Hey there, it's Shemita here. This week, we are bringing you an episode from our archives.

If you're spending time with family this holiday season, this one might inspire you to strike up some interesting conversations with and about your family members. Enjoy.

This is In Conversation from Apple News. I'm Shemita Basu. Today, the power of recording your family history.

When Elizabeth Keating's mother died in 2014, Elizabeth had some regrets.

I realized after she died that I didn't know very much about her as a person.

There were all of these gaps in what she knew about her mother's life.

How she grew up and what formed her as a person.

So many questions she had never asked her.

I wish I'd asked my mother about the kind of things that she saw every day when she was walking to school and the sort of fears that she had and what was

dating like? I wish I had known a lot more. Elizabeth is an anthropologist at the University of

Texas at Austin. She's traveled all over the world, talking to people, trying to understand how they

communicate, how they articulate their values and their character, and she realized she'd never

thought to apply that kind of thinking to her own mom. So she came up with a list of questions

that most of us haven't asked our family members, questions about

their childhood, their friendships. And she tested this out with some of her students, sending

them off to have conversations with their families. They loved the project, and they brought

back to class. So many fascinating stories. It really opened up whole worlds

to them and also to me. So I became really determined to write a book so that other people

wouldn't miss out like I had, finding out about their mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles,

and what their lives were like.

Elizabeth's book is called The Essential Questions.

It's a practical guide to recording interviews with your elder family members, taking you

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