Family History Activities

The FamilySearch website offers new ideas, templates, and interactive activities for families and all ages.

The "In-Home Activities" module has projects for kids and families to explore their heritage and traditions. Activities include creating time capsules, discovering family records, making a journal or scrapbook, and playing family trivia games. Other projects involve identifying and thinking about ancestors' lives in different ways that appeal to children. 

FamilySearch also includes online programs that help you upload and manipulate photos of yourself and your ancestors or find prompts to tell and record your family's history.

Map Guides to German Parish Registers

Map Guides to German Parish Registers by Kevan M. Hansen makes locating records in Germany easier.

Before researching in Europe, you need to know where records are kept. For Germany, religious institutions recorded births, marriages, and deaths and kept this information in parish register books or local church archives. You need to identify your ancestor's parish before you can search for these vital records. 

Hansen's guide provides maps showing Catholic and Lutheran parish jurisdictions for towns in a specific region. Find your ancestor's town of origin on the map to discover their local parish.

FamilySearch has microfilmed most German parish registers and Hansen helpfully gives the FamilySearch microfilm number for each parish. Search for that number in FamilySearch's catalog to locate digital or physical copies of the microfilm.

Map Guides to German Parish Registers includes parish maps for Catholic and Lutheran Churches but also provides information on locating Reformed Church and Jewish records for the region--and includes the FamilySearch microfilm number for these records too.

The Genealogy & Local History Room has guides to parishes in the following locations:

Grandduchy of Hessen
Grandduchy of Baden
Mecklenberg, Granduchies of Schwerin and Strelitz
Province of Schleswig-Holstein - Kingdom of Prussia and Grandduchy of Oldenburg
Kingdom of Bavaria - Schwaben

Free Irish Records on FindMyPast

FindMyPast is one of the best online resources for British and Irish records. You need a subscription to access its collections but they do make a few records available for free.

One free collection is Ireland Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms. Create a free account with FindMyPast and you can search and view these Baptismal records without a subscription.

These records will tell you birth and baptism dates, parents' names, and information on the Parish and Diocese. Note that the records are written in Latin but FindMyPast gives you a handy guide Latin phrases.

This collection is made available from the National Library of Ireland. Most of the records date from the 1850s onward but you may find a few older records as well. 

For more free(ish) online Irish genealogy, try IrishGenealogy.ie, RootsIreland, and the National Archives of Ireland.

FamilySearch Class

Join us this Thursday at 2 PM to learn how to navigate FamilySearch.org. We'll cover the basics of how to search the database but we'll also dig into the extensive digital collections found in FamilySearch's catalog.


Register online or call the Reference Desk at 847-729-7500.