Questions to ask your grandparents,
decade by decade.

Because what they know often exists nowhere else, and it matters to the people who come after. Emory University psychologists Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke asked 66 teenagers aged 14 to 16 twenty yes-or-no questions, their ‘Do You Know’ scale, about things like how their parents met and where they grew up. Those who knew more about their extended family showed higher emotional well-being, though the researchers cautioned that more research was needed before drawing firm conclusions.

In another Emory study, which began just before 9/11 and ran for two years, children aged 10 to 12 coped better when their families talked about difficult events in more coherent, emotionally open ways. They had better self-esteem, higher social competence and less anxiety.

If your grandparents were children in the 1940s or early 1950s, rationing shaped every meal. The Imperial War Museums explains that food rationing began in January 1940 and that every man, woman and child had a ration book. Sugar, meat, fats, bacon and cheese came by coupon, tinned goods, dried fruit, cereals and biscuits on points, and the push to grow your own became known as ‘Dig for Victory’. Meat was the last item to come off ration, and food rationing ended completely in 1954.

Behind the ration books sat the 1939 Register, taken on 29 September 1939. The National Archives says it recorded around 40 million people in England and Wales and was used to produce identity cards and, from January 1940, ration books.

From 1949, the National Army Museum explains, National Service applied to all able-bodied men aged 17 to 21. It began at 18 months, rose to two years in 1950 during the Korean War, and took more than 2 million men into the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force.

Some saw action in Korea and Malaya, others served in Kenya or Cyprus, and large numbers in reserved occupations, from agricultural workers to clergymen, were excused. The last National Serviceman was discharged on 14 June 1963.

Then there was the day almost everyone remembers. The royal family’s website says the Coronation on 2 June 1953 was the first coronation service to be televised: 27 million people in the UK watched on television, 11 million listened on the radio, and thousands more celebrated with street parties.

Many grandparents grew up somewhere else entirely. GOV.UK records that the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 21 June 1948 and its passengers came ashore a day later, on 22 June, which is why that date became Windrush Day, first marked nationally in 2019. These questions work for anyone who came to Britain, whether from the Caribbean, Ireland, South Asia, Hong Kong, Poland or anywhere else.

Then came weddings, first homes and children, and a day that changed every price in the shops. The Royal Mint dates Decimal Day to 15 February 1971, when the pound changed from 240 pennies to 100. The Mint had moved from Tower Hill in London to a new site at Llantrisant in South Wales, and its first big job there was making the billions of coins decimalisation needed.

Save these for later, once the stories are flowing.

Our guide to interviewing your grandparents covers equipment and consent, and questions to ask your parents has thirty more for the generation in between.

The Ancestorii app has 46 ready-made questions in 10 chapters, from Growing Up to Music & Hobbies, including ‘Picture Sunday dinner when you were growing up. What was it like?’ and ‘Every family came from somewhere before here. Do you know where ours started?’. You can also write your own, so any question on this page will do.

Send one from the app as a time-limited link. Your grandparent answers in the free iPhone or Android app, you get an email when they do, and the answer becomes a memory in your family’s private feed, where cousins can add their own version of the same moment. Sending a question can also invite them into your family space: see how family questions work. If they don’t use a smartphone, ask in person and add the answer yourself, with a voice note of them telling it.

Written answers and photos can also go into a printed Memory Book, from £44.99 plus delivery. Alison made one for her dad from years of family photos.