This past week I helped put together an activity for young men aged 14-18 to help them learn about family history. I had each boy send me a 9 generation fan chart ahead of time so that I could look into their tree on FamilySearch. I spent time with each boy’s tree and found an area that was missing information. I created a plan for each boy that would help him learn something new about his family while also learning how to search for sources, read the sources, update the tree and attach the sources. Each boy had an adult helper who sat beside him to help him work on his tree.
This is the third such activity I have put together in the last month. It is exhausting and rewarding. With a group of eight or so youth there are usually two or three who become really interested and work on their trees beyond the activity. That is when every second preparing is worth it – when I see a young person get excited about the history of their own family. So excited that they view the activity as a beginning not as a single event.
In all of my preparing, I looked at the FamilySearch collection of Kansas records. Small, dismally small, is the only way to describe that collection. Which is why I started my indexing challenge. Not because of the Kansas record collection, but because of the MANY record collections that are small. The more we all index, the bigger the collections get.
I have really enjoyed the extra indexing I have been doing. I wasn’t able to index for several days because of the time it took to prepare Wednesday night’s activity. Yesterday I was happily back to it. I am hoping to help grow those collections!
Have you tried indexing?
Read about my indexing challenge here.
It is great to get kids interested. It is a great opportunity to ask relatives while they are still around. I started looking into my family history after my last surviving grandparent had died, so I missed out there. Although not entirely sure how much my grandmother would have told me but still…
A few months ago my nieces came round and my youngest niece asked me who her two times great grandfather was! I was really pleased (she is 7) and I enjoyed drawing her a simple tree and showing her and her older sister some photos of their ancestors. I hope it has sparked some interest that might be continued!
I love that your niece asked! Every now and again my cousins will ask but my nieces and nephews are still pretty little so they have not yet asked anything. That will be a happy day.
I know, it really surprised me! I do hope they ask more over the years!
I’m sure they will. 🙂 And they’ll be grateful that their family’s history has been in such good hands.
Teenage boys? Wow. Good for you. And great for them. According to your graphic, one quarter of the collections for Kansas at Family Search isn’t even indexed yet. I see it’s “Browse Images” and who knows how many thousands of images are in that collection.
Yes teenage boys! The first two activities were with teenage girls. There is definitely a difference. 🙂
Great post!
Thank you!