Learn more about your family or your friends

Have you always intended to interview someone in your family about their childhood, or research your family history, now’s a great time to do it!

Before you start, take some time to prepare and write down some questions to get the ball rolling, but don’t stick to those. Listen and ask follow up questions as you go. You never know what you’ll learn. And consider doing this over video chat and recording it so you can watch it over and over or edit it to make a mini movie.

Need help thinking of what to ask? Story Corps has you covered. And StoryCorps's free mobile app puts the StoryCorps experience entirely in your hands so that you can record and archive a meaningful conversation with anyone, anywhere.

The app guides users through the interview experience, from start to finish with easy-to-use tools to help you prepare interview questions, record high-quality conversations on your mobile device, and upload the audio to the Library of Congress and our new StoryCorps Archive platform.

Family Tree

Or, take this time to talk to lots of your family and gather as much information from your relatives as you can, figure out when and where your ancestors were born, where they lived, and what their lives were like. Use tools like Google Maps and What Was There to see where they came from. Ancestry.com is one popular site to keep track of this info and learn more.