75 questions to ask your grandparents, and how to record the answers

Before you start

• Ask first. Tell them what you are doing and why: a recording for the family, a printed book, or just for you. Ask before you press record.
• Say they can skip anything. Say it out loud at the start. It makes the hard questions easier later.
• Bring something to look at. An old photo, a letter, a recipe card or a medal. "Tell me about this" reaches memories that questions miss.
• Keep it short. An hour is plenty for most people, and less is fine. Stop while they are still enjoying it.
• One theme per visit. Childhood one week, work the next. Staying on one theme lets one memory pull up another.

Childhood and family (questions 1 to 12)

1. Where were you born, and what was the place like then?
2. Describe the house you grew up in. Walk me through it, room by room.
3. Who lived in the house with you?
4. What were your parents like? What did they do for work?
5. What do you know about your own grandparents?
6. What is your earliest memory?
7. What did a normal Sunday look like in your family?
8. What did your family eat? Which dish do you still think about?
9. Who in the family were you closest to, and why?
10. What chores did you have?
11. What got you into trouble as a child?
12. How did your family celebrate birthdays and holidays?

School and growing up (questions 13 to 22)

13. What was your school like? How did you get there each day?
14. Which teacher do you remember most, and why?
15. What were you good at, and what did you struggle with?
16. Who were your best friends, and what did you do together?
17. What did you do for fun as a teenager?
18. What music, films or radio shows did you love?
19. What did you want to be when you grew up?
20. What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
21. When did you first feel like an adult?
22. What did your parents worry about when you were young?

Work and money (questions 23 to 33)

23. What was your first job? How much did it pay?
24. How did you end up in the work you did for most of your life?
25. Describe a normal working day.
26. Who was the best boss or colleague you ever had?
27. What was the hardest job you ever did?
28. What are you proudest of from your working life?
29. Was there a time money was very tight? How did you manage?
30. What did things cost when you were starting out?
31. Did you ever take a big risk at work? How did it turn out?
32. If you could have done any other job, what would it have been?
33. What did you do on the day you retired, or what would you like to?

Love, marriage and raising a family (questions 34 to 45)

34. How did you meet Grandma or Grandpa? What was your first impression?
35. What was your first date?
36. How did the proposal happen?
37. Tell me about your wedding day.
38. Where was your first home together?
39. What was the hardest year of your marriage, and how did you get through it?
40. What was it like when your first child was born?
41. What was my mom or dad like as a child?
42. What rules did you have for your kids that you would change now?
43. What family tradition did you start?
44. What do you think makes a marriage last?
45. What was it like the first time you held a grandchild?

Family history and the times they lived through (questions 46 to 55)

46. What is the biggest news event you remember from your life? Where were you when you heard?
47. Did you or anyone in the family serve in the military? What do you remember about it?
48. How did your town or neighborhood change over your lifetime?
49. When did your family get its first car, television or telephone?
50. What invention changed your life the most?
51. Did your family move from another country or region? What do you know about why?
52. What languages were spoken at home?
53. What was something everyone did when you were young that nobody does now?
54. Which election or public figure do you remember most clearly?
55. What do you think your generation got right, and what did it get wrong?

Everyday life, then and now (questions 56 to 65)

56. What did you do on a Saturday night when you were twenty?
57. What did you wear to dress up?
58. How did you keep in touch with people who lived far away?
59. Which recipe should someone in the family learn from you? Can you walk me through it?
60. What song takes you straight back to a particular time?
61. Where was the best trip you ever took?
62. What was your favorite place to go in your town?
63. Did you have pets? Tell me about one.
64. What is something you own that has a story behind it?
65. What does a perfect day look like for you now?

Lessons and advice (questions 66 to 75)

66. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
67. What do you know now that you wish you had known at my age?
68. What was the hardest decision you ever made?
69. Is there anything you would do differently?
70. What are you most grateful for?
71. Who had the biggest influence on the person you became?
72. What do you hope our family never forgets?
73. What makes you laugh, even now?
74. What would you like your great-grandchildren to know about you?
75. Is there a question you wish someone would ask you? What is your answer?

Questions just for your grandma or grandpa

All 75 questions above work for any grandparent. These ten for each are about the role itself: what it was like to be their parent's child, your parent's parent, and your grandparent.

For your grandma

• What was your mother like, and what did she teach you?
• What did women in your family do for work when you were young?
• What was the hardest part of raising my mom or dad?
• What was my mom or dad like as a baby?
• Which family recipe should never be lost, and how do you make it?
• Who were your closest friends, and how did you stay close?
• What did you want to do with your life that you never got to?
• What did you learn from your own grandmother?
• What do you remember about the day I was born?
• What do you want me to know about being a mother or grandmother?

For your grandpa

• What was your father like, and what did he teach you?
• What was your first job, and what did your first paycheck buy?
• Did you serve in the military? What do you want people to know about it?
• How did you learn to fix things, or what did you never learn?
• What was my mom or dad like as a teenager?
• What did you worry about most when your kids were young?
• Who was the best friend you ever had?
• What did you learn from your own grandfather?
• What are you proudest of in your working life?
• What do you want me to know about being a father or grandfather?

If your grandpa served, the questions to ask a veteran go further.

Follow-ups that get the story

Most first answers are short: "We were poor, but happy." The story is in the follow-up. Keep these ready:

• "Can you tell me about one particular day?"
• "Where were you standing? What could you see?"
• "What did they say, as close to the words as you remember?"
• "How did you feel then, and how do you feel about it now?"
• "Then what happened?"
• "Who else was there?"

Then wait. A pause of a few seconds often brings the detail that makes the story. The life story interview questions guide has more scene questions and 96 prompts for a full memoir.

How to record the conversation

1. Use your phone. The built-in voice recorder is enough. Put it on something soft, a hand's width or two from your grandparent, not across the table. The iPhone recording guide covers in-person, phone and video calls step by step.
2. Pick a quiet room. Turn off the television and radio. Soft furniture and curtains make the voice clearer than a bare kitchen.
3. Start the recorder early. Say the date, their name and the theme at the start, then leave it running through the small talk. Some of the best stories come while the tea is being poured.
4. Back it up the same day. Copy the file to a computer or a cloud folder and name it with the date and theme, for example "2026-11-02 Grandpa childhood."
5. Far away? Record a video call, and if someone is with them, ask that person to record their side on a phone as a backup. The recording setup guide has more on remote calls.

What to do with the recordings

Keep the audio, even if you plan to write everything down: their voice is the part you cannot recreate. Store two copies in different places, and agree with the family who keeps them.

If you want the stories on paper, get the recordings transcribed. Software is cheap and good enough for most family recordings, though names and places need checking; the transcription options guide compares software, human services and doing it yourself. From there, a family book is a matter of choosing the best stories, putting them in order and smoothing the spoken words into prose, which the transcript to chapter guide shows on a worked example.

Before you share or publish anything, read it back to your grandparent and let them take out anything they want kept private. Professional oral historians work to written standards on consent and care; the Oral History Association publishes its Principles and Best Practices if you want to go further.

Recording your mom or dad as well? Use the 80 questions to ask your parents.