Katrina and The Flood, 5 years later: Floodwall
How can you possibly imagine the destruction of an entire city? How do you imagine an event so impossibly large? How do you get past “the mind boggles”? Floodwall is an art installation, a “Wailing Wall” with an oral history component. The brainchild of Jana Napoli of New Orleans, Floodwall is a way to wrap your mind around the destruction of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina and the Flood.
Her art installation is a collection of household drawers, scrounged from the post-flood detritus from cleaned out houses. When Napoli returned back to New Orleans after the flood, she was stunned by the silence of the empty city. “I saw these emptied out drawers and thought, ‘Each one of these is a household.’ I began to collect them.” On the back of each drawer, she wrote the address where she picked it up. She couldn’t stop collecting them.
Napoli: “The problem is, where do you save—the first 50 were easy; they went out in the garage—where do you save 700 dresser drawers while they dry out and fall apart?”
How can a person imagine the immensity of the destruction? By taking this regular, everyday household object—a drawer (kitchen drawer, dresser drawer, desk drawer). Put hundreds of them together in one place, place a map on the wall showing... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• History
• Oral History Projects
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Zoom’s latest recorder the Zoom H1 Handy costs $99; it’s now shipping!
Samson said they were going to ship the Zoom Handy H1 July 30, but they’re shipping the product as of today. the Zoom H1 Handy is available at Amazon
I got off the fone a little while ago with a spokesperson for Samson’s Zoom line of products, confirming very important items about this recorder. The news is good, people. True one touch recording (press the button and the recording begins). And a zippier start-up time to power the unit on.
Why is this good news? A little background…..
That was then, this is now
Last month, when people would ask me, “What recorder should I buy?” I’d tell them about the Samson Zoom H2 Handy—Samson’s previous lowest-cost portable digital audio recorder.
But I’d also tell them about two of the most significant downsides to the Zoom H2—it takes 30 seconds for the unit to power on, and it has press-twice-to-start-recording. 30 seconds is an eternity, if you’re trying to quickly grab a recording of a conversation in progress. What’s so bad about press twice to start the recording? You press... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Audio
• Audio: Hardware
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Greetings from Jamboree
I’m at the Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank. You can follow twitter chatter about the conference at the hashtag #scgs10. This also serves as a demonstration to Jennifer, with whom I am talking here in the lounge where the genealogy bloggers hang out… Jennifer is not a geneablogger; in fact she is unfamiliar with what this whole blogging thing is, exactly. So, when words don’t suffice (or they obfuscate), then a show and tell helps. I hope. Her friend Vikki is also watching; in fact, she’s offering better wording suggestions than I first came up with. So this paragraph is a group effort.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal
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June 9 is International Archives Day
Celebrate the Archives in our midst. June 9, 1948 was the founding of the International Council of Archives. The anniversary is suitable for celebrating the founding of those institutions which keep and maintain the collective memory and documents of our society and culture.
Go visit some archives today! To whet your appetite, here are some archives and listings.
The National Archives has a resource center devoted to genealogists and family historians.
Oral History collections, as listed by In The First Person
White House Tapes.
Between 1940 and 1973, six American presidents from both political parties—FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon—secretly recorded on tape just under 5,000 hours of their meetings and telephone conversations. The Miller Center’s Presidential Recordings Program is a unique effort aimed at making these remarkable historical sources accessible.
Miller Center for Public Affairs: Search the Scripps Library Digital Archive (audio, video, documents) and just oral history results
Computer Oral History Collection (on the development of the computer) from the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (Smithsonian).
All Oral/Video Histories from the Lemelson Center. Includes audio synthesizer, stem cell research, laser eye surgery and more.
Closer to home... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Archiving
• Longevity
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It’s Deborah Tannen Day - or how family communication can go weird
Why is this day Deborah Tannen day? According to Wikipedia, it’s her birthday. Which is the same as my birthday. Yippee! Tannen is the author of the books You Just Don’t Understand
In her book, I Only Say This Because I Love You
Connection vs Control
In my Why not ask Why? post, I touched on her tension between connection and control—everyone wants to be connected, and everyone wants to avoid being controlled, but sometimes, as a family member, you just can’t help but be controlling toward another. And, well, something that one person says with the intention of caring is received by... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Interviewing
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Why the Radio Silence? Conference What’s coming up? Conference!
Where did she go? Why all the new posts, then silence? For the last three days I was at a conference devoted to the web software upon which this website is built. Learned many good things that will go into the next major revision for this site. It’s Thursday, but it feels like a Monday after a very long weekend. A verrrrrrrry long weekend.
Aaaaaand it’s only a week (+ a day) until the Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank.
My head will be down, completing my two presentations on Interviewing Family—Sunday Morning 8:30-9:30, and 10-11. Between now and then, I’ll be posting some items to the equipment guide section. Until then, check out all the recent goodies on Interviewing in the Interviewing category, or my From Recording to Audio Series (mostly about Audacity and iTunes). Yes, I know Number 4 of that series is not yet up. Seriously, this week and next I need a clone. Number 4 will be appearing in good time.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Housekeeping
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Interviewing Family: What Should I Ask? Major Life Events
What questions should I ask? Here’s a strategy for coming up with questions based on what you know about the person. Create a rough structure of the person’s life. List what you know about the person. List what you know about the time period. Look at it and then let the questions suggest themselves.
The structure of your interviewee’s life
Image above comes with a hat-tip to my friend Symbolman, who’s animated some stories about life using Symbolpeople. check out Boy Meets Girl.)
The low-tech version uses a piece of paper. High tech version uses a spreadsheet that you can download.
I’ll use my dad as an example. He’s no longer alive (which is one reason I’ll use some specifics from his life)
- Create a document with a few columns across the top: Calendar year, Age (how many years old), and then more columns to note life’s events. A column for where he lived, a column for school and work, a column for major life events, and a column for historical events going on at the time.
- Start by noting the year of the person’s birth. Fill other years below (The spreadsheet does this automatically)
- Fill in information about locations lived, school, work, relationship and
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• Interviewing
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Digital Family History as understood by Digital Natives with 500 IRL Facebook friends
It’s not the same thing as what Ye Olde Maiden Aunt used to collect and curate. An intriguing article by fellow Association of Personal Historians member Jane Lehman-Shafron, she notes the current trends (look! TV shows! Newspaper articles!), but also points out how family history in digital form is being used by the next generation, the Digital Natives who grow up immersed in computing technology.
The form that family history is taking changes with the times.
Today’s younger generations are more interested in family history than ever before. The whole country is. But they are demanding that those maiden aunts (and all the rest of us who fulfill the function of “family historian”) get with the times. They want their family history accessible and they want it compelling.
Speaking as the maiden single Aunt whose spent a lot of time in the technology industry—I’m even called AuntiAlias—it’s a computer graphic pun (know what anti-aliasing is?), I’m one of those Aunts who is pushing everyone forward in digital pursuits when it comes to family history.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta use digital tools to preserve your family’s history. I’ve said it so many times before. I’ll say it again, too. But this post isn’t about that.
What I like is the way that Lehman-Shafron draws the picture... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Digitality
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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Interviewing Family: Why not Why?
What’s wrong with “Why?” In the previous post, I wrote about asking open-ended questions, that is, questions that would elicit a lengthy story or explanation. Something more than a yes or no answer. “Why?” is a question designed to get a lengthy reply. So why don’t I say to use “why?”
The answer is not “Because I said so.” But there’s something about that famous familial exchange (“Why?” “Because I said so!”) that gets at the heart of Why Not Why.
Remember the two parts of attitude I mentioned yesterday?
- Be Curious.
- Be Non-Judgmental.
Asking a question using the word “Why?” might sound judgemental.
Especially if you’re family.
When a family member asks another family member a question that begins with Why?, it might put the second person on the defensive in the same way as “Why didn’t you take out the trash?”
You want to elicit information and stories, not put the person on the spot.
(I’m indebted to Kim Leatherdale’s comments on the Lifetime Memories and Stories podcast for making this point explicit.)
I’ve gotten lots of insight on communication inside families from socio-linguist Deborah Tannen’s book I Only Say This Because I Love You
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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Three Weeks to Jamboree: Interviewing Family
Countdown to Jamboree in Burbank, California — Family Interview edition. Rise and shine early Sunday morning, June 13 at Jamboree and learn some good info about interviewing family. I’ll be leading two sessions — one on the skills of an interviewer, the second on the skills of an audio engineer. This week at Family Oral History Using Digital Tools I’ll be discussing different ways to come up with good questions to ask your family member when you sit down to interview him or her.
“I’m going to interview my Uncle Al. What do I ask?”
I get asked this question—a lot. What do you ask someone that you’re going to visit?
I’ll get more into the specifics of strategies of how to come up with questions to ask, but for now, I’ll give you a few tips on attitude.
Your job as an interviewer is to elicit information and stories from the other person. Period. The rest is just details.
All the pointers I’ll be offering are consistent with your job as story eliciter. (not to be confused with Story Elixer, though perhaps you want your questions to act as a kind of story elixer) The job is to elicit stories. I’ll tell you more about different ways to do that.
Your attitude should be one of curiosity and non-judgement. (Being non-judgemental is especially important if you’re interviewing a family member).
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Do it: Learn How
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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Survivor meets Oral History
So who were some of these people who witnessed amazing people and events?
- The last living soldier of the great war
- The last suffragette
- The last pitcher from whose pitch Babe Ruth hit a home run
- The last man to fly with Amelia Earhart
- The last three Civil War windows (one Union, two Confederate)
- The last survivor of the Lusitania sinking
- The last surviving employee of Thomas Edison
- The last man to live in the White House in the 1920s
And wouldn’t you know it? Lutz got his interest in history from stories he heard from his own family.
Lutz, a Maplewood [NJ] resident in his 30s, has always been fascinated with the nearness of the past. As a boy, he listened rapt as his great-grandparents told stories of growing up in Russia and coming to America by steamship, and their amazement the first time they saw a plane.
His great-grandmother... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Books
• Oral history in the news
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I’m following Digital Death Day today. Remotely
What happens to your bits after you die? That’s the premise behind the Digital Death Day unconference, currently in progress. (On twitter, check out the #ddd2010 hashtag). I’ll be posting provacative tweets and topics here on an ongoing basis.
Why does Family Oral History deal with digital death? The recordings of conversations that are saved in digital formats is the deliberate creation of digital bits that are meant to last longer than the speakers whose voices are recorded therein. It’s an edge-case of the central phenomenon explored at the conference. What happens to your bits once you die?
Here, in no particular order, are tweets from those in attendance, as a kind of thought-piece about the digital lives we have. Plus, for me, having experienced three deaths of people close to me in less than a year (and many more remote as friends’ parents shake off this mortal coil), it’s highly relevant.
- digitaldeathday Secret online lives are often revealed by a loved one’s death. #ddd2010
- digital_beyond Families don’t always understand how digital networks relate to their loved ones. #ddd2010
- digital_beyond What happens when you have a digital life that conflicts... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Digitality
• Longevity
• Personal History
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The Interviewer’s Goal: Enabling a Mental Journey into the Past
Stumbled upon this awesome description of The Interviewer’s Dream Moment, posted by Don Ray. It’s part of the setup for a story he’s going to tell, but it jumped out as the! most! perfect! description! of a kind of zen state of interviewing:
Countless times in my 30+ years as a reporter, producer, author and teacher, I’ve looked into the eyes of people I was interviewing and realized that they weren’t there with me—they had taken a mental journey into the past. They were somewhere else. I eventually learned to remain as silent as possible so that they could stay in that place—any questions would quickly bring them back to the present.
He goes on to talk about an experience where he was transported into hiw own past, back in Vietnam, trying to save a dog’s life. It’s a story worth reading for its own sake.
The unwritten part of this process for the interviewer is to ask the right kind of question that facilitates the trip into the past. That’s the subject for another post (I’m focusing on interviewing right now, so we’ll examine ways to ask good questions).
Contained in that description... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Interviewing
• Personal History
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Dollarhide free eBook—I take what he says further
You can download a free eBook— Getting Started in Genealogy Online, by William Dollarhide. (Hat tip to Ancestories and Renee’s Genealogy Blog)
So I clicked, downloaded and read. I’ll take what he says a little bit further. Don’t go for just the facts, get the stories that go along with things, too.
Dollarhide’s Step 1 is titled Family Interviews. Excellent. I agree.
He leads the reader through some strategies to capture facts about your family’s past: Look through address books, holiday cards from relatives. Contact any and all by whatever means possible “in person, by telephone, or e-mail.” (p. 9).
He continues:
Compare your memories with the memories of your brothers, sisters, parents, grandparentss or any other living relatives. You may discover that others in your immediate family have different stories to tell.
Yes.
Memories memories memories. Of the living, of those who surround you.
He further goes on to talk of interview questions, which taken as a whole, are designed to suss out documents. family photo albums, letters, papers, insurance papers. things that will have people’s names. Family recipes. Private papers, journals, records of the family business. The family Bible. Expanding to a wider sphere, find out if there are publications about... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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The MyHeritage Top 100 Site List
Because more people should be linking to all the sites on this list. Happy to see some friends and writers I know. Looking forward to getting to know some new (to me) people.
A
- Above the Trees
- AnceStories
- Ancestors Live Here
- Anglo-Celtic Connections
- Apple’s Tree
- Arlene Eakle’s Genealogy Blog
B
- Bayside Blog
- Before my Time
- Betty’s Boneyard Genealogy Blog
- Brenda Dougall Merriman
- British Genealogy
C
D
- Destination: Austin Family
- Documenting the Details
- Donna’s Genealogy Blog
- Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories
E
F
- FamHist
- Family, Friends and Neighbors
- Family Oral History Using Digital Tools
- Family Research
- Find My Ancestors
- Find Your Folks
- Free Genealogy Tools
- From Wilno to Worcester
G
- Gena’s Genealogy
- GenDisasters
- GeneaBlogie
- Geneageek
- Genealogy Blog
- Genealogy Canada
- Genealogy Gems
- Genealogy Guide
- Genealogy Lines
- Genealogy in New South Wales
- Genealogy is Ruthless Without Me
- Genealogy Reviews Online
- Genealogy Star
- Genealogy Tip of the Day
- GeniAus
- GeniTales
- Genwriters
- Greta’s Genealogy Blog
- Gus’s Genealogy Blog
H
J
K
L
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Cool Website
• Genealogy
• Links
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