Sunday, February 5, 2012

Keeping it real

So we've been trying to work on family history for a couple of hours each Sunday morning with the kids. Some has gone ok, some hasn't

In the 18 hours that I was home between the Mesa conference and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy the other week, I was a basketcase trying to spend some time on this. I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out the password 13 year old boy had used when he signed up for new.familysearch. When we did finally get it, everything worked out and I got him matching up his grandmother's file with new familysearch fine. He's worked on it a little more since then. He's my name collector so I think he's going to enjoy that. Hopefully he won't remember his mom being bezerk about it.

I went through my suitcase with ideas for my lectures about getting children involved and let 11 year old girl choose something she wanted to work on. She has been reading her grandmother's family histories about their ancestors, and writing in her "My Family History and Me" coloring book. Its a cute little 23 page book with spaces for the child to fill in information about their family. You can get them by calling 801-295-8131.

Husband has been working on his Swedish lines. Trolling for ancestors through the Lutheran churches of Sweden.

15 year old boy has been editing videos. I'm so proud of him. On the 29th he started in on the recordings we made of Great Grandpa Carpenter's Amberola cylinders. He worked all day on a website for it. Couldn't get him to go to bed. He's so excited and so am I. So am I.

13 year old boy has the genealogy software we loaded on his computer in a folder on his desktop entitled "Junk my parents made me install." Works for me :)

I'm going to need some more ideas for 11 year old girl soon. What do you think? I want to give them some time to explore before we head back into more extraction. Ideas?

2 comments:

Cellista said...

Hello, I heard you speak yesterday at Rootstech, and wanted to talk to you about this very thing. I had to run home though for a while and was unable to stay. Anyway...I have an 11yo son who LOVES family history, but doesn't have a lot of computer experience, and I am all ears for ideas to get him involved. :)

I've read through all your posts about your the Christmas present project and I think it's amazing. I can see how your 11yo is similar to mine--needs typing lessons, need spelling help! It was really great to read and my son did just help me index 50 names today, so I know there's hope! Anyway, I just wanted to comment although I don't have much to add. I'll be watching to see what kinds of other things you come up with.

Again, it was great to hear you speak yesterday!

Kristiana Silver

KAM Chapman said...

Photos - definitely photos. There are tons of ways to get creative with them and one of them may peak her interest. Then looking at information about the people in the pictures might not be so though.