Which family story do you want me to pass on?

Why this question works

Family stories survive by being told. Each one has traveled from mouth to ear, generation after generation, and it continues only if somebody younger takes it up. This question makes that handover deliberate. It tells your grandparent that you are ready to carry the stories forward and that you would like them to choose.

What they choose is revealing. It might be how the family came to this country, how a great-grandmother kept the farm going, or the time an uncle's stubbornness saved the day. It might be a funny story, because laughter is part of an inheritance too. The one they pick shows what they believe your family is made of: courage, humor, hard work, faith, a talent for landing on their feet. And when you ask for it in full, you get the proper version, with the names, the places and the turns of phrase that make it your family's own.

How to ask it

Family gatherings are the natural home of this question. After a holiday meal, when people are relaxed and the older relatives are in the mood to reminisce, ask your grandparent for the one story they want remembered. Having other relatives present helps, since they add details and gentle corrections.

Record it if they are willing. A phone on the table is enough, and a voice telling a story is a treasure of its own. Ask them to tell it the long way. Afterward, check the names and the order of events with them, and ask who told it to them in the first place. Then retell it to someone within the month. A story stays alive when it is used.

Other ways to word it

• Which family story should never be forgotten?
• What story about our family do you love to tell?
• What is the oldest family story you know?
• Which story do you want my children to hear one day?

Follow-up ideas

• Who first told you that story?
• Who are the people in it, and how are they related to me?
• Where and when did it happen?
• Is there a part that people usually leave out?
• Why does this story matter to you?
• What does it say about our family?
• Is there a photograph or an object that goes with it?
• Is there another story I should hear after this one?

An example answer

This is an invented example, written to show the kind of detail to listen for. Your grandpa’s answer will be his own.

"The story of the piano. My grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, came across the country as a girl with her family in a wagon, and her mother refused to leave without the piano. Everyone said it was foolishness. It took up a third of the wagon, and at every river crossing the men wanted to leave it on the bank."

"She would not have it. She said they were going to a place with nothing, and they would need music more than they would need another barrel of flour. That piano was the first one in the county. People came from miles around on Sundays to sing at it, and that is how my grandmother met my grandfather. He came for the hymns and stayed for the piano player. I want you to tell it because it is about what our family carries. We bring the music. Even when it is not practical. Especially then."

What to write down

Write the story out in full, in your grandparent's phrasing, and read it back to them to check the names, the places and the order of events. Record who told it to them, and who told that person, as far back as anyone knows. Note why they chose this one. Keep the recording with the written version, and tell the story to someone younger within the month.

A question like this one sits in the closing chapter of the Tell Me Your Story journals for grandparents, the chapter written to the next generation, with a full page for the story. Written in their hand, it can be read aloud to children who are not yet born.

See the Tell Me Your Story, Grandpa journal or the Tell Me Your Story, Grandma journal. For more ideas, read questions to ask your grandparents or browse advice and life lessons questions.