Put together a list of questions and sit down with the folks in your family who might be able to share some answers: your parents, your grandparents, your great aunts, your second cousins. Bring along a phone or a digital voice recorder to capture your conversations (I find face-to-face interviews are a lot more productive than phone calls, but if your relatives are spread out over the globe, chatting over the phone or via Zoom/FaceTime is okay, too). Don’t be surprised if you’re met with some resistance. If your family history involves surviving a war or (as mine does) the Holocaust, you’ll learn quickly that it may not be an easy subject for family members to talk about. Be respectful, and be patient.
