Attention around the world is already turning to Beijing, where the 2008 Summer Olympics begins this Friday. To get you in the sporting mood, we've collected some great resources on Olympics history.

The New York Times has a great audio slideshow about legendary Olympians. The interviewees include John Carlos (the runner who raised a gloved fist during the awards ceremony in 1968), Nadia Comaneci and Mark Spitz.

Britannica.com has an in-depth history of the games, and Kodak shows great Olympics moments in pictures.

The New York Times' Olympics blog also has a roundup of past official songs of the games complete with YouTube videos. Some are very memorable (like Gloria Estefan's "Reach")—others I'd much rather forget I ever heard.

More current Olympics information:

• Sports Illustrated/CNN coverage of the games
• New York Times Olympics 2008 page
• Trivia at the official US Olympic Team page
• NBC Olympics
  

I wanted to let you know about a few goodies we’ve recently added to our Web site.

First is a group of free research guides—let’s call them “kits.” Each kit is a collection of tips, background information, Web sites, books and CDs to help you with these research topics:

• Finding Female Ancestors: www.familytreemagazine.com/women
• Genealogy for Kids: www.familytreemagazine.com/kids
• Genetic Genealogy: www.familytreemagazine.com/dna
• Oral History Interviewing: www.familytreemagazine.com/askyourfamily

At the top of each page in the kit, you’ll see an In This Article list of what’s on that page. At the bottom of each page, use the More on This Topic section to link to other pages in the kit.

For your researching convenience, we’ve also put together a free PDF guide to locations and contact information for FamilySearch’s Family History Centers in the United States and Canada. You can download that from www.familytreemagazine.com/fhcs.

You've probably heard of StoryCorps, a national project to record Americans' oral histories for the benefit of future generations. When a StoryCorps MobileBooth stopped in Indianapolis late this summer, Bryn Mooth, editor of our sister magazine HOW, took the opportunity to interview her grandmother. Here she reports on her experiences:

When my grandmother asked if I’d interview her for a project that the public radio station was hosting in her hometown of Indianapolis, I knew she meant StoryCorps. Naturally, I said yes.

I routinely linger in my car, listening to the StoryCorps excerpts aired weekly on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition”—day-brightening audio clips of ordinary people reminiscing about their lives. While I’d often thought it would be neat to visit a StoryCorps recording booth with my 86-year-old grandmother, it seemed unlikely we’d get to the permanent studio in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. That is, until a StoryCorps MobileBooth rolled into town.

The gleaming Airstream trailer, one of two that travel the United States, was a surprisingly comfortable spot for our 40-minute conversation about Grandma’s life. We sat at a table with two large microphones in front of us; StoryCorps staffer Yuki Aizawa ran a sound check, and then we began.

As with any oral history project, the key is asking the right questions to engage the storyteller. So before our interview, I consulted StoryCorps’ online Question Generator. I typed in our names and our relationship to each other, and the site produced a list of questions about growing up, marriage and raising children, working, war experiences and more. I checked off a dozen questions, then edited and rearranged them. I shared them with Grandma in advance, so we were both comfortable with the direction of our chat.

We talked about her parents, her upbringing, her marriage, her three children. We talked about how she supported herself after my grandfather died. And we talked about her experiences as a “celebrity”: You may know my grandmother as Dave’s Mom, who puts her son firmly in his place during segments on “Late Show with David Letterman.” She described her trips to the Winter Olympic Games in Norway and Japan as a “Late Show correspondent, and her annual Thanksgiving Day appearances on the program.

Grandma couldn’t have imagined her life would take the unusual turns it has. And this 40-minute capsule hardly seems to capture her 86 years. But our StoryCorps session was an important way for us to connect and share. When our interview ended, we received a CD recording, a copy of which will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. What we really walked away with, though, was another fond memory.

Interested in learning more? The StoryCorps Web site offers great resources for gathering oral histories, including a do-it-yourself guide. The site’s Question Generator is helpful, even if you don’t participate. You also can find dates and locations for both MobileBooths.

Want to hear a snippet of the conversation with Dave's Mom? Bryn shares this clip:

story corps piece mengering.mp3 (1.48 MB)

You can hear more of the intriguing, inspiring and often touching interviews captured by StoryCorps on the project Web site or by subscribing to its podcast. Get more oral history tips at FamilyTreeMagazine.com and in our March 2008 issue.