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 sometimes they surprised themselves by remembering long-unspoken memories.
Afterwards, when I got home, I downloaded the recordings and then I transcribed them. This gave me the opportunity to really listen to what was said, and to take notes at my leisure.
The great thing was letting the person talk at their own pace. Many times they went from subject to subject, and they began to remember things they hadn’t thought about for years. I just let them talk. Primary schools, secondary schools, church, weddings, children, fathers, mothers, grandparents and siblings.
The information was invaluable. There is a massive bonus to all this. Imagine being able to hear your great great grandmother talking about what life was like for her as a child in the Victorian times… yes, it would be amazing. Now, in 30, 40, 100 years’ time my descendants will be able to listen to that.
I lost my wife very recently, and I’m so glad that I had recorded her talking about her childhood etc. My granddaughter, who is 13 at present, will be able to listen to that when she’s 63… and let her own children and grandchildren hear it.
I would urge everyone do this.
Lindsay Swan, Motherwell
EDITOR REPLIES Thank you for sharing your experience of audio recordings Lindsay. I keep meaning to do this with my own parents, but your lette
