Appendix B

Questions for Interviewing Family Members

Below is a list of questions you can use as you interview family members. These questions focus on obtaining genealogical information that will help you complete your pedigree charts and family group records and submit names to the temple. You can ask those questions that apply and modify the questions as appropriate.

As you ask these questions, you will hear stories about family members and events. Record and preserve these stories for other family members and for your own children. These stories will help you turn your heart to your relatives and ancestors.

1. What is your full name?

2. When and where were you born?

3. Who is your mother?

4. When and where was your mother born?

5. What can you tell me about your mother’s relatives?

6. Who is your father?

7. When and where was your father born?

8. What can you tell me about your father’s relatives?

9. What are the full names of each of your brothers and sisters?

10. When and where were each of your brothers and sisters born?

11. What memories do you have of each of your brothers and sisters?

12. What schools did you and your brothers and sisters go to?

13. Whom did your brothers and sisters marry?

14. Whom did you marry?

15. What are the full names of each of your children?

16. When and where were your children born?

17. Whom did your children marry?

18. Who are your grandchildren?

19. What memories do you have of extended family members, such as aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents?

20. Where did some of these extended family members live?

21. What can you remember about births, marriages, and deaths of other family members?

22. Where are family members buried?

23. Did you or any of your relatives serve in the military?

24. Which wars did you or other relatives fight in?

25. Will you share some of their war stories with me?

26. What jobs do you remember your parents and other family members doing?

27. What religion or religions were practiced in your home?

28. What are some important spiritual experiences you have had?

29. Was anyone in the family interested in family history?

30. Are there any family members who kept a journal or who wrote a historical account of your family? Who are they? Are any of these accounts available for me to read?

31. Are you aware of any ancestors who emigrated from their home country to this country?

32. Does anyone in the family own a family Bible, a family history, or genealogical records of any kind? Who are these family members, and where do they live?

33. Will you show me some of your old family documents or artifacts?

34. Will you show me some of your old family photographs?