I recently helped with a neighboring stake's Family Discovery Day. I was delighted to be contacted about it. We came up with family history ideas to keep the children busy for 3 hours while their parents attended the classes. I was just one of the people who helped, and each person who did had unique and wonderful ideas. The kids all had a great time! My friend who was teaching an adult class heard a girl tell her mother, "I thought it was going to be boring, but it was so fun!" Let me tell you about it. The stake...
One of my favorite family tree creations for kids is this felt family tree. What could be more fun for a toddler than moving around pictures of the people he loves and sticking them to a tree?! What's even better is that this project requires no sewing. All you need is felt, family pictures, glue, fabric scissors, a way to laminate your photos (even packing tape could work) and about an hour and a half. The idea came about at mommy school, a play date for toddlers and preschoolers that my friend Katie hosts regularly. I volunteered to teach one...
For Father's Day, my kids and I came up with a project to learn about fathers in our family tree and how they are courageous, strong, generous, and kind...like super heroes! We also made a "Super Dad" card that you can draw a picture of dad's face on (or glue a photo onto it). Here are the printables ! Super Dads In My Family Tree To learn about the wonderful qualities that dads in our family tree have exemplified, we can talk to our kids about what makes a super hero. Then ask them which of these qualities they think...
What do you when you're put in charge of the family history part of your family reunion? How do you engage 150 people ages 0 - 87? If you're my friend, Rischelle, you go to work and come up with some amazing activities. I asked her to share her ideas and photos, so enjoy. Yadon Family Reunion 2016 By Rischelle Mikkelson In June we held a large family reunion inviting all of the descendants of my great grandparents, Frank and Hattie Yadon. Although the nuclear family of Frank and Hattie and their eight children (including my Grandpa) have all...
I went to a wedding a while back and I decided to make them a "wedding family tree" chart for their home. I'll share what I made in case you would like to make one. I used PowerPoint, since I don't have fancy photo editing software. I like PowerPoint because you can change the size of the canvas and then save it as a .png file or .jpg file. Once you've done that, you can send it to the nearest Wal-Mart or Costco to print. The size of these charts is 24"x36". You can change the size by going to "page setup."...
For the last several years, I have been keeping my digital photos organized on my hard drive by year and month. Although it's nice being able to find my photos when I need them, I would like even more to to have hard copies of them to show off. My goal is to put the photos in an album or book so my kids can easily look back on our family's memories - which is what my mother did for me. She created albums with our family and individual photos over the years for each of us kids. When I moved out, she gave me...
Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Allison Gilbert’s new book, Passed and Present, about celebrating the lives of relatives we've lost. Enter our giveaway of the book here! Remembering loved ones who have passed away is a unique kind of challenge. We want to celebrate their lives, yet sometimes sharing memories can be difficult. We may wonder if our family members (children, teens, etc.) are even interested. As family historians, we have many stories of loved ones long past that we’d like to tell. How do we do this in our everyday lives? Allison Gilbert answers this question with...
St. Patrick’s Day is only a few days away! Here are some ways that we've been celebrating our Irish Heritage: Learn about your Irish Heritage Did you know that 3.7 million American residents claim Irish ancestry? According to this graphic, that’s more than 7X the population of Ireland. Between 1830 and 1940, nearly 4.5 million Irish immigrants arrived in the United States. Do you have any Irish immigrants in your family tree? If so, here’s an article about how to find more records about them from the FindMyPast blog: I know my ancestors are from Ireland, what do I do next? Decorate with...
Two years ago, I made a book about my Grandpa Elder’s ancestors to give to my family for Christmas. I was inspired by William R. Walker’s talk in the April 2014 General Conference about learning stories of faith of our ancestors. I knew some of the conversion stories of my Mormon pioneer forefathers, but not all. I determined to find and compile all the stories and records about my LDS ancestors’ faith. One repository that I was especially eager to use was the LDS Church History Library, where all kinds of LDS records are kept, including most of the patriarchal...
Do you have a compiled genealogy book with numbers assigned to each individual? What do those numbers mean and how can you trace your family with them? If you have wondered how to navigate the long blocks of numbered text in these books, you're not alone. Last September, my friend Gina and I were chatting about family history when she showed me a genealogy book compiled by one of her husband's relatives. She let me borrow it. As I flipped through it, I realized how daunting this book must seem to a young person. I decided to surprise Gina by making the book more accessible to her children. Many compiled genealogy books use...
