Speak with Your Family
Interview old people now[edit | edit source]
We never know when they may die. This is the main source of information for the past, especially when most information is kept and passed down orally.
Prepare for the interview[edit | edit source]
- Prepare for the interview by gathering materials, such as:
- Do what you can as soon as you can.
Keep in mind[edit | edit source]
Some islanders have a specific order in which they recite a formal genealogy. If you ask them to recite it, you shouldn’t interrupt them with questions.
Sometimes, customary questions are to be asked by the interviewer and answered in a known sequence, as is done in Tonga. In such a case, ask an experienced interviewer to help you.
A personal life history is less structured, and you can ask questions during the interview.
Take a gift of some fruit or whatever the custom is on your island. Do it when you first do the interview and when you ask them to review the copy.
Ask for permission to share what you have written with others.
On the FamilySearch Catalog, there is an extensive collection of oral histories called the Cole-Jensen collection. Recorded oral histories of Pacific Islanders have been recorded, transcribed, and made available on FamilySearch. Your ancestors might be located in these histories.
Ideas for informal questions to ask[edit | edit source]
- What are your names, what do they mean, and how did you get them? (The answer to this question is usually very interesting and can yield a lot of other useful information.)
- What are the names of your parents and your parents’ brothers and sisters? Who did they marry?
- Do you know where your parents’ family was living when they were born?
- How did they come to be at that place?
- What year were they born?
- What island do they come from? What district? What village?
- What is the ancestral village or island district of your father and mother?
- Where did your father and mother live, and when did they live there?
- What is your lineage, ha’a, canoe, tribe, or other ancestral group?
- Who was the first ancestor in that lineage?
- What is the story about them?
- What do you remember of the history of their village or island district?
- Do you remember any of your ancestors who are no longer living?
- What do you remember about them?
- How many children do you have? What are their names? Who did they marry?
- Where do your descendants live now?
- What is your husband or wife’s name?
- What religion do you belong to?
- What events in your life (birth, adolescence, new name, moving to another place, religious sacraments such as baptism, christening, confirmation, marriage, employment, schooling, hospitalization, land ownership, military service, being made chief, etc.) were likely to have been recorded?
Follow up[edit | edit source]
- Later, you need to transcribe the interview. Play the tape and write down what was said.
- Ask the person you interviewed to read your notes and correct them.
- Give the person you interviewed a copy of the transcription.
- Donate, if possible, a copy of the transcript to: