My family story
History · Early Years · The School
Asking someone who was there
Ask a parent or a grandparent some questions. What did you play with? What was school like? Did you have a phone? Their answers are EVIDENCE. Asking a person who was there is called ORAL HISTORY. It is one of the oldest ways of finding out what happened.
Same and different
Some of their answers will surprise you. Some will not. Children have always played. They have always argued. They have always had a favourite food. What changed is the things around them. Sort their answers into two piles. Same as me. Different from me. That is real historical comparison.
Memory is not perfect
Sometimes two people remember the same day differently. Neither of them is lying. That happens to historians all the time. When two accounts disagree, we do not throw both away. We ask what each person saw. We ask why they might remember it that way.
Ask someone older these three questions. Write their answers down exactly. One. What did you play with when you were my age? Two. How did you get to school? Three. What was in your house that is not in mine? Now ask a SECOND person the same three. Look at where the answers differ. Then ask why. A different family. A different place. A different year. That is how a historian handles two accounts.