Recording Your Family History: A Guide to Preserving Oral History With Videotape, Audiotape, Suggested Topics and Questions, Interview Techniques (Hardcover)

~ William Fletcher (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA A brief introduction to the use of videotape and audio tape in recording oral history is followed by 12 chapters of possible topics and extensive questions for interviewing relatives and friends. Basically a workbook growing out of an earlier version, Talking Your Roots (Fletcher, 1983; o.p.), this will be useful for young adults seeking a common ground with the older generation to create a relaxed and informal yet meaningful interview.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 313 pages
• Publisher: Dodd Mead; 1st edition (March 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0396088864
• ISBN-13: 978-0396088868
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,169,671 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book, August 4, 2004

By	K. Vasan (NZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Recording Your Family History: A Guide to Preserving Oral History with Videotape, Audiotape, Suggested Topics and Questions, Interview Techniques (Paperback)

If you would like to record a family member's story or interview someone, this books goes through the stages of a life logically and provides the questions to each stage. eg childhood, youth etc. I use the questions as a base and change them to my needs. It has provided excellent starting point. It even has a special section for different ethnicty/religion ie Jewish section, African American questions. Fanatastic book!!!!

5.0 out of 5 stars More questions that you'll have time to ask., August 22, 2009

By	Cal Gar "Baresan to Siberia" (Orange County, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Recording Your Family History (Paperback)

The book is getting a little dated as time passes, but it still has more sample questions to help you get you family members talking than you will ever use. It's great because it has samples for different periods in ones life and it has questions for different periods in history.

5.0 out of 5 stars William Fletcher sets the standard, May 4, 2008

By	T. Vires (Nebraska) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Recording Your Family History (Paperback)

William Fletcher sets the standard for instructions on doing oral histories. His advice on "how to" is concise and laced with experience. The thing that sets him apart from other writers is his exhaustive list of questions. The good-idea-fairy helped him build nearly 300 pages of great questions! It's impossible to ask them all but they give great lead to conducting numerous interviews to really cover your topic. I've used this book with my grandmother and have uncovered so many things she never told anyone about.

I recently purchased the 1989 copy of this book and have the 1983 version at home (somewhere, that's why I needed another copy). There is also a 1986 version. All three are very similar and I don't really notice the differences other than in his explanations of equipment and use of video. Any of them would be a great purchase for use in guiding your questions.