My sincerest condolences to all those who have lost family or friends during this pandemic. It is not my intent to cause sadness or pain with these words, but to provide a method of treasuring what you have, and memorializing what you may have lost.
My family has been lucky enough to live in the same general area for multiple generations. That means when we look at old pictures, we can identify local buildings or other landmarks in the background. When we walk through our neighborhood, we can tell family stories about our childhood, or about the lives of those who came before us. We have many items that have been passed down for generations, each with its own story and reminders of the people who have owned it. I've also personally been very interested in genealogy (the study of family ancestral lines), as well as our local history, for a long time. I have already done a lot of research on my own family, so I have a wealth of information to impart to my kids. I realize that not everyone is that lucky, but what's great about learning your family's history is that you can start wherever you are right now with information that you already know.
There are a lot of reasons to explore your family's history. As a homeschool project, the potential educational benefits are enormous, with ties to nearly every subject. Knowing our own history can improve our self-esteem and resiliency, and help us to determine our core identity and develop empathy for others. Reflecting on what our ancestors had to overcome can serve to give us strength to surmount the problems that we face in our own lives. Searching our family history can give us insight into genetic conditions, both medical and psychological, that might become issues for us in the future. Exploring our family ties can help us to develop connections to each other, to history in general, and to various locations on the map, giving us a feeling of belonging. And, it's fun!
As a homeschool project, you will want to include your kids in the process and the excitement of discovery as much as possible, but it helps dramatically if they've initially shown some curiosity about it on their own. A simple question from your kids about "how is so-and-so related to us again?" or asking why you call their grandmother "mom" can often be enough to get you started. Telling a story about when you were a kid, pulling out some old family photos or letters, or chatting online to a distant relative can all be good interest-developers, too.
As you go through the process, instead of just giving your kids all the information you know up front, get them used to asking you questions or doing some research to fill in the blanks. One of the fun things for them while doing this project is being able to be curious and ask questions that may have real answers. Establish your kids as family history detectives, looking for clues and facts and stories about how things happened. Keep in mind that this is a kind of "forever project," and doesn't have an end date or deadline, so you are free to take time out to answer questions that aren't date-related or don't fit on your charts. Encourage listening to and telling stories, as those are the MOST important parts; the dates just help us keep things organized and give us clues when we look for further information later.
The first step in any family history project is to start with what you already know, and you probably know a lot more than you think you do. Start with your child (or yourself, if you are doing this on your own) as the primary person. Add siblings, children, spouses, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Include your great aunts and uncles, great-grandparents, and beyond, if you can, as far back as you can go. Jot down information for any cousins or other relatives you know of, even if they are distant or you aren't sure how they're connected.
For each person, write down their full name, including first, middle, and last names, and note commonly-used nicknames, as well. Write down each person's birthdate and birth location, marriage date and marriage location (for those who were married), and death date and location (for those who have passed away). Be as detailed with location as possible, including the name of the building or hospital, and the street address, if you know it. Remember that it's okay to not know all the information; just write down as much as you know. Part of what you are doing right now is figuring out what you don't know, so you can identify the information to look for later on.
As you work together to fill in the blanks, keep track of any questions that your children (or you) ask that you don't already know the answer to. These can become your research questions later and can be fodder for side-projects and activities, as well. For example, when I started doing some family history projects with my oldest son, who happened to be super interested in various major wars at the time, one of his questions was whether or not any of our family members had fought in any wars or served in the military. I had never done any research in that area, being anti-war myself, and it ended up opening a whole new door for research that I hadn't explored. Although not a direct ancestor, together we discovered that we did indeed have someone in our family tree who fought in the Civil War, and had an interesting story, to boot.
It helps to create a chart or two (or in my case, a few dozen) to keep track of family connections. These are commonly referred to as family trees, but the charts actually have different names depending on which direction they go. Charts that start with an ancestor and move down through the generations, capturing all of that person's descendants down to the current time period, are called pedigree charts or descendant charts. Those that start with a single individual and move backward to capture all of that person's ancestors on both sides is called an ancestor chart. Those that capture both ancestors and descendants from a single individual are called combination charts or sand-glass diagrams. And kinship diagrams capture all of that, plus all the ancestors and all the descendants of everyone else on the chart. The type of charts you create are entirely up to you, depending on what information you want to capture.
A quick online search will provide a long list of printable family tree charts, which you can print or just use for reference while you build your own. A fun way to get a chart started is to lay out a giant piece of paper and use markers or a heavy pen to draw it. Or you can use masking tape to attach index cards or small slips of paper directly to the wall, and connect them with pieces of string, straws, ribbons, or just lines of masking tape. Flow-chart programs on the computer can be fun to use, too. A temporary chart can be made using sidewalk chalk outside on the pavement, or drawing it on a dry-erase board with erasable markers. The sidewalk chalk method also allows for a person-sized chart, with each person standing in their space on the chart, which can be helpful when explaining connections and how the charts work to young kids. (I would recommend taking photos – or even a walk-through video tour – of your finished product before it's erased, for future reference.) Your kids can each try making their own chart, or you can all work together on one as a whole-family project, depending a lot on the ages of your children, and how persnickety they are about details.
There are all kinds of other ways to keep track of what you are learning about your family’s history, too. Here are few options:
Keep a notebook, with a main page dedicated to a tree or pedigree chart, and a page for each family member (or a couple pages, if you have lots of information for those family members). Then, as you find information, you have a place to write it down and keep it organized.
Index cards, one for each tidbit of information or from each source of information. For example, if your aunt Tilly gives you a whole bunch of information about your great uncle Roy, you can put it all on one index card with your aunt Tilly as the source. Then, the information can be easily organized by last name, then first name, of the family member the information is about.
Computer programs are a big help if you get really involved in researching your family history. I have used TM most often in the past (from way back before computers had graphics!), but there are several other programs out there dedicated to genealogy.
Once you've established a basic structure of the people that make up your family, take some time to talk about each person you've identified. Tell a story about that person if you know one, or what you remember most about that person from when you were growing up. Kids love hearing stories about themselves, too, especially about when they were babies. Try to keep records of the stories you tell to cherish later, either as voice or video recordings, or as written versions. Photos can conjure up memories and stories, too. Adding some photos to your charts and to your experience at this point can be a great help for your kids to keep track of the different family faces, and can also provide opportunities to look for hereditary traits.
Once you've filled in everything you can on your own, the next step is to get started on the research. Be sure to keep track of all of your sources of information, and what information each source provided. There are a lot of ways to find out more details about your family. Here are just a few:
Interview someone. Interviewing someone is one of the best ways to gather more information on this topic. Someone older than you, a parent or grandparent, is a good place to start, but you can interview as many family members as you want. Each individual will have different stories and memories, and some will have the same story but from different points of view. Record them all if you can. Interviews are also a great way to get to know your family members better, establish memorable connections, and even discover shared interests. As an example, my oldest son and my father (and my father and my maternal grandfather) could sit and talk for hours about who in the family owned what car, and shared stories about trips to various antique car shows. Friends or neighbors of the family can sometimes provide information, too. My own grandmother has passed away, but her long-time neighbor and best friend is still alive and full of stories of the things they used to get up to together, and has some stories of other family members, too.
Interviews work best if you already have some idea of the questions you want to ask. Encourage kids to come up with their own questions. If the questions relate to something they themselves are interested in, they'll be much more excited to hear the answers, and you might hear some brand new stories if you never thought to ask those questions yourself. If you need some ideas to get you started, you can find some sample interview questions at StoryCorps. Be sure to collect dates and locations for further research, but remember that the purpose of knowing your family's history is ultimately to hear the stories.
While social distancing, you can connect with other family members by phone, video chat, e-mail, instant messaging, etc. You can even do a group interview with several members at once, as one person’s stories may provide stimulus for others to remember. Interviews provide a great opportunity for your kids to practice writing lists of questions, using different formats for letters, and developing interview skills.
Documents. Wills and deeds, certificates of birth or death or marriage, diplomas, letters and postcards, journals or ledgers, newspaper clippings (especially obituaries), maps, invitations, recipe books, family bibles, photos, and more, can all contain information and stories about your family. They are often found in attics, filing cabinets, extra closets, safes, etc., within a family member’s home. If you don’t have any of these things yourself, check with other family members to see what they might have.
Visit the cemetery. Family groups are often buried together in family plots, with parents and children near one another. Headstones often bear inscriptions such as "beloved wife" or "infant son of..." that establish connections that can otherwise be difficult to find. If you have time, you can also clean up the headstones, or make a map of the cemetery. Memorial markers for those who died in various wars or tragedies can also provide information.
Contact historical groups. We have a fantastic local History and Archives Department that has a wealth of local and genealogical history. It is one of our go-to places when we're looking for connections. Many counties and states have their own departments that store historical records, like birth, marriage, and death information. They might also have old newspapers or letters on microfilm, photos, stories, deeds and land transfers, wills, historical maps, business directories, early phone directories, church and cemetery records, family histories that have already been researched, and much, much more. While current restrictions and closures may prevent you from visiting in person right now, you may be able to view some information online, or contact people working remotely.
There are all kinds of other historical groups that might have information about your family, or that may be able to head you in the right direction for further research. If nothing else, groups like those of historical re-enactors can give you a taste of what things were like during the time your ancestors were alive. Some groups (like Freemasons, Knights of Pythias, or Knights of Columbus) may not be able to share information about your ancestors, but knowing that your ancestors were members of different groups or clubs can give you more of an idea of their personalities, interests, religious beliefs, and loyalties.
Connect online. There are many websites out there aimed at connecting people to their extended family and sharing resources for family history research. Ancestry.com and USGenweb are two that come to mind.
Generalize. If you can’t find specific stories about your ancestors (which can get much harder to find the further back you go), for the purposes of a homeschool project, you can often make do with general information about a specific time period in a specific location. For example, if you know your ancestors grew up in Paris, France, in the late 1700s, you can do some research to discover what the popular foods, clothing styles, jobs, recreational activities, and modes of transportation were then and there. You can look up images of the city, find out who was in power and what their rule was like, and learn about the French Revolution and its effects. Being able to connect that information with someone in your own family’s history makes it that much more personal and important to know, especially from a child’s point of view.
Part 1 has explored how to get started on a homeschool family history project. To find out how to really have some fun and expand the educational potential of your project, please check out my next post, Fun with Family History, Part 2: The Fun Stuff. I would love to hear about your adventures and discoveries while researching your family history. Please tell us your story in the comments section below, and be sure to subscribe to be notified of the next post.
Images: All images are free stock images from Wix, with the exception of Grossmith Family Tree image, attributed to Tim Riley at English Wikipedia (license).