Table 2.

Qualitative themes about discussion and recording of FHH information among African American women (N = 32)

Theme	Representative Quotes	Discrepant Quotes
Mental and verbal collection. Many people reported that they or their relatives kept track of FHH information in their heads and shared it verbally with others but did not record it in writing.	Participant 116: “I just think communication [is the best way to share FHH information]. Because the more I talk about it, the more I explain to them and show them, the more they understand… So a lot of times, you don’t have to keep everything on paper. If you keep informing people and keeping them up to date, they remember. And they love you.”	Participant 104: “Me, I need to write stuff down.”
Written collection. Some participants believed that writing down FHH information could be useful, but few reported that they or relatives had done so.	Participant 102: “When you write things down you got it there and you can always go back and look at it and reference and when you go by just your memory…sometimes your memory fails you and you forget stuff. Like I had forgotten when I was talking about cancer that anybody in my family had had cancer. Well, as we talked, I remembered my sister had ovarian…I mean colon cancer so if you write down you will have it. I think writing is better. Definitely.”	None.
	Participant 215: “I don’t necessarily think computer but probably a log of, you know, we have now where you can go in and do a family tree on the computer I guess, but you can also start it in a book and just start your family tree and, I don’t know, you can list what this person has. I mean it’s a lot of work but that’s one thing, that’s one way you could do it.”
Electronic collection. Some participants thought a computer or the internet would be a helpful way of recording FHH information, but only a few people had done so. Electronic resources raised concerns about privacy and accessibility, especially for older family members.	Participant 212: “Well, I guess you could [collect FHH information] by computer but I just never thought about doing it.”	Participant 210: “The phone, you know, in person… But, you know, this e-mail stuff, the e-mail is OK. The Facebook is not. And, and I’ve noticed that, you know, people will put out a little more information out there than they should.”
	Participant 201: “I’ve got pieces of paper and records and stuff like that, but I need to get it together. As a matter of fact, when I leave here I’m going to call [my brother] - telephone call - and ask him how can we put this on the web you know, because we’re trying to tie the family up more because the basic 10 [children there] is 7 of us left. We need to prepare them to take over. Cause we’re tired, and we’ve lost 3.”
No collection. Some participants reported that no one collects or records information about diseases that run in their family.	Participant 213: “I don’t know any families that [keep track].”	None.