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Mell, the host of the "Armchair Genealogy" podcast, discusses the challenges of recording episodes while relocating to the other side of the world. He introduces a new format, "Walk and Talk Genealogy," He emphasises the importance of capturing family memories through oral histories, suggesting that any time is good to interview relatives. He advises using simple questions to elicit detailed responses and maintaining engagement during interviews. Mell also highlights the value of interviewing younger family members and peripheral relatives who may hold unique family memories
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What is Armchair Genealogy - Family Tree & History?
Explore genealogy with "The Genealogy Guy" on Armchair Genealogy, a popular genealogy podcasts produced in the UK. Tune in as expert genealogists and diverse practitioners share their knowledge, helping you uncover your roots, build your family tree, and learn about your ancestors' fascinating stories. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned researcher, the podcast aims to help you connect with your family's past and discover long-lost relatives. Subscribe to Armchair Genealogy today and start your journey into your family's history! Podcast Theme Tune composed by Charlie Parkin
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And welcome along to armchair genealogy with me, Mell, the genealogy guy. So we're just over two years on from introducing the first episode of armchair genealogy podcast, and big changes are afoot. Back at the end of October this year, we loaded all our homely belongings, which included my studio equipment, and shipped it to the other side of the world. Hopefully I will arrive just before the container if all the paperwork goes through quickly on the sale of the house, so as I don't have my studio then short term future episodes will be a little ad hoc and may become spasmodic in quality, because, well, I'll just be grabbing whatever equipment I can get a hold of just to try and piece an episode together, saying that. Let's move on with this month's episode of armchair genealogy. Okay, I thought I'd try something new. This is I'm gonna, I'm gonna subtitle this one the "Walk & Talk Genealogy, or the "Walk & Talk Genealogist", maybe. It's free form, no scripts. I just wanted to do something a bit different for an episode. Mainly due to the fact that I haven't got my studio with me, because it's all been packed up and shipped to the other side of the world. So in the meantime, I'm having to make do with what technology I can lay my hands on. So in this particular one, for those techies amongst you, I'm making this episode just using my iPhone 15 and Apple headphones, and I'm using the microphone in the headphones. As I've said, the beginning, I make for a stroll. What I just wanted to do for this particular episode is, is I'm constantly telling people that they should interview people and just capture their memories in their own words to capture the almost the essence of their character. Because I think the voice is far superior to visuals when it comes to actually listening to stories. Around sort of any time of the year, Christmas time, birthdays, weddings, there are times when families come together and it's a chance to sit people down and just have a bit of a chinwag and talk about family things, their backgrounds and what they remember from their childhood, and The older the person is that you can speak to, the further you can reach back in time, the more memories you can gather and remember. These memories aren't written down anywhere. They're not in a book. They're not in a Census form. They're just what people carry around in their head as parts of their experience in life. And for that reason, what I wanted to be able to do was to record something like this and just give you some pointers. So first off, there is no right or wrong time. The right time is whenever you feel like you want to talk to somebody and they're willing to, quite happily sit there and have a chat. And it doesn't have to be a big, long session. It could be a series of short chats with just one question, it might be, tell me about your childhood, or tell me your first early memories, or how did you meet your wife, or what was school like in your day? And get them to give you as much detail as possible so you can tease out things like get them to mention particularly years. What age were they roughly? What year was that roughly? They don't have to be exact. They're just giving you some pointers as to what it was like for them at that particular time in their life. On top of that, you can always follow up with further questions if they start talking about things that you think, Oh, this is really interesting. And let them know that so the main crux is, once you've set the recorder going, and you can just use your phone, like put it on the kitchen table, tap Record and just start chatting away. Try not to mess with the phone after then just check this recording and then look them in the face and start talking to them, and keep engaged with them. Don't start looking around and looking around the rest of the room, or fidgeting with your nails, what you want to do is look as though you're engaged with what they're saying to you, not staring at them, just looking engaged and interested. Nodding your head occasionally. Try not to do things like, Uh-huh Oh yeah, oh yeah, because when you listen back, that can become a little bit irritating for the listener, so try to just keep your voice to a minimum and just nod your head in agreement, or tilt your head or smile to encourage them to say more people naturally will usually stop talking if you look as though either a you getting bored or fidgety or. Or just generally, like, not interested in what they're saying. So you'll get more out of them by looking engaged. The other thing is, there's lots of different variations, and it's not just the older generation. Sometimes it's good to capture the youngsters, you know, when they're sort of six or seven years old or even younger, as long as they're talking, you can actually ask them questions about what their view is, what they want to be in life, where they'd like to live, because at that age, the world's just like, just it's an easier, simpler place. And I'll come out with some absolute gems that are just like, capture their essence of the character again as a young person. So don't just think it's going to be old people. And the other one is it's not necessarily always your mom, dad and Gran and granddad. You got to think of aunts and uncles, people that are off to the peripherals on the side of a main family line, because they might remember stuff about your family that nobody else knows because they happen to be at a particular family event or a happening. So just bear those sort of things in mind. And I'm going to cut this short now because I just want to throw in some thoughts as I'm having them before I post this month's episode. In the meantime, if you drop me an email and I don't get back to you straight away, please forgive me, because I'll probably been messing around trying to sort out their technical problems out, but in the meantime, happy and productive research,
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