, so use the dates to ask and not to assume.

How do you ask about family, names and places?

If you are building a family tree, you need names, dates and places, but you do not need to ask in that order. Ask about people first. “Tell me about your mother” will give you her name and many other things besides.

• What was your mother’s maiden name, and what did people call her?
• Who in the family was always known by a nickname?
• Where did your parents and grandparents live, and did they ever move?
• Which family stories do you think might not be quite true?
• Who in the family do you think I take after, and why?

Ask the spelling of every name and write it down at once. Spellings can differ from one record to the next. A National Archives guide notes that the 1921 census households completed schedules showing the number of rooms, and that “divorced” became an official marital category in that census.⁵ You can use such details to check what a grandparent tells you, but a record is the next step, not the first: collect the story, then look.

Mark each answer as you go, as something you were told. Our family history book guide sets out a three-label system for fact, family story and guess that works well for answers from this kind of session.

What if a grandparent finds it hard to talk or tires quickly?

Some people find it hard to talk about themselves. Others tire quickly. Neither is a failure of your questions. Shorten the session, pick up the photograph, and let silence be silence.

• Offer a choice of two questions rather than an open one.
• Use an object, a recipe card, a song or a place name as the starting point.
• Come back to a question another day without saying that it was asked before.
• Do not correct a detail unless it matters. Note it and check later.
• Let a topic go if it clearly distresses them.

How do you record the answers, and what happens next?

Keep the method light. A notebook is enough. If you use a phone to record, ask first, say what you will do with the recording, and put the phone on the table rather than in front of their face. Some people relax once the phone has been ignored for a few minutes.

Within a day of each visit, write three lines: who was there, what you talked about and one phrase in their own words. Those few lines are worth more than a long transcript you never read.

When you have eight or so answers, read them back to your grandparent and ask what they would change. For the gift side, see the memory book for grandma guide; to turn the notes into a tidy collection, try a time capsule as a light first project.

Where Memory fits

Chutex offers Memory, a service in preparation in which Aria, an AI, helps a person tell their life story, keeps the memories they choose to share and can prepare a book they review together. The service has its own page on this site: Chutex Memory. Memory gives no diagnosis. It is not a health professional and does not replace one.

Nothing replaces a conversation with the person in the chair beside you. Memory is for the stage after it, when the stories need keeping and putting in order. For the recipes that come up in those conversations, see our family recipe book guide.

Frequently asked questions