Family History for the Whole Family

First Things First.

You need to get everyone involved and make sure that they’re excited as you are when they find out about the new family project.  Family history might not sound boring to you, but to your children it might sound like more homework. 

Find some things that they are good at or enjoy and link it to your new project.  It may be that you have a child that is good at drawing, ask them to design a family tree chart on A2 paper that you can fill in once you have the information.  You might not have the conventional chart but it will unique to you and your family.

Got a budding journalist in the family?  Sit with them to design some questions that they could ask relatives and family friends in an interview, there are some questions that I use here: http://quazen.com/recreation/genealogy/writing-your-family-history/   feel free to use them as you need throughout your research.  So you have a Dictaphone?  If so, great, you can let your budding reporter use it to record the interviews, you can write them up together then or even upload them onto a family history web site if you’re having one.  No Dictaphone?  No problem, all you need is a couple of pencils and a reporters notepad (use pencil rather than pen as it can be rubbed out if need be), if you are recording the interview make sure the person you are interviewing is happy for you to do that.  All you need to do then is set up the interviews with grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins and even family friends.  You will be amazed at the stories these people can tell you about your family’s history.

Once you’ve thought about who’s good or enjoys certain tasks you can get started.  To prevent chaos and confusion descending on your project and  taking hold once you’ve started, design a task list that you can either print a copy off for everyone, or if you have an area in the house where the project will take place put the list up so everyone can see who has what task.

So Let’s Get Started

Have you decided how you’re going to store all of the information?  Will you make a scrapbook for the family, if so have a look here: http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Crafts/Happy-Scrapbooking.631463 What about a blog or family history website?  If you have access to the internet then you probably have a set amount of space allocated to you by your Internet Service Provider that you could use to do this, keep an eye out for my next article – it will be about blogging and keeping a family history website.

You could even make a family history book, these can be designed on your computer and printed off, stored as a .pdf file that you can send to other family members via email or even self published through a site such as Lulu.  (Have a look at: http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Genealogy/Creating-a-Family-History-Book.658541 and even http://writinghood.com/writing-business/self-publishing-for-charity-does-it-really-work/ .  The second one isn’t directly related to family history but it does have some useful information on self publishing.)

You could even include all the types mentioned above depending on what you and your children enjoy, it could be that one person does a book, someone else does a scrapbook, and someone else does a family history chart. 

For younger children you could print off booklets called ‘All about me’ that already have heading pages such as, ‘My favourite things’ or ‘Where I go to school.’  Give the child space to draw pictures, write stories and poems and stick pictures down.  If you decide to keep a journal or blog make sure that the children get to write entries as well.  Ask them what they found out today, what did they do to find out, did they enjoy the interviews or looking at old documents such as birth and death certificates?

They could even write a story about life in another era from information they have found out from older relatives, you could go on a family outing to visit areas that your family originally came from or visit some cemeteries that you have relatives and ancestors buried in, take some paper and wax crayons with you so you can do some grave rubbings with the children, ask older children to draw you a map of the cemetery and highlight where the graves are for your family members.

Here are some age related ideas:

0-3 years old; keep a record of firsts for your child, these can be added to your family history and kept for when they are older.  Help your child do some grave rubbings and draw pictures of family.

3-6 years old; let your child do some grave rubbings, ask them to do a booklet ‘All about me’ or you could even design one for ‘All about Grandma’ or ‘All about Grandad’ etc.  4-6 pages for one of these booklets are plenty.

6-11 years old; Ask them to write a story/poem, draw some pictures, make a mini family tree (3/4 generations is plenty for this age).

11-18 years old; ask older children to write a more detailed story or poem about the time your parents grew up in or the wars etc ask them to interview relatives or design and draw up an A2 chart for your family tree.

18+ years old; Start a scrapbook, collate old documents design family tree, design website.