Have you ever found yourself saying, “Gosh, I wish I’d asked my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles more about the details of their lives”?
A lot of us don’t know enough about our family history. This is because people usually don’t become interested in genealogy until later in life when everything else has settled and they have time to think about their legacy and family identity.
Because of this, we’re losing generations of stories and important details, and all of the great benefits that come with them. Stories about our immediate family and ancestors provide examples of great and challenging times.
The solution to this problem is to get people interested in their family histories as they’re growing up, when they can still hear directly from older generations. But how do we cultivate an interest in each other in the beginning? Well, we can start by asking thoughtful questions, participating in storytelling, and by focusing on our parallel life details with our relatives.
This year, start important conversations with the below meaningful and
interesting questions:
-What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
-What was your favorite toy or game growing up?
-If you could learn any new skill, what would it be and why?
-If you could go back in time, what is one piece of advice you would give your younger self?
-What’s something you want to do that you’ve never done before? Why?
-In what kind of situations do you feel most uncomfortable, and why?
-Have you ever experienced or witnessed something that you can’t explain?
-What is your weirdest habit?
Keep asking until you find something in common, and then tell the story behind your answer. Repeat.
Ask some questions about your relatives’ backgrounds. You might think you already know everything about your relatives because they’re family, but we often don’t know even baseline information about them. Take these for instance:
-Do you know how your parents or grandparents met?
-Do you know some of the lessons that your parents or grandparents learned from good or
bad experiences?
-Do you know the source of your name?
-Where did your parents or grandparents grow up?
-Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
-Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
Be intentional with storytelling into your family traditions. Swap stories about events, achievements, and past holidays while you’re all together and have everyone write down the things they are grateful for every time you’re together.
Get creative. Request that your relatives participate in a “show and tell” with an object from their past that they can explain. This will spark some special conversations around that item meant to them at the time.
We hope that these tips will pay off this year and in the years to come!
Jasmine Browley holds an MA in journalism from Columbia College Chicago, and has contributed to Ebony, Jet and MADE Magazine among others. So, clearly, she knows some stuff. Follow her digital journey @JasmineBrowley.
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