GenealogyBlog

My family celebrates the Christmas Season by getting together on Christmas day, sharing a meal, playing cards and just spending time together. New Years Day is a time for gathering around the television and watching football. Whatever holiday your family celebrates provides a chance to hear stories about your ancestors.

This is another post in a series to help get you thinking about some questions to ask your older relatives at the holiday gathering. Before the family get together this holiday season do some homework and prepare some questions to ask your older relatives. Check out our category of blog posts called “Genealogy Interview Questions”.

This post focuses on preparing questions for learning about the how your ancestors felt about moments in history. Ask your mom, dad, grandparents or older relatives and friends to learn more about how moments in history affected them.

• Where were you when you heard about the (attack on Pearl Harbor)?
• How did you find out about it (radio, television, someone told you)?
• How did you and your family react to the news?
• Did you or any of your relatives enlist in the armed forces because of the attack?
• How was your family affected by the event afterwords (weeks or even years later)?
• Did you know anyone who lost family members during the World War II? How did it affect them?

You can ask these same or similar questions about various moments in history. Here are some other points in history to ask your ancestors about.

• The great depression
• John F. Kennedy’s assassination
• Neil Armstrong Landing on the Moon
• The Space Shuttle Challenger accident

Use these questions or prepare some of your own and you’ll be sure to hear some interesting stories. If you have any additional questions on the day’s topic be sure to reply to this post to let other readers know.

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