I spoken to my mum etc, but that will only take me so far.
try looking sideways across you family, rather than up the family tree – your/her cousins. Theres a good chance someone will have already done the family tree thing and a large swathe of it will be shared with yours. And you’ll only find the sort of anecdotes that make it interesting that way.
When my dad did his family tree stuff he did from a start point of not having had a good relationship with his own dad so he lacked a direct oral history with his ancestors, but he discovered a cousin who had done brilliant family tree work, not only the lists and dates but also the stories relating to people and an understanding of the place and the times that they lived in, including finding a couple of memoirs written by people further up the tree.
Getting that sense of person and place is fascinating – I’ve visited the gap site where by grandad accidentally burnt down the village chipshop, next door is the house where his mother brought him up along with 8 brothers and sisters and 8 of her own younger brothers and sisters after her parents both died in the same week. After the chipshop burnt down she was sentenced to also cook the chipshop owner his supper every night for the rest of his life.
facinating stuff but my grandad would never have told my dad that, but there were 16 kids in that house so its part of all their families’ stories