Questions to Ask Your Parents and Grandparents
A real list of questions worth asking — the ones that get past 'fine' and into the stories you'll want to remember. Free to use, no signup.
You don't need a plan or a script.
Follow whatever they want to talk about.
What they tell you stays yours.
You don't have to be in the room.
Start with the easy questions
Don’t open with the big ones. Give them something warm and specific, and let the conversation find its own way.
- What was your street like when you were small?
- Who was in the house, and where did everyone sit at dinner?
- What did the kitchen smell like on a Sunday?
- What did you do all summer when you were ten?
- Was there a shop, a park, or a hangout you went to often?
- What’s a sound you remember that kids today would never hear?
If they say “oh, nothing interesting” — that’s not a no. It usually means nobody’s asked in a long time. Wait, and ask another.
What do you need help with?
Pick one, or just take the questions and go.
Knowing what to actually ask
The list on this page is a start. Inside FamYarn there are more than a hundred others, sorted into categories — childhood, work, the harder ones — and you can add your own. The point isn’t a better script; it’s having somewhere to go when the conversation stalls.
See how an interview runs →Just getting started
That first question can feel like a lot, and it’s easy to put off. Pick one question from this page and ask it this week. Have a list of backup questions ready, and let the conversation go where it goes. A first recorded interview takes about as long as the phone call you were going to have anyway.
Try it free for 14 days →Recording it without fumbling
You don’t need equipment. FamYarn can call you both on the phone, sit between you in the room, or run in a browser tab — and it writes the conversation down afterwards, so you’re not the one taking notes while trying to listen.
See the recording options →Asking without it feeling strange
Say why you’re asking. “I want to get this down while you’re here to tell it” turns an interrogation into a favor, and most people say yes to being asked about themselves. Having the questions ready helps too — then the silences aren’t yours to fill.
They don't really want to talk about it
Try starting with something familiar: a photograph, a house they lived in, what a job actually involved day to day. And if a call feels like too much for them, FamYarn can send the questions as a text conversation they answer whenever they like.
See how a text interview works →What to do with it once I have it
A good interview needs a good home. Make sure any recordings or notes get backed up, and make sure that you have more than one copy.
FamYarn can do that for you: interview recordings get stored in your family tree, and the written version is automatically generated and stored alongside it. You can share it with loved ones whenever you're ready.
The questions people forget to ask
These are the ones families are most likely to wish they’d asked. They’re not hard questions — they’re just easy to skip.
- How did you and Mom/Dad actually meet? Not the short version — the real one.
- Who were you before you had children?
- What did your parents do that you swore you’d never do?
- What’s something your parents never knew about you?
- Was there a moment you knew your life had changed direction?
- What were you afraid of at my age?
- Is there anyone you lost touch with that you still think about?
The bigger ones
Save these for when the conversation has warmed up — or for the second visit. Some of them will get a long pause before the answer. Let the pause happen.
- What’s the best decision you ever made? The worst?
- Is there something you’ve never told anyone in this family?
- What do you know now that you wish you’d known at thirty?
- Who shaped you most, and did you ever tell them?
- What do you want us to remember about you?
- Is there anything you’d want said at your funeral that you’d never say out loud now?
A note on that last one. It sounds heavy written down, but it’s often the question people most want to be asked. If it doesn’t feel right, skip it — you’ll know.
How to actually do this
The questions are the easy part. Sitting down is the hard part.
- Ask permission, lightly. “Can I record this? I’ll forget it otherwise.” Almost nobody says no.
- Don’t interrogate. Three good questions and an hour of tangents beats twenty questions answered briefly.
- Let silence sit. The best material usually arrives four or five seconds after you’d normally jump in.
- Follow the tangent. If they drift off the question, the drift is the story.
- Do it now, not at Christmas. Ordinary Tuesdays make better recordings than family occasions.
- Phone calls work fine. You don’t need to be in the same room, and some people talk more freely when they aren’t being looked at.
Where FamYarn comes in
You genuinely don’t need an app to ask these questions. Ask them anyway.
What’s hard isn’t the asking — it’s what happens afterwards. The answers live in your memory for a week, in a voice memo you can’t find in a year, and nowhere at all by the time somebody else in the family wants to hear them.
FamYarn records the conversation, keeps it with the person it’s about, and makes it something your family can actually find later.
- Guided prompts, including every question on this page
- Record over the phone or in person
- Private by default — nothing is public, ever
- Free to try for 14 days, and no card to start
14-day free trial · No credit card required