Creating Junior Genealogists
By Karen FrischEvery family historian who has experienced the thrill of discovery—whether it’s a signature on a legal document, an unknown second spouse of an ancestor, or a letter or photograph—knows how strong the desire is to share that discovery with others. And who better to share it with than his or her own family?
And yet, sometimes our family members don’t appreciate these hard-earned discoveries. For some, the desire to know more about their heritage comes with age, and as our children and grandchildren mature, they will gain a greater interest in the past. But what if we can create a spark while our children are young by involving them as we seek for names in old cemeteries or look for clues in old photographs? Many genealogists can trace their interest back to their childhood, to old photographs shared with them by an older relative, to precious heirlooms treasured by their parents, or to family stories repeated again and again.
A child who has previously been uninterested in the past may be intrigued by a television program on the Gold Rush or the Civil War. This can then lead to one of the many children’s books on either subject. For some children, correspondence with living relatives may open the door to greater interest in their heritage. Others may respond to the many Internet resources for young genealogists. The suggestions below are only a few of the ways you can spark your child’s interest in family history—and get them involved in the process.
Old Photographs and Artifacts
Old photographs offer one of the easiest and most ac cessible ways to involve your children in their family history. A family resemblance to a great-grandmother or grandfather can spark a child’s interest in that particular ancestor’s life, which may lead to questions about that ancestor’s parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles.
You might start with pictures of yourself when you were a small child, particularly those that show you in another environment or doing different things than your children are used to seeing you do. One young girl was fascinated by a picture of her grandmother, at age eight, at an ice skating rink, with the written caption “Just learning!”
A fun family activity is to give your children a stack of unorganized family photographs that each child can delve into and discover. Under your supervision, have your children write the names of the subjects in the photo on note cards to be placed behind the picture. Older children could also place the photos in photo albums and write captions.
You can also make quality copies of your old photographs and frame them to display in your home in a prominent location, storing the originals away from direct light. Audrey Loberti’s hallway at home features an antique sideboard lined with sepia-toned family portraits. The old photos invite questions from her seven-year-old daughter who sees pictures of people who are familiar but whom she doesn’t recognize. Since children are naturally curious, surrounding them with family photographs is bound to intrigue them and encourage questions.
For many children, these and other tangible articles of the past may be the key to tapping into their curiosity. Items such as old-fashioned hats, costume jewelry, dishes, handkerchiefs, and knickknacks can be fascinating to children, especially if they belonged to somebody in the family. You can also take the opportunity to share stories of the ancestor who owned the item.
When she was fourteen years old, Kristi Brown received nu merous personal effects of her ancestors from relatives who were happy to give away old storage boxes of “stuff,” which included a school report card from 1916 and an old chauffeur’s driver’s license. The items instilled in Kristi a desire to learn more about her ancestors.
Internet
Most children take to computers wholeheartedly, and it could be to your advantage to take their interest and combine it with family history research.
The searchable databases on FamilySearch.org have more than a billion names and the Pedigree Resource File has more than 66 million names. With all these names, it’s fairly certain that your child could enter the name of one of your ancestors and find clues to many more. This is also a good opportunity to talk with your child about the importance of documentation and the community of genealogists who are all working on your family genealogy.
Because of the increasing popularity of genealogy and the growing numbers of young genealogists, you’ll find several specialized genealogy websites for kids. WorldGenWeb for Kids is a good place to get started. You will find pedigree charts, family group sheets, and other forms that your children can print, as well as ideas for projects, suggestions for e-mail research, and lots of information.
Your children may also enjoy Genealogy Today Junior Edition. The articles are fun and engaging, and children will find an invitation to submit stories about ancestors and do surname searches.
Don’t forget to check out the Ancestry World Tree and RootsWeb. Your children may need some help navigating the riches of these resources, but it won’t take them long to learn how to accurately search the databases and mailing lists for information on the f amily.
CyndisList includes a section for kids you may want to investigate as well. Categories such as maps and passenger ships are fun to explore with your children. Cyndi’s List also has a section for Ellis Island that may spark your children’s imagination. While our ancestors may have landed at many different ports in America, it is estimated that 100 million Americans are directly related to immigrants who came through Ellis Island. Your children may enjoy looking for ancestors who came through New York between 1892 and 1924.
Similarly, Kinships Prints shows ships that were used from 1890 to 1940. Your children may enjoy seeing the ships their ancestors traveled on, particularly if they have access to journals kept by their ancestors or other passengers.
Cemeteries
Visiting local cemeteries is another way to combine fun and education in identifying “missing” relatives, matching children with parents and learning the birthplaces of ancestors. Children who are old enough to count can be assigned simple tasks such as counting the number of gravestones from the edge of the road to their great-grandfather’s grave.
As a young mother, Lisa Murdough would pack a picnic and take her children “cemetery stomping.” She would give each child a file card with a surname printed in big letters, and they would all look for that name on gravestones. The children were given a treat for every one they found, and they would spell out the words on the stone as she copied the information into her notebook. “The children got a mini spelling lesson, plus some fresh air and sunshine,” says Lisa. “The research got done, and we all got a bit of exercise and spent the day together.”
Encouraging your children to take an active interest and play a role in your search is an effective way to ensure their continued interest. Family historian Michael John Neill encourages parents to have a picnic, letting children create maps of paths to gravestones, and doing some cleanup work around Great-Grandpa’s plot. You might even recruit an older child to help supervise the younger children and keep them from getting lost or into mischief. Entrusting your children with responsibility, while inviting their assistance, can give them a sense that they are contributing something of importance to the family.
Photo Albums and Scrapbooks
Buy your children a photograph album of their own and give them a disposable camera so they can start taking pictures now. When the pictures are developed, sit down together and help your child organize the photos and write captions so the people and events won’t be forgotten. This project may help to interest your child in the family album you are working on.
Older children can assemble your family history into an organized book of presentation quality. Good, well-documented research captured in family charts on computer and double-checked for accuracy can produce a wonderful gift that relatives will treasure. Even a simple version of your family history as far back as it has been traced can be photocopied and stapled together between a simple front and back cover as a gift for family members.
Keeping a scrapbook is also a fun and creative way to involve children actively in their genealogy. Encourage your children to create and keep a scrapbook or scrap box for letters from friends, party invitations, and newspaper articles that mention them or their accomplishments. They may even want to include any papers you might have kept for them from their early years, like drawings they did in preschool, samples of their handwriting from kindergarten, school photos, and Mother’s Day cards in which they were able to sign their name.
Family vacations are the perfect occasion to create a scrapbook. Be sure to bring extra film, and keep all your mementoes and souvenirs in one place so they will be easy to find when you get home and are ready to start your scrapbook. Children could also take turns keeping a family diary to describe each day’s events.
Letters and E-mail
When Jennifer Gibson was ten years old, her mother asked her to write to her cousins in Switzerland. Jennifer resisted the idea. “I knew them all,” she recalls. “They came back to the States every year, but I didn’t know what to say to them.”
Still, her mother wanted her to write, so Jennifer started writing her cousins every Christmas and once during the year. Exchanging letters allowed her to grow up with them and to savor significant changes in their lives. Now, two decades later, Jennifer is grateful her mother insisted upon the correspondence.
Whether your relatives live abroad or in another state, writing letters (and receiving them) can help your children create lasting ties with distant family, and learn more about their family history in the process. Handwritten letters are more time-consuming than a letter written on a computer, but many people still prefer the handwritten letter and feel it is more personal.
Once a correspondence has been initiated, encourage your child to keep writing. A simple correspondence can lead to enduring and meaningful friendships.
Although some people may feel that electronic methods are less personal, the speed and convenience of e-mail has made it increasingly popular. In addition, you can scan and attach photos, order fun e-cards, and even send sound files, all of which can make e-mail more enjoyable and personal. Fax machines are also a good option. Mary Allard, an imaginative and determined grandmother, bought a pair of fax machines for herself and her son’s family. Now she sends notes, mazes, riddles, and pages from coloring books for her grandchildren to color. The children happily fax their artwork to her in return.
Some grandparents record themselves reading a book on audiotape or video. Sending a tape and book to the grandchildren is a gift that comes complete with Grandma’s voice. This is also a good way to prepare children to meet relatives for the first time or to help long-distance families keep in touch. That way, when young children see their grandparents again after a long separation, voices and faces are dear and familiar.
Family Newsletters
Family newsletters help you to stay in touch with relatives in other areas of the world by sharing news on a regular basis, and they can provide opportunities for your children to learn about their family history as well. A newsletter can contain family stories and traditions as well as notices of birthdays and other events of importance.
Involve your children in the process of creating and sending out a family newsletter. Let your children write about your traditions as a family or interview the family matriarch. They can also research and write brief articles about an ancestor’s profession, home, or country. A byline and a picture can help motivate your children to help with the newsletter.
Preparing the newsletter will provide many additional benefits for your children as well. Typing up the information and laying it out on the computer will expose them to both genealogy and computer technology.
Today’s desktop publishing programs make it easy to produce an attractive, appealing newsletter. Use headings and clip art to highlight special events, activities, accomplishments, and birthdays. Make your newsletter fun and creative. Your children will learn about their ancestors, get to know their living relatives, feel pride in their accomplishments, learn new skills, and have fun at the same time.
Local Museums
With hands-on displays and changing exh ibits, museums always feature something new for children. Museums, particularly those that focus on local history, are likely to contain something of interest to your children that can be related to your own family history. When you take your children, connect the visit as much as possible to the history of your family.
Photographs of people, uniforms from various wars, and old musical instruments can all bring vividness to the past that documents can’t capture. If your family has lived in the area for several decades, the items in the museum may show aspects of your ancestors’ lives, their clothing, cooking utensils, and treasures. The museum may even have artifacts that belonged to a high-profile ancestor who lived in the area.
Museums that collect, preserve, research, and interpret a city’s history can be a source of delight and discovery to children. If your great-great-grandfather was a clock maker when he emigrated from Switzerland, visit a clock museum. The setting alone will give children a feeling for what it must have been like to work as a clock maker.
Many museums focus on the unique cultural heritage of a particular region, with holdings that represent the lives of our immigrant ancestors. They may also sponsor classes and activities particularly geared for children. One state historical society runs a series of week-long history camps with morning or afternoon sessions for children entering grades four through six. The four-hour sessions include historic games, crafts, stories, tours, and related activities. Camps like this offer idyllic summer afternoons spent enjoying the amusements of earlier times.
As you introduce your children to their ancestors using these ideas, you will get to know their interests and abilities better, which will help you find other ways to make family history more intriguing and exciting for them.
Identifying their interests will make a big difference in the way you int roduce family history and in the way your children and grandchildren respond. Remember to exercise creativity, ingenuity, and patience; children have different personalities, likes, and dislikes. Often their own interests and hobbies can change from year to year as they mature and are exposed to new ideas and people. If they are slow to respond to one activity, try another. With persistence and innovation, you can help your children learn to appreciate their ancestors.
Karen Frisch lives in Rhode Island with her husband, their two daughters, and their dog. She is a frequent columnist to the Ancestry Daily News and the author of Unlocking the Secrets In Old Photographs (Ancestry, 1991) and Creating Junior Genealogists: Tips and Activities for Family History Fun (Ancestry, 2003).
Websites for Kids
Genealogy Today—Junior Edition
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