Questions to ask your parents and grandparents about their lives

Below are 100 questions to ask a parent or grandparent about their life, and advice on how to ask them. Broad questions like "What was your childhood like?" tend to get short answers. Questions about one specific thing, like the kitchen table or the first car, get stories.

If your parent would rather answer on their own, send them these life story questions written for storytellers.

How to ask so you get stories

Ask about one specific thing at a time, then keep asking about the answer. Here is what a few follow-ups can do:

You: What was your first job?

Dad: Bagging groceries at Miller's.

You: What did the store look like?

Dad: Sawdust on the floor. Mr. Miller kept a pencil behind his ear and a cigar he never lit.

You: What happened next?

Dad: My first week, I dropped a whole crate of eggs in front of his wife. He didn't fire me, but he made me clean it up while everybody watched.

A few habits make this easier:

• Ask about things they can picture. "What did your father keep in his truck?" is easier to answer than "What was your father like?"
• Keep follow-up questions handy. Write a few on a card: "What happened next?" "What did your mother say about that?" "What did it look like?" "Who else was there?"
• Bring photos. Point at one face or one house and ask who, where and what happened that day. Our guide to old family photos has more ideas.
• Keep sittings short. Aim for half an hour to an hour, and stop while they still want to keep going.
• Let silences sit. When they stop talking, wait before you ask anything new. They may be finding the next part.
• Ask the same thing again weeks later. A second telling often brings out details the first one missed.
• Don't correct them. If a date or a name doesn't match what you know, write it down and check later. You are collecting their version.
• Let them say no. If they don't want to talk about something, move on.
• Record it, with their permission. The Voice Memos app on an iPhone or a voice recorder app on an Android phone is enough. Test it first and put the phone on the table between you.

100 questions to ask, by topic

Pick three to five for each sitting and say them in your own words. Change "Mom" and "Dad" to fit your family.

Childhood

Start here, since these ask about places and routines that are easy to picture.

• Where did you live when you were ten, and what could you see from the front step?
• What did you eat for breakfast on a school day, and who made it?
• Who was your best friend on your street, and what did you two get up to?
• What chores did you have, and which one did you hate?
• What toy or game did you play with until it fell apart?
• What were you afraid of as a child?
• What did you do on summer days with no school?
• Did you have a pet? What was its name, and what happened to it?
• What got you in trouble, and who did the punishing?
• What smell takes you straight back to being a kid?

Their parents and grandparents

Ask about the people who raised them, and about relatives you never met.

• What was your father like when he was in a good mood?
• What did your mother do all day when you were small?
• How did your parents meet, as far as you know?
• What did your grandparents do for a living?
• Where did our family live before here, and who made the move?
• What did your parents argue about?
• Which parent were you closer to, and why?
• What did your grandmother cook, and did anyone write the recipes down?
• What did your father or mother do that you've caught yourself doing?
• Was there a relative the family didn't talk about? What do you know about them?

School

Ask about one school and one year at a time.

• How far was school, and how did you get there in winter?
• What did your school building look like, and is it still standing?
• Which teacher was hardest on you, and were they right to be?
• Who did you sit with at lunch?
• Were you ever sent to the principal's office? What for?
• What were your report cards like, and what did your parents say about them?
• Did you finish school? If you left early, what made you leave?
• What did you do after school before your parents got home?
• Who did you take to your first dance, or who took you?

Growing up in their town

These put their childhood in a place: the stores, the streets and the people everyone knew.

• What stores were on the main street of your town?
• Who was the town character everyone knew?
• How much did a hamburger cost when you were a teenager, and where did you buy one?
• How did your family get around: car, bus, streetcar or on foot?
• What was the big event of the year in your town?
• Which families had money, and how could you tell?
• What is the first movie you remember seeing in a theater, and who took you?
• What did most people in your town do for work?
• How has your hometown changed since you left?

Work

Ask about the work itself, not only the job title.

• What was your first job, and how much did it pay?
• What did you actually do all day at the job you had longest?
• Who gave you your first real chance at work?
• Who was the best person you ever worked with, and the worst?
• What was the scariest or most dangerous thing you did at work?
• What job did you want and not get, and what happened?
• What were you proud of at work that nobody at home knew about?
• What did you wear to work, and what did you carry?
• If you could have done any job, what would it have been?

Love and marriage

Start with how they met, and let them decide how far to go.

• How did you and Mom meet, and who made the first move?
• Where did you go on your first date, and what did you wear?
• Who did you go out with before you met each other?
• Where were you when you decided to get married, and who did you tell first?
• What did your parents say the first time you brought Mom home?
• What do you remember about your wedding day that isn't in the photos?
• What was hard about the first year of marriage?
• What did the two of you disagree about most?
• What did you do together on a free evening when you were first married?

Becoming a parent

These are about your early years, told from their side. Adjust the wording to fit your family.

• What did you think when you found out I was on the way?
• How did you choose my name, and what else was on the list?
• What was I like as a baby?
• What did you do the first night you brought me home?
• What did you have to give up when we were small?
• What did I do as a child that still makes you laugh?
• What rule did you have for us that your own parents never had?
• Which stage of raising us was the hardest?
• What do you wish someone had told you before you became a parent?

Hard times

Ask gently, and only once.

• What was the hardest year of your life, and what made it hard?
• Did you ever have to borrow money or ask family for help? What happened?
• Who do you still miss, and what would you tell them if you could?
• Were you ever seriously sick or hurt? Who looked after you?
• What is the bravest thing you ever did?
• Who helped the family through a bad stretch, like a neighbor, a church or a stranger?
• How did you keep things normal for us when things were bad?
• What road didn't you take that you still think about, like a job, a move or a person?
• What did you learn from that time that you'd want me to know?

The world events they lived through

Ask where they were and what they did, and pick the ones that fit their age. If they served in the military, see how to interview a veteran.

• What stories did your parents tell about the Depression or World War II?
• Where were you when you heard President Kennedy had been shot, and what did the grown-ups around you do?
• Did you watch the moon landing? Where were you, and who was with you?
• Did you or anyone you knew get drafted? What happened to them?
• What do you remember about the civil rights movement where you lived?
• How did your family get the news when you were young: the paper, the radio or the TV?
• What was the first computer or cell phone you owned?
• Where were you on September 11, 2001, and who did you call?
• When you were young, what did you think the year 2000 would look like?

Beliefs

Keep these open. You are asking what they believe, not debating it.

• Did you grow up going to church, synagogue or another place of worship? What was it like?
• What do you believe now that you didn't at my age?
• When did standing by what you believe cost you something?
• What do you think makes a good life?
• What do you do when you need to think something through?
• What did your parents believe that you don't, or the other way around?
• What would you never do, no matter what?
• What is one thing you're sure is true, and how did you come to believe it?

Advice

Save these for the end of a sitting, after the stories.

• What do you know now that you wish you'd known at my age?
• What is the best advice anyone ever gave you, and who gave it?
• What should I know about money?
• What should I know about staying married?
• What should I never do?
• What are you proudest of?
• What do you want your great-grandchildren to know about our family?
• What do you hope I'll remember about you?
• What have you always wanted to tell me?

What to do with the recordings

Label them, keep two copies, then turn the best parts into written stories.

1. Label each file with who is talking, the date and the main topic, like "Dad, March 2026, the farm in Iowa."
2. Keep two copies, such as one on your computer and one on a USB drive or in a cloud account.
3. Transcribe them yourself or with a transcription app, then listen again and fix names, places and dates. Mark anything you're unsure of and ask about it next time.
4. Write them up. A transcript isn't a story yet. Cut the false starts, keep their words and sayings, and tell each story in order. For a bigger project, see how to write your family history.
5. Print them. A binder, a photo book or a printed book gives everyone in the family a copy. Here is how to print a life story as a book.
6. Keep the audio as well. Grandchildren who never met them can hear how they talked.

If you live far apart

You can do all of this by phone or video call.

• Set a regular time, like Sunday after lunch.
• Look at the same photo. Mail a print ahead of time or share it on the video call, so you are both looking at the same picture.
• Record with permission. Put the call on speaker and record it on a second device, like a laptop or another phone.

If regular calls are hard to arrange, they can talk on their own time with Biographer. It is an AI interviewer and writer they use in a web browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to download. They can type or talk, and it can read its questions out loud. It asks follow-up questions based on what they say and writes their stories.

When you give Biographer as a gift, you add a personal note and up to three stories you hope to hear. Their stories are private unless they share them, so they decide which ones you read, and you may not get every story you asked for.