Family of origin characteristics are widely perceived as having a substantial influence on development but no self-report instrument has been available for comprehensively assessing memories of these characteristics. This report describes the development of the Family Background Questionnaire (FBQ), a 179-item instrument with 22 subscales designed to provide such an instrument. Reliability analyses found high internal consistency and temporal stability in FBQ scores, and validity analyses found substantial consistency between the theoretically derived subscales and the factor structure of the instrument. Moreover, the scores of siblings from the same families were correlated as expected.