How-to guide
Family History Month: A 31-Day Plan to Record One Relative
Family History Month is October. Use it to record one living relative with a four-week plan and a 31-day checklist that ends in a book.
Updated September 2026
In September 2001 the U.S. Senate passed a resolution naming that October Family History Month, and genealogical societies have observed the month each October since. For many families that means ancestors: census records, cemetery plots, names recovered from the past.
This plan spends October on a living relative instead. It is about the person whose stories you can still hear firsthand, simply by asking.
Below is a four-week plan and a printable 31-day checklist. A phone is all the equipment you need, and you can begin any day of the month. You need one person and a reason to begin.
Pick one person and book the time
The first week is about shrinking the project to a size you can finish. Choose one relative, a parent or a grandparent, an aunt or an uncle, and settle on a single question: which of their stories do you most want to hear, in their own words? Write that down. It is the reason for the month, and it will hold your attention when the project wants to drift.
Keep the invitation small. Tell them something honest: you would like to hear their stories, and record a few of them over the coming weeks. Then book the time. A standing day and hour fits better than a vague "soon." People settle into a routine, and so will you.
Choose the questions
Resist writing questions from scratch. We publish guides for exactly this: questions for aging parents, questions for grandparents about family history, and a broader set of life-story interview questions. Pick one, read it through, and mark the ten or twelve questions you will actually ask. Ten questions asked patiently cover more than forty rushed through.
Send two or three of your marked questions ahead of the first session. Forewarning does the opposite of spoiling: your relative can spend a few days digging out photographs and calling up details, and the first conversation has more to draw on.
Record the conversation
Aim for one or two conversations a week, twenty to forty minutes each, on the phone or in person, and record every one. A recording keeps their words and the story that surfaces partway through.
If they hesitate, ask permission simply: "Do you mind if I record this so I don't forget what you say?" People often say yes once they see it is a conversation. Keep the questions loose, and follow the thread they pull.
Share and finish
What turns a month of conversations into something permanent is a finished thing. Pick one of three endings: send a single chapter to the family, print a book from the answers, or schedule the Thanksgiving conversation as a capstone while everyone is in the same room.
Finish even if the month feels partial. A month that produces one recorded story and one shared chapter has done its job. The pieces you built, a chosen person and a set of questions, keep working after October ends.
The 31-day checklist
Below is the plan as a printable, day-by-day checklist. One item per day, numbered to match the calendar. Skip a day without guilt and pick up wherever the list paused; the month bends to your schedule.
- Choose the one relative you'll record this month.
- Write down the single story you most want to hear from them.
- Tell them you're planning a few relaxed, recorded conversations.
- Ask whether they'd rather talk in person, by phone, or answer by voice through a tool.
- Gather the photographs, letters, and documents you already have.
- Book the first conversation, and put the next two on the calendar.
- Choose one question guide and read it through once.
- Mark the ten or twelve questions you'll actually ask.
- Send two or three of them ahead so your relative can think on them.
- Collect the questions other family members have always meant to ask.
- Decide how you'll record: a phone voice memo, a recorder app, or a guided tool.
- Run a five-minute test recording to check the sound in the room.
- Open the first conversation with a small, concrete question about a place or an object.
- Record the whole conversation, from the first question to the last.
- Write down every name, place, and date while they're fresh.
- Start the next conversation from the thread the last one left hanging.
- Ask your relative what they want to tell next; they usually know.
- Label the recordings with a date and a topic.
- Save a copy somewhere the family can reach: a shared drive or a cloud folder.
- In your next conversation, ask for a scene rather than a summary: one meal or one move.
- If they stall, bring a photograph or an object and ask about it.
- Record a story only they can tell: a name or a move.
- Pick your favorite moment so far and write it in two or three sentences.
- Send that one story to a sibling or cousin so someone else can read it.
- Ask a family member to add one question for a closing round.
- Circle back to anything from earlier that needs detail.
- Read a short passage back to your relative and let them correct or add to it.
- Decide what the month should end as: a shared chapter, a printed book, or a holiday conversation.
- If a book is the goal, gather any photographs you want inside it.
- Finish the thing: order the book, send the chapter, or set the holiday date.
- Write down what you learned and what you'd ask next.