21 Day Family Connections Experiment

I love genealogy and family history.

I engage in both every day.  It’s a huge part of my life.  It’s my work, my play, and my favorite activity.

So when my amazing friend Olivia invited me to participate in her 21 Day Family Connections Experiment I carefully considered her invitation.  Her quick tagline is, “A 21 day experiment exploring the benefits of daily connections with family.”

I don’t need a challenge to work on family history daily.  I already know and understand the amazing benefits of engaging in that work and choose to make it part of my daily life.

So the question I asked myself was how can I do something different with family history during these 21 days that might help me feel more connected to my loved ones?

I decided that the connection I want to strengthen is with my children’s generation.  I am now the keeper of the stories.  The one who has all the old photos.  If you’ve read anything I’ve written you have probably figured out that sharing is a huge part of what I do.  But the generation that I don’t reach very often is the youngest generation.  They don’t read my blog or use Facebook where I also share.

So, for my 21 Day Experiment, I am going to host a family storytime through Zoom for my children, nieces, and nephews three days each week.  On the other days, I will prep by finding photos for the stories, making notes for myself, etc.

Today was our first storytime.

I shared this photo of my siblings and I with our paternal grandparents.

Then I told them all about the swimming pool in my grandparent’s home and the fun we had swimming all day long whenever we visited.  I showed them several photos of us swimming as children.  I shared memories of the games we played in the pool and hot tub.  We spent about 15 minutes chatting and then I challenged them to ask their parent what memories they have of our grandparent’s pool.

I loved seeing my nieces and nephews on Zoom.  We live all across the country and don’t see each other nearly often enough.  It was fun to reminisce a bit and let them try to spot us in the photos.  I hope they will enjoy hearing the little story snippets I plan to share all month long.  I’ve got some plans brewing.

So how about you?

Is there a way you could connect with your family — both the living and the dead — differently than you do right now?

Would a 21 Day Family Connections Experiment help you during these exhausting quarantine times?

You can learn more about the challenge here.

I hope you and your loved ones are healthy and safe!  xoxo

 

 

ps — I recorded our call so my parents and siblings could watch it.