• 112 questions
  • Checked October 2026

Genealogy Questions to Ask Relatives

An interview deck for a parent, grandparent, aunt or cousin: names, homes, work, moves and keepsakes, each with a follow-up.

Genealogy Questions to Ask Relatives

What skill was handed from parent to child in our family?

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Who has that skill now?

Ask the question. Short answer? Press Show follow-up, then Next question.

Next step Questions to ask Mom and Dad

All 112 questions

Names and where we come from 14

  • How many brothers and sisters did each of your parents have? Follow-up: Can you list them from oldest to youngest?
  • What did the family call you at home, and how did that name start? Follow-up: Who still uses that name for you?
  • What full name were you given at birth, and who chose it? Follow-up: Was anyone in the family against the choice?
  • What have you been told about what our family name means? Follow-up: Who passed that meaning on to you?
  • What language or dialect did your grandparents speak at home? Follow-up: Which words of it can you still say?
  • What other spellings of our surname have turned up over the years? Follow-up: Who changed the spelling, and what for?
  • What surnames run through our family, on each side? Follow-up: Which of those surnames has died out?
  • What was your mother's family name before she married? Follow-up: Where did her people live?
  • What were your grandparents' full names, as far as you know? Follow-up: Which of the four did you know best?
  • Which country, region or town do you say we come from? Follow-up: Who told you that is where we are from?
  • Which first names keep turning up in our family? Follow-up: Who was the first to carry the name?
  • Which relative had a name nobody could say or spell? Follow-up: What did people call that relative instead?
  • Which town were your parents living in when you were born? Follow-up: How long did they stay in that town?
  • Who is the earliest ancestor you can name? Follow-up: What is the one thing you know about that ancestor?

The home you grew up in 14

  • How was that house laid out, room by room? Follow-up: Which room did the family use most?
  • What animals did the household keep, for work or for company? Follow-up: Which animal had a name everyone remembers?
  • What chores were yours, and at what age did they start? Follow-up: Which of those chores did you dodge?
  • What did the front door of that house look out on? Follow-up: What stands in that view today?
  • What did the kitchen look like, and who was in charge of it? Follow-up: What was always on the stove?
  • What grew in the yard, the garden or the fields around the house? Follow-up: Who in the house did the planting?
  • What was the road or the address of the first home you remember? Follow-up: What stood next door to it?
  • When did the family leave that home, and why? Follow-up: Have you been back to look at the place?
  • Where did the family sit together once the day's work was done? Follow-up: Who had a chair nobody else dared use?
  • Where did the household's water come from? Follow-up: Whose job was it to fetch or look after the water?
  • Which other relatives lived within walking distance of you? Follow-up: How often did you walk over to them?
  • Who built that house, as far as anyone knew? Follow-up: Who had lived in it before your family?
  • Who lived under that roof with you, counting everyone? Follow-up: Who shared a bedroom with whom?
  • Who were the neighbors, and what did they do for a living? Follow-up: Which neighbor was treated like family?

School days 14

  • At what age did you leave school, and what came the day after? Follow-up: Whose decision was it that you left?
  • How far did your parents go in school? Follow-up: What stopped them, or what helped them on?
  • What did children play in your schoolyard? Follow-up: What were the rules, as you recall them?
  • What did you carry to school each morning, and in what? Follow-up: Who made sure you had it with you?
  • What did you learn outside school, and from which relative? Follow-up: Could you still do it if I handed you the tools?
  • What prizes, report cards or school photographs did the family keep? Follow-up: Who has those school things today?
  • What were you expected to become when you grew up? Follow-up: Who in the family expected it of you?
  • Where exactly did your first school stand, and what was it called? Follow-up: Is that building still standing?
  • Which brothers, sisters or cousins went to the same school as you? Follow-up: Who looked out for whom there?
  • Which schools did you go to, in order? Follow-up: How did you get to each of those schools?
  • Which subjects were you taught that have since vanished? Follow-up: What can you still recite from those lessons?
  • Which teacher's name do you still know, and what do you remember them for? Follow-up: What would that teacher have said about you?
  • Who was the first in our family to finish high school or college? Follow-up: How did the family mark that day?
  • Who were your closest school friends, by name? Follow-up: Which of those friends did your family know too?

Work and trades 14

  • What did your father do for work, and where did he do it? Follow-up: How did he get into that line of work?
  • What did your grandparents do for a living? Follow-up: Which tools of theirs did you ever see or hold?
  • What skill was handed from parent to child in our family? Follow-up: Who has that skill now?
  • What trades or occupations run in our family? Follow-up: Who was the last of us to follow that trade?
  • What was a working day like for your parents, from waking to supper? Follow-up: Which part of their day did you get to see?
  • What work did your mother do, paid or unpaid? Follow-up: What was she known for being good at?
  • Which employers, farms or shops did our relatives work for? Follow-up: Does any of those workplaces still exist?
  • Which job in the family came with a house, a uniform or a title? Follow-up: What did the rest of the family think of that job?
  • Who gave you your own first job, and what was the work? Follow-up: How long did you stay in that job?
  • Who in the family ran a business of their own, and what did it sell or make? Follow-up: What became of that business?
  • Who in the family served in uniform, and where were they sent? Follow-up: What did they say about their service afterwards?
  • Who in the family went out to work youngest, and at what? Follow-up: How did they speak of it later in life?
  • Who traveled farthest from home for work, and how long were they gone? Follow-up: How did the family hear from them?
  • Whose work changed the course of our family, for better or worse? Follow-up: How is that person spoken of today?

How the family moved 14

  • How did they travel: by ship, train, road or on foot? Follow-up: What did they carry with them?
  • How many times did your family move while you were a child? Follow-up: Which of those moves was hardest on you?
  • What did the older relatives say about the place they had left? Follow-up: What did they miss about it most?
  • When you left home yourself, where did you go first? Follow-up: Who helped you settle in?
  • Where are the older generations of our family buried? Follow-up: Who looks after those graves?
  • Where did they settle first, and who met them there? Follow-up: Why that place and not another?
  • Where had your mother and your father each grown up before they met? Follow-up: How far apart were those two places?
  • Which branch of the family moved away and lost touch? Follow-up: Where were they last heard from?
  • Which house or farm did the family have to give up? Follow-up: Who lives on that land now?
  • Which towns have held our family the longest? Follow-up: Who of ours is still living there?
  • Who has gone back to see where the family came from? Follow-up: What did they find when they got there?
  • Who in the family wrote letters or sent parcels across the distance? Follow-up: Did anyone save those letters?
  • Who was the first of our family to come to this country or this town? Follow-up: What do you know about that journey?
  • Why did they leave the place they came from? Follow-up: Who stayed behind when they left?

Relatives you remember 14

  • How did your mother and father come to meet? Follow-up: Who brought the two of them together?
  • What were your four grandparents like, one by one? Follow-up: Which grandparent are you most like?
  • Where and when were your parents married, as far as you know? Follow-up: Who stood up with them at the wedding?
  • Which aunt or uncle stood out from the rest, and what for? Follow-up: What tale is always told about that aunt or uncle?
  • Which cousins did you grow up beside? Follow-up: Where did those cousins all end up?
  • Which relative did the children run to first at a gathering? Follow-up: What did that relative keep in their pockets?
  • Which relative do you wish you had asked more questions? Follow-up: What would you ask that relative first?
  • Which two relatives looked so alike that people mixed them up? Follow-up: Who in the family carries that look today?
  • Who came to the house every week when you were small? Follow-up: What did that weekly visitor bring or do?
  • Who did the family turn to when a decision had to be made? Follow-up: What made the others listen to that person?
  • Who in the family was known far beyond it, for good or ill? Follow-up: What did the family make of that fame?
  • Who was called the black sheep, and was the name deserved? Follow-up: Who in the family stood by the black sheep?
  • Who was the oldest relative you knew as a child? Follow-up: What do you remember about that relative's voice or hands?
  • Who was the storyteller of the family? Follow-up: Which tale did the storyteller repeat most?

Sayings, recipes and customs 14

  • How did the family keep birthdays when you were young? Follow-up: What was a usual birthday present?
  • What did the family cook or bake only once a year? Follow-up: Whose job was the once-a-year baking?
  • What did the family do when a new baby arrived? Follow-up: Who was sent for first?
  • What did your mother or father say so often that you can still hear it? Follow-up: On what occasions did they say it?
  • What food would you set out to show a stranger who we are? Follow-up: Who cooked that dish best?
  • What games did the grown-ups play at family gatherings? Follow-up: Which grown-up always won?
  • What rule or superstition did the older relatives swear by? Follow-up: Did you ever put that superstition to the test?
  • What saying is ours alone, one no other family would understand? Follow-up: Who in the family coined it?
  • What songs, rhymes or lullabies were sung in your home? Follow-up: Could you sing me one line?
  • What was a family wedding like when you were young? Follow-up: What did the wedding guests eat and do?
  • What was on the table on an ordinary weekday when you were a child? Follow-up: What was saved for Sundays or for company?
  • Which day of the year was the family's biggest, and how was it kept? Follow-up: Whose house did everyone go to that day?
  • Which family custom do you keep up alone, now that the others have stopped? Follow-up: Who could you hand that custom on to?
  • Which recipe was never written down, and who carried it in their head? Follow-up: Has anyone managed to cook it since?

Photographs, papers and keepsakes 14

  • What did a relative make by hand that the family still has? Follow-up: Who was it made for?
  • What medals, tools, uniforms or instruments were handed down? Follow-up: Who was the last to use them?
  • What was lost in a move, a fire or a clear-out that you still think of? Follow-up: What would you give to hold it again?
  • What would you like written beside your own name on the family tree? Follow-up: Who should be the one to write it there?
  • Which family papers were kept: letters, certificates, a book of names and dates? Follow-up: Who holds those papers now?
  • Which keepsake has a story the younger ones have never heard? Follow-up: Will you tell me that keepsake's story now?
  • Which newspaper cuttings or announcements did the family keep? Follow-up: What news did those cuttings carry?
  • Which photograph of yourself as a child do you like best? Follow-up: Who took that picture, and where?
  • Which piece of furniture has moved with the family from house to house? Follow-up: Whose was it at the start?
  • Who are the people in the oldest photograph the family owns? Follow-up: Where was that photograph taken?
  • Who else in the family should I talk to, and what should I ask them? Follow-up: How can I reach that person?
  • Who in the family has drawn up a family tree before now? Follow-up: How far back did that tree reach?
  • Who keeps the family photographs now, and are the names written on them? Follow-up: Which faces can only you still name?
  • Whose handwriting is on the oldest letter or card you have kept? Follow-up: What did that person write to you?

How it works

These genealogy questions to ask relatives are an interview in eight sets: names and places, the childhood home, school, work, how the family moved, the people they remember, sayings and recipes, and who holds the photographs and papers.

Read the full guide

Family history questions to ask, set by set

Names and where we come from gathers what a family tree is built from: What surnames run through our family, on each side? How the family moved follows the journeys: Who was the first of our family to come to this country or this town? Photographs, papers and keepsakes finds the records and who keeps them.

Questions to ask in a family history interview

Ask before you record, and write each name and place the way your relative spells it. Begin with a set they will enjoy, such as The home you grew up in, and keep Relatives you remember for when the stories are coming easily. Each follow-up asks for what no record holds: who chose a name, who stayed behind.

  • Bring an old photograph or a keepsake. Which keepsake has a story the younger ones have never heard? is easier with it on the table.
  • Names, dates and addresses of living relatives are theirs to give. Ask before any of it goes online.

Questions and answers

What questions should I ask for family history?

Ask for what only this relative can tell you, names and places first: What were your grandparents' full names, as far as you know? Which towns have held our family the longest? Then one question that starts a story.

What genealogy questions should I ask my grandparents?

Ask about the people only they met: Who was the oldest relative you knew as a child? What language or dialect did your grandparents speak at home? For their own childhood, the grandparents sheet linked below prints with a line for each answer.

What can I ask about my family history when I know very little?

Start with the oldest relative and ask them to place people: How many brothers and sisters did each of your parents have? End with Who else in the family should I talk to, and what should I ask them?

Which genealogy questions can I ask family at a reunion?

Take Sayings, recipes and customs to the table, where several people can answer at once: What saying is ours alone, one no other family would understand? Then show the oldest guests a photograph and ask who is in it.

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