Resources for Oral History Interviews

Interviewing relatives is one of the genealogist’s first and most important duties. Here are some websites and books that will help you make the most of your family history interviews—plus recorded oral histories to give you some examples to study.

Oral History Websites

Lists of Oral History Interview Questions

• 20 Questions to Ask the Important Women in Your Life (Jewish Women’s Archive)
• Get Nosy with Aunt Rosie: Example Questions for Oral Histories (Genealogy.com)
• Memory Book Questions (Kindred Keepsakes)
• Oral History Interview Questions and Topics (JewishGen)

Interviewing Advice and Organizations

• A “Do-It-Yourself” Oral History Primer (Marine Corps University)
• Baylor University Institute for Oral History
• California State University Long Beach Oral History Program
• Cyndi’s List: Oral History and Interviews
• How Do I Transcribe Oral History Recordings (East Midlands Oral History Archive)
• Indiana University Center for Documentary Research and Practice
• Making Sense of Oral History (Linda Shopes)
• Southern Oral History Program (University of North Carolina Center for the Study of the American South)
• University of California at Berkley Oral History Center

Oral History Interview Books

• Doing Oral History by Donald A. Ritchie (Oxford University Press)
• Family Tales, Family Wisdom: How to Gather the Stories of a Lifetime and Share Them With Your Family by Robert U. Akeret (Henry Holt, out of print)
• How to Create a Video Family History: The Complete Guide to Interviewing and Taping Your Family’s Stories & Memories by Rob Huberman (ComteQ Publishing)
• How to Do Oral History booklet (University of Hawaii Center for Oral History)
• How to Tape Instant Oral Biographies by Bill Zimmerman (Betterway Books)
• Introduction to Oral History manual (Baylor University)
• Keeping Family Stories Alive: Discovering and Recording the Stories and Reflections of a Lifetime by Vera Rosenbluth (Hartley & Marks)
• Like It Was: A Complete Guide to Writing Oral History by Cynthia Stokes Brown (Teachers & Writers Collaborative)
• Listening For Our Past: A Lay Guide To African American Oral History Interviewing by Hasker Nelson, Heritage Research Creations
• Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You by David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty (Altamira Press)
• Oral History for the Family Historian: A Basic Guide by Linda Barnickel (Oral History Association)
• Oral History: From Tape to Type by Cullom Davis, Kathryn Back and Kay MacLean (American Library Association)
• Record and Remember: Tracing Your Roots through Oral History by Ellen Epstein and Jane Lewit Lanham (Scarborough House)
• The Oral History Manual by Barbara W. Sommer (AltaMira Press)
• Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Second Edition by Valerie Raleigh Yow (AltaMira Press)
• Recording Your Family History: A Guide to Preserving Oral History Using Audio and Video Tape by William Fletcher (Ten Speed Press, out of print)
• “Searching at Home and Talking With Relatives,” in The Genealogy Sourcebook by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack (Lowell House)
• Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy (Family Tree Books)
• The Tape-Recorded Interview: A Manual for Fieldworkers in Folklore and Oral History, Second Edition, by Edward D. Ives (University of Tennessee Press)
• Touching Tomorrow: How to Interview Your Loved Ones to Capture a Lifetime of Memories on Video or Audio by Mary LoVerde (Fireside)
• Transcribing and Editing Oral History by Willa Baum (Altamira Press)
• Video Family History by Duane and Pat Strum (Ancestry, out of print)
• Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History by Sherna Berger Gluck (Routledge)

Recorded Oral Histories

• Iowa Women Artists Oral History Project
• Oral Histories in the Perry Library (Old Dominion University)
• Southern Oral History Program (University of North Carolina Center for the Study of the American South)
• The Statue of Liberty—Ellis Island Oral Histories
• StoryCorps
• Veterans History Project (Library of Congress)
• Voices of the Colorado Plateau (Southern Utah University)

Resources provided by Erika Dreifus, Sunny Jane Morton, and Allison Dolan.

Versions of this information appeared in the April 2000 and March 2008 issues of Family Tree Magazine, and the September 2004 issue of Trace Your Family History.

Last updated November 2020

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