The best interview is a conversation, not a quiz. Use these as a menu. Pick three for one sitting, ask the first, and let the follow-ups do the work. A good answer to one question is worth more than short answers to ten.
Childhood and the first home
- Where were you born, and what is the first home you remember?
- Who lived in the house with you?
- What did your room look like?
- What did your family do on Sundays?
- What was your favorite meal, and who made it?
- Who was your best friend growing up?
- What did you get in trouble for?
- What scared you as a kid?
- What chores did you have?
- What did your parents do for work?
Growing up
- What were you like at sixteen?
- What was school like, and who was the teacher you remember?
- What music did you love?
- What did you do on a Friday night?
- What was your first job, and what did it pay?
- What was your first car?
- Who did you look up to?
- What did you want to be when you grew up?
- What was the hardest thing about being a teenager then?
- What do you wish you had known at eighteen?
Love and family
- How did you meet the person you married or loved most?
- What was your first date?
- What do you remember about your wedding day?
- Where was your first home together?
- What was it like the day your first child was born?
- What did you argue about, and how did you make up?
- What family tradition did you start?
- What was a typical weeknight dinner when the kids were small?
- Which of your children was most like you?
- What do you hope your family remembers about your home?
Work and the world
- What work are you proudest of?
- Who gave you your big break?
- What was the worst job you ever had?
- Where were you when you heard big news from the world?
- How did the town you grew up in change?
- What did things cost when you started out?
- Did you serve in the military or know someone who did?
- What did you do when money was tight?
- What skill did you teach yourself?
- What would you tell someone starting your line of work today?
Where the family came from
- What story did our family always tell about where we came from?
- What do you know about your grandparents?
- Did anyone in the family come from another country?
- What languages were spoken at home?
- Is there a family heirloom, and what is its story?
- Who is in the oldest photo you have?
- Which relative was the family storyteller?
- Was there a family scandal nobody talked about?
- What name has been passed down, and why?
- Where are the family records, letters, or Bibles kept?
Looking back
- What’s the bravest thing you ever did?
- What was the hardest year of your life, and what got you through it?
- What are you most grateful for?
- What did you change your mind about?
- What do you believe that you didn’t at thirty?
- What made you laugh the hardest?
- What would you do again?
- What would you do differently?
- What do you want your great-grandkids to know about you?
- What question do you wish someone would ask you?
Follow-ups that get the real story
The first answer is usually the short version. These follow-ups open it up.
- What happened next?
- Who else was there?
- What did it look like? What did it smell like?
- How did you feel about it then? How about now?
- Can you tell me about a time that happened?
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