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RECORDING THE PRESENT… TO EXPLORE THE PAST… FOR THE FUTURE
I started recording members of my family in the hope of picking up family information and for prosperity. I was inspired to do this when I heard the voice of Florence Nightingale recorded when she was an elderly lady. I bought a cheap, easy-to-use voice recorder for this purpose, but smartphones can do the same thing.
I gathered together many questions from online ideas that I could ask to help me to get the person being interviewed talking. “Tell me about your school”, “What was your childhood house like?”, “Tell me what your father was like”, “What was your wedding day like for you?”, “Do you remember the moon landings?” etc. The results were eye-opening! I discovered some unspoken family secrets, new lines of research and details that would have taken lots of research to uncover.
The people were at first a bit hesitant but once they got started, it appeared that they had lots to say and they found it good to talk. Sometimes sad memories, sometimes happy memories, and
