"Just as the oral histories of people around the world are disappearing amid rapid change, there is a risk that your family's personal stories, too, will be lost forever. But as you seek to know your own family members better, how do you get beyond familiar anecdotes and avoid the frustration of different generational attitudes that may feel outdated to you? In The Essential Questions, Elizabeth Keating applies the same techniques that anthropologists use to get out of their own frame of reference and better understand entirely different perspectives and cultures. She's developed questions that treat your parents and grandparents not just as the people who raised you, but as individuals of a certain society and time, and as the children, teenagers, and young adults they once were. This book helps you better understand the forces that shaped your family history and your own identity." --

Introduction : the anthropology of family -- Tips on interviewing your family -- Questions to get some basic background -- Questions on space : learning about where your elders grew up -- Questions on time : connecting with the history of your family -- Questions on social interactions : the importance of everyday encounters -- Questions on becoming : rites of passage and how your elders were raised -- Questions on identity : the factors that made you who you are -- Questions on the body and adornment : an expression of how you see yourself and others -- Questions on belief : the ideas that shaped you and your family -- Questions on kinship and marriage : the making of a family -- Questions on material culture : your family's most treasured possessions -- Questions on fear : learning courage through fear -- Questions on memory : the things you'll never forget -- What do you wish people knew about you? -- Conclusion: How to avoid genealogical amnesia