Questions to ask your grandparents: 60 good ones, and how to run the interview

What are the best questions to ask your grandparents?

The best questions ask for a story, not a fact. “Where were you born?” gets a place name. “What do you remember about the house where you grew up?” gets a kitchen, a smell and a person.

StoryCorps publishes a page of Great Questions that groups its suggestions in 17 categories.¹ The categories include Grandparents, Parents, Growing Up, School, Working, Family Heritage and Remembering a Loved One.¹ The page says to use the questions you like and to write your own, and the list is not in any order.¹ This guide follows the same spirit: take what fits and skip the rest.

Below you will find 60 questions in seven groups. You do not need all of them. Pick six to eight per session, and start with the easiest.

Which questions work by life stage?

Childhood and home (10 questions)

1. What is your earliest memory?
2. What did the house or apartment you grew up in look like?
3. Who lived with you, and what were they like?
4. What did you eat on an ordinary day, and what on a special day?
5. What games did you play, and who with?
6. What chores did you have?
7. What was the neighborhood like, and who were the neighbors?
8. What did your parents do for work?
9. What did your family do on weekends or holidays?
10. What was a time you got in trouble?

School and growing up (8 questions)

1. What was school like for you? Which teacher do you remember?
2. How did you get to school?
3. What did you want to be when you grew up?
4. Who was your best friend, and what did you do together?
5. What music or movies did you love as a teenager?
6. What was the biggest change you saw in the world while you were young?
7. What did you wear, and what did you wish you could wear?
8. What was the best day of your teenage years?

Work and money (8 questions)

1. What was your first job, and how much did you learn there?
2. What work were you proudest of?
3. Who was the best boss or teammate you had?
4. What was the hardest part of working?
5. How did you decide on your career, or did it choose you?
6. What did you do when money was tight?
7. What skill do you wish you had learned sooner?
8. What would you tell someone starting out today?

Love, marriage and family (10 questions)

1. How did you meet your husband, wife or partner?
2. What did you notice about them first?
3. What was your wedding day like?
4. What was the first home you shared?
5. What did you hope for when your first child was born?
6. What is your favorite memory of raising your children?
7. What traditions did you start?
8. How did you handle disagreements?
9. What do you admire about each of your children?
10. What do you want your grandchildren to know about your marriage?

Deep questions (10 questions)

1. What are you most grateful for?
2. What was the hardest time in your life, and how did you get through it?
3. What did you believe when you were young that you no longer believe?
4. What decision are you glad you made?
5. What would you do differently if you could?
6. Who has had the biggest influence on you?
7. What is the most important thing you have learned?
8. What does a good life mean to you?
9. How would you like to be remembered? This is a question StoryCorps suggests.¹
10. What do you hope for the family?

Funny and kid-friendly questions (10 questions)

1. What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you?
2. What was your favorite candy or snack as a child?
3. What was the silliest thing you ever believed?
4. What was the best prank you played or had played on you?
5. What did you do for fun without a TV or a phone?
6. What was the naughtiest thing you ever did?
7. What is a word or saying from your childhood that no one uses now?
8. What was the best present you ever got?
9. If you could have any superpower when you were my age, what would it have been?
10. What is your favorite joke?

If you are asking your parents instead (4 questions)

1. What was I like as a baby?
2. What was the hardest thing about being a parent?
3. What did you want for me that I might not have known?
4. What story about our family should I make sure to remember?

What deep questions can you ask, and how do you read the room?

Deep questions land better when a conversation is already warm. Start with childhood and food, move to work and family, and leave the questions about regret, gratitude and legacy for the end of the session or for a second one.

Watch for signs that a topic is not welcome: short answers, a change of subject, a look away. The Library of Congress oral history guidance advises asking the person which topics to include or avoid before you start.³ Doing that in a short chat ahead of time lets your grandparent set the limits.

Never press for the exact year of an event. The same guidance advises against putting the person on the spot about dates.³ A story told without a date is still a story, and you can fill in the year later from photos or from other relatives.

What turns a closed question into a story?

A question that can be answered “yes” or “no” ends the story. Rewrite it so the answer must be a scene. The Library of Congress advises open-ended follow-ups beginning with how, why or when, and short, simple questions.³

Photographs and objects work the same way. The Library of Congress advises asking about photographs and letters to spark memories.³ Bring one photo to each session and ask, “Who is this, and what was happening?”

How do you run the interview?

A short, calm session beats a long one. Here is a simple plan, written for this guide: eight questions, one topic area, about 30 minutes.

1. Chat first. The Library of Congress advises a short pre-interview chat where you ask which topics to include or avoid.³
2. Choose a quiet place. Secure a quiet location.³
3. Test your recorder. Check the battery and the storage before you begin.³ You can record with a smartphone or a digital recorder.⁴
4. Say you are recording. Let the person know before you start. The Library of Congress asks interviewers to do this.³
5. Ask, then wait. Give your grandparent time to think before answering.³
6. End with a gift. Ask “Is there anything I did not ask that you want to tell me?”

StoryCorps offers a way to record with its StoryCorps App when you are in the same room, and StoryCorps Connect through a web browser when you are in different places.² Check the StoryCorps site for current details before you rely on either tool.

Ask permission before you share. The Veterans History Project uses release forms signed around the interview.³ For a family project a simple written note is enough, such as “May I share this recording with the family?” Keep the note with the recording.

What if your grandparent finds it hard to find words or does not want to talk?

Some people are private, and some need more time to find a word. In both cases the answer is the same: slow down and make it comfortable.

The National Institute on Aging publishes conversation tips for talking with someone who has trouble finding words or remembering. They include making eye contact and using the person’s name, allowing more time for a response, being patient, not interrupting, not talking about the person as if they were not in the room, and avoiding arguments.⁶ These habits make any interview kinder.

• Shorten the session to 15 or 20 minutes. Two short sessions are better than one tiring one.
• Offer something to hold: a photo, a recipe card, an old tool.
• If a subject is not welcome, say “we can skip that” and move on.
• End when your grandparent is tired, not when your list is finished.
• Say thank you. A visit that feels good invites the next one.

If a grandparent says no to a recording, you can still write down what you remember afterward, or offer to write down what they say. The point is the time together.

How do you keep the answers once you have them?

A recording on one phone is easy to lose. Make copies the same day. The Library of Congress advises keeping at least two copies of digital files on separate media and making new copies at least every five years, since common storage media can become obsolete within a few years.⁷

Write a short label for each file: the person’s name, the date, the topic and who asked the questions. Then give copies to relatives. The Library of Congress family history guide notes that sharing family items prompts storytelling and that giving copies to relatives helps protect them.⁵

Typing the best answers into a document gives you text you can search. To turn a set of answers into chapters, see how to write a memoir, and for a book built around records and photos, see building a family history book. For a shorter keepsake, try a legacy letter or a time capsule.

Where Memory fits

Good answers are only useful if someone keeps them. 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 is not a medical product and gives no diagnosis.

If you would rather give a grandparent a book of prompts than interview them, see the memory book for grandparents guide.

Frequently asked questions