Questions to ask your grandparents
60 questions for the generation above your parents — what the house sounded like, what they were like before they were anyone's grandparent, and the family stories that only exist in one person's memory.
Easy ones, to start
Nobody opens with the hard question. These are the ones you can ask with the plates still on the table, and they still tell you something.
- What in your life have you never stopped being pleased about?
- What are you proudest of that has nothing to do with any job you did?
- What did somebody once do for you that you've never properly thanked them for?
- Who was kind to you when you were starting out, and what did they actually do?
- What do you like best about the people in this family now?
- What are you good at that nobody ever gave you any credit for?
- What did you wear that you loved, and what did people say about it?
- What puts you in a good mood for a whole day?
- When somebody meets you for the first time, what do they decide about you too quickly?
- What are you noticing lately that the rest of us seem to walk straight past?
- What smell takes you straight back somewhere, and where does it take you?
- Which bit of a normal day do you enjoy most and would hate to give up?
- What did your family eat when there wasn't much in — and did you like it, or did you just eat it?
- What makes you laugh that the rest of us would never guess?
- What did you love eating then that you can't get hold of any more?
- What did you and your friends get up to when no grown-up had any idea where you were?
- What's the best trip you ever took, and what made it the best?
Questions that actually go somewhere
The middle rung. Still safe, but the answer is about who someone is rather than what they did, which is the whole difference.
- What are you better at now than you were at forty?
- What frightened you as a child that you never told anyone about?
- What still makes you nervous, even now?
- What do you keep an eye on in this family without ever mentioning it to anybody?
- Has there been a stretch where somebody depended on you completely? What did that take out of you?
- What's something you're glad you did that other people thought was a mistake at the time?
- What's the hardest year you've had that most of this family wouldn't be able to name?
- What do you understand about yourself now that would have saved you a lot of bother at twenty?
- What do you know about your own grandparents? Who's the furthest back you can actually picture?
- Who could you always tell the truth to, and what made them safe?
- At eighteen, what did you think you were going to be — and what did you think you'd never be?
- Which of the jobs you've done would you go back and do a second time, and what was it about it?
- Who raised you, and what were they like on an ordinary day rather than a special one?
- What was going on in the world when you were young that you remember from the inside, rather than from a book?
- What did your family think was the worst thing a person could be?
The ones most people never get to
Ask these when there is time and nobody has to be anywhere.
- Who did you love that we've never talked about?
- Who shaped you that nobody in this family has ever heard of?
- Which part of who you are came straight from someone else, and who was it?
- What was the biggest turn your life took, and did it feel big while it was happening?
- What have you believed your whole life and never explained to anybody?
- Which stretch of your life would you go back and live through a second time, knowing nothing about it would change?
- Is there a part of your life you've never talked about with anyone in this family? You don't have to tell me what it is — I'd just like to know it's there.
- When did you feel most on your own, and what got you through it?
- Is there someone you still talk to in your head? What do you tell them?
- What were you like at your worst, and who saw it?
- What have you been braver about than anyone around you realised?
- What did you have to keep quiet about at the time that you could talk about now?
When something is off
The ones people skip. Skipping them is usually why the same thing keeps coming back.
- Who did you fall out with and then put it back together with? How did you manage it?
- What have you stayed annoyed about for years, even though it's long over?
- What did you learn about money early on that took you a long time to unlearn?
- Who did you have to stand up to, and what did it cost you?
- What did you argue about with the people who raised you that you now see their side of?
- Have you ever let years go by without speaking to somebody, and what broke the silence?
- Have you ever forgiven someone for something they never knew needed forgiving?
- Is there an apology you've never got round to making?
- What was hardest to forgive in your own family, and where did you land on it?
Where things are going
Fewer of these on purpose. A conversation that is only about the future is a planning meeting.
- What would you still like to have a go at?
- What have you got coming up in the next few months that pleases you?
- If you had a free week and somebody else was driving, where would you go?
- What do you hope this family keeps doing, whatever else changes?
- What did everybody around you treat as obvious when you were young that turned out not to be?
- What did you believe at my age that you don't believe now?
- What did you want that you never said out loud, because it seemed unlikely?
Some questions are easier to answer when neither of you chose them.
Turn one over. You would not have picked it — that is the point.
Six questions from this page, face down.
On the site they live on a wheel. You spin, it lands, nobody chose it.
Does any of this actually work?
The study everyone paraphrases is real, small, and correlational — and the paraphrase usually drops the last word. Children and adolescents who knew more of their family’s history, measured on a short questionnaire, scored higher on internal locus of control, self-esteem, family functioning and family cohesiveness, and lower on anxiety and behaviour problems. The authors describe it as a rapid clinical index of well-being. They do not show that learning the stories produces the well-being, and neither will we: a family that tells its stories is different in other ways too.
What is better evidenced is the effect on the person doing the telling. A meta-analysis of 128 controlled trials of reminiscence interventions found improvements against control conditions in ego-integrity (g = 0.64), depression (g = 0.57), purpose in life (0.48), preparation for death (0.40), mastery (0.40) and social integration (0.31), with most effects maintained at follow-up. Structured life review produced the largest effect on depressive symptoms (g = 1.28). Asking your grandmother to tell it properly is not only a favour to you.
Which settles the format question. If the evidence for the listener is weak and the evidence for the teller is strong, the point of the recording is not the archive. It is the afternoon you spent making it — and that is an argument for asking now and badly rather than later and well.
Duke, Lazarus & Fivush (2008), Knowledge of family history as a clinically useful index of psychological well-being and prognosis, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training · source
Pinquart & Forstmeier (2012), Effects of reminiscence interventions on psychosocial outcomes: a meta-analysis, Aging & Mental Health · source
Record it or you will lose it. Almost everyone who searches this is asking on behalf of a future self who wanted the voice, not the facts — and the facts are the part you could have got from anyone else in the family.
Last checked 28 August 2026.