I recorded four hours with my grandmother about eighteen months before she died. It is the single most valuable file I own, and almost none of it is about anything important.

What to ask

Not "tell me about your life", which produces a summary. Ask about specifics and the ordinary texture comes with them:

• What did the kitchen smell like? What was the walk to school?
• What did your parents argue about?
• What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
• Who in the family was difficult, and why did people say so?

Practical notes

• Record audio rather than video. A camera makes people perform; a phone on the table is forgotten within ten minutes.
• Do it in more than one sitting. The second conversation is always better, because the first one reminded them of things.
• Let silences run. The best material in my recording came after a pause I nearly filled.
• Transcribe it, or at least index the timestamps. An unlabelled four-hour file gets listened to once.

The stories a family tells about itself are its oldest continuous tradition, and unlike a folk epic, nobody else is keeping a copy.