Want to brush up on your interviewing skills before you see relatives over the holidays? Becoming a better family history interviewer is easier with this straightforward primer: Oral History for the Family Historian: A Basic Guide by Linda Barnickel, published by the Oral History Association.

This is 70-page guide containing practical advice for conducting family oral history interviews. It also contains an extensive list of sample questions, a legal release form, and some tips about common pitfalls, and other suggested resources. Novice or experienced interviewer, this book helps you get great results from your family history interviews.

A good oral history, even a single interview, requires careful planning. Too often, novices and experienced researchers alike jump into an oral history project before giving sufficient thought to the technical, legal, access, and longevity issues. This seventy-page publication published by the Oral History Association provides practical guidance to the novice who wishes to conduct a family oral history interview. It is designed to help the interviewer/researcher avoid common mistakes by effectively planning, conducting, and preserving a family oral history interview. It also contains an extensive list of sample questions, a legal release form, and other suggested resources.

For more help from this blog on interviewing family members, click here.