In Chapter 36 of Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes meeting a swami called Krishnananda beside a tame lioness at the 1936 Kumbha Mela in Allahabad. The book includes a photograph of the encounter. My mother identifies the swami as her father, my maternal grandfather.
The chapter records what Yogananda saw and chose to write about. My mother’s account raises different questions about the man she knew and the life he led beyond that single meeting. The link between the swami in the book and our family remains an oral-history lead that I am still working to corroborate.
Learning to ask where a story comes from
When I worked in the Brigham Young University Hawaii archives, I learned to pay close attention to the origin of material and to what was actually known about it. I now ask the same questions at home. Which part of a story did the person witness? Which part did they hear from another relative? Has a name been spelled differently across records? What does the storyteller want kept within the family?
A photograph can help with one of these questions while leaving the others open. That is why I keep my notes in three separate categories.
- The published record: What the book and any other documents actually say.
- The recollection:Â What a person remembers, written in wording they can review.
- Open leads:Â Places, dates, spellings and names that still need checking.
Keeping these apart prevents a family belief from quietly becoming a documented fact. It also protects the memory itself. If two relatives recall a place or a date differently, I record both accounts with their sources and add an explanation if records later clarify the difference. A recollection can matter deeply to a family even while its historical details remain unresolved.
How the question shapes the answer
The way I ask matters as much as what I ask. “Was he the man in this photograph?” invites a yes or no and can make a relative feel tested. “What do you remember about him?” gives the narrator room to begin where their memory begins.
A few habits have served me well:
- Ask where a recollection came from, whether it was witnessed or passed down.
- Offer to read back what I have written, and give the narrator time to amend it.
- Ask separately about three choices: recording, sharing within the family and making something public.
That last point is easy to overlook. A person may be comfortable being recorded and still prefer that the material stays within the family. Treating these as distinct decisions respects the narrator and keeps trust intact.
Where AI helps, and where it does not
I have used AI to organise research leads and to compare possible spellings of names, which matters when a name has passed through several languages and transliterations. In a family archive it can also help structure a chronology or prepare text for human review.
It does not replace verification. I check any suggested source against the original, because a plausible-sounding reference is not evidence. If I work with an approved recording, the words and the way they were spoken still deserve a careful listen, especially when a name or phrase comes from another language. Tone, hesitation and emphasis carry meaning that a transcript can flatten.
I have written before about the role of human judgement in organising personal and professional archives. With family material, that judgement extends further. It covers who may see the record and how the narrator can correct it later.
What the chapter gives me
A reader may come to this chapter because of the lioness. It is a striking image, and it is easy to see why it lingers. I come back to it for a different reason: it gives me a reason to listen to my mother.
Whether or not the swami in the photograph proves to be my grandfather, the work of finding out has already been worthwhile. It has taught me to separate what is documented from what is remembered, and to treat both with care. I hope the next generation can see what the book records, what my mother chose to pass down and which questions remain open.
