Celebrate Mother's Day with Family History

Family holidays are always a good time to think about our personal histories. For Mother's Day,
consider asking your mother questions about her life. The responses can help you craft a written family history and enrich your genealogy research. Or record your own memories of your mother or what motherhood has meant to you. These make excellent stories to share with children and grandchildren.

Here are some writing prompts taken from FamilySearch's #52stories project to get you started:

• How has your mother or being a mother enriched your life?
• What lessons have you learned from your grandmothers’ life experiences?
• What are some of the stories you loved hearing from your mother’s youth? From your grandmothers’ younger days?
• What is the best thing about your relationship with your mother or grandmother?
• Who are some important mother figures besides your own mother who have been influential in your life?

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.

Genealogy for kids

The holidays can be a great time to introduce the kids to family history. Here are few genealogy activities for kids:

• Share family stories and photos.
• Make a family tree or a timeline for an ancestor.
• Interview grandparents. Here are some sample questions. 
• Teenagers or older kids can record an oral history with a family member on a smartphone.
• Learn what your surname means and learn a few words in your ancestors' native language.

You can also get crafty:

• Make a 3D Family Tree 
• Photo Memory Game
• Collect and trade your very own ancestor trading cards

Use Pinterest to find more great ideas!

Genealogy with Kids

Looking for a good summer activity that will introduce your kids or grandkids to genealogy? Janice Nickerson has great ideas for games that will get children involved with their family history. She lists ideas for quizzes and family trivia, family photo jigsaw puzzles and a scavenger hunt!

Celebrate Family History Month

October is Family History Month. Looking to celebrate your family history but don't know where to begin? Here are some activities to get you started!

Create your family tree. Start with yourself and work back one generation at a time. Download free charts from Ancestry.com or you can find some fancy charts here or search Cyndi's List for other free trees and pedigree charts.

Interview family members and record family stories. You can find sample questions online or check out one our oral history books to help find inspiration.

Preserve family photos. Organize all of those family photos you've been collecting throughout the years. Track down family members to help you identify people and places in old photographs. Try scanning and uploading photos to a website and file the the originals in acid-free boxes or albums.

Make a heritage scrapbook. After collecting all of your photos and family stories, put them all together in a scrapbook. You can also include family recipes, ephemera, and record all of your family traditions and favorite memories.

Get the kids involved! All of these projects can be shared with kids and you can find other fun activities online to get the next generation interested in family history.

Genealogy For Kids

Do you want to help your children or grandchildren get interested in their family history?

Family Tree Kids makes genealogy fun. Here, kids can download family tree forms and fill them out. A Family Detective page tells them how to gather the clues they need. The Junior Toolkit page has information about some great genealogy books for kids. There are also ideas for fun genealogy games and activities.