Everyone wants their children and grandchildren to be interested in their personal history. But often, children – and even some adults – find the details boring, roll their eyes at yet another book, or may even tell you flat out that they don’t care.
But the secret to getting our loved ones, especially the children, interested and engaged in their family history is to do it without them even realizing it. My children are 12 and 13 years old and have been “helping” me with research since they were toddlers. I have identified 6 key ways to keep them and their cousins interested and engaged.
Cater to their interests
Every person has something that fascinates them. And you can usually tie that into your history in some way.
My niece is obsessed with the musical Hamilton right now. Well, we have very distant ties to Aaron Burr, the gentleman who shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804 and is a main character in the show. So, she was very excited to learn this and be able to share it with her friends.
Find the veteran, the athlete, the artist, the musician, the scoundrel. What do they like? And do they have a family member involved?
Vacation and Travel
This may seem obvious, but I don’t try to force these things. On vacations or road trips, I will often make a point of stopping at a particular site or location.
Usually a conversation will happen in a few months or years and I refer back to “when we stopped at Jamestown…” or “Remember when you explored Andersonville and we learned about their lives there?…” And then we will pull out pictures and have a conversation about the experience again and how it ties to this family member.
The types of places this may apply to includes: battlefields, historic sites, national parks and landmarks, heritage/birthplace cities, and more.
Cemeteries
When my children were small, cemetery research was one of the few things I could do with them in tow.
Establish rules. This was especially important when they were small.
1) No running. You never know when a stone will be set into the ground or the land will have settled.
2) No climbing on headstones. May seem obvious, but to children, these are tempting jungle-gyms.
3) Wear bright clothing or a reflective vest like this one. Often we are in rural areas, so wearing hunting gear or other bright clothing can identify you as a human and not an animal for nearby hunters.
Once they have heard the rules (again) and repeated them back to me (again), I would often send my children off with things to look for. Maybe I have them look for the stones with a flag in the ground beside them. Or find stones with a lamb on them. Once they were old enough to read, I would ask them to find specific names or I would have them do math to find out how old someone was when they died.
These activities may seem like busy work, but with children sometimes you need to keep them busy, so you can do your work. And it can often open a conversation as to why those graves have flags. And anytime you can reinforce math or reading skills is a bonus!
Games & Activities
I have had several games that I play with my kids, but their favorite was the one we would play in the car on the way to and from school. It didn’t have a name, really, but would just start as I would ask them to pick a family member, living or dead, and I would tell them a story about that person.
I have told stories of doctors and of pioneers and even of my own mother’s high school basketball years. Every day, they would pick a new person to ask about. And if I didn’t necessarily know a specific story about “Grammy’s great-great-grandma”, I usually knew the time period they were alive and could come up with something.
Another great activity is to cook some family recipes together. Put together a family cookbook and talk about why a particular dish is made that way or served at that time.
School
I also have tied in several pieces of American history to their schoolwork, depending on the subject.
For example, my kids are in the Chicago area and learn about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 in school. After a trip to a city museum, I mentioned to my daughter that her 3x great grandfather lived in Chicago during the Great Fire. She was really intrigued and wanted to know where he lived and if he had lost his buildings, etc. It set us off on a search to learn more about it.
I also have a large library of movies that I will pull out if they are showing interest in something this week. My youngest had all of these questions about the battle of Yorktown that she was learning about at school. While I know we had patriot ancestors, I have not fully traced their service yet to know if they were at Yorktown. So, we watched the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson and discussed how our family member may have been affected or what their life may have been like. The movie helped bring the visuals to life for her imagination.
Ask them to help you
One of my children loves to look at census records and other sources. And while she doesn’t always “act interested”, when she does I have her look at the Hints on my Ancestry Tree for a line that I will be researching soon. I have taught her how to look at known information we have and comparing it to what the Hint is suggesting, confirming if it is our people, etc.
The key is to not force anything upon a child or another person and to stop the moment someone begins to show disinterest. Change tactics or use another strategy:
- Cater to their interests
- Incorporate into travel
- Cemetery activities
- Games
- School
- Ask their help
By using one of these 6 strategies, or working a combination into your daily life, you will find that your children and grandchildren may be more receptive when you mention heading out to another cemetery. Or you may find the person to carry on your research in the future.
Another great resource are the series of books by Janet Hovorka, Zap the Grandma Gap. These are filled with activities and games to engage kids with their history. My oldest daughter especially enjoyed diving into the My German Ancestor Activity Book.
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Melissa Grandt Genealogy 