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Nat’l Genealogical Society Conference in SLC in 2010Posted by admin on December 8th, 2009

Great news for all you family history nuts in Utah! The National Genealogical Society will be holding its annual Family History Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Palace Convention Center on April 28 to May 1, 2010. The conference is expected to deliver workshops and speakers on family history work international and American. The conference will even include a mini-performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Sounds like fun to me! Anyone else planning on being there?

Family History Tourism?Posted by admin on November 21st, 2009

I met a couple last night who, upon the discovering the names and vital information for their ancestors in England, took a summer vacation to the actual parish from whence the records came. They visited the church that had held the records for centuries. They walked the cobbled streets that had likely felt the soles of their ancestors almost every day for the length of their mortal life. They insisted that this experience had done more for their understanding of their forebears than any record ever could. This got me thinking about the usefulness of family history tourism.

There seem to be a lot of things we can get out of visiting places that we just can’t get from reading their vital dates. A few summers ago, I took my family to Hawaii to the North Shore that had been home to my family since the 1800s. The people I met all had something to say about my forebears. I walked in the place where my grandparents had been married. We drove past the sugar factory my grandfather built and managed. In the air, the trees, and in the water, I seemed to feel a kinship. 

I had heard all of these stories before, but being in the actual places made it real for me. Every place I went seemed to drive home the fact that my ancestors were real people, with real lives full of events large and small. 

So, what do you think? Is it worth the plane ticket to draw closer to your roots? Can you get that feeling of kinship in any other way?

Teaching Kids About Their Family HistoryPosted by admin on September 23rd, 2009

At first genealogy seemed like such a dry topic with its pedigree charts and shelves of dusty records. When I had the idea to teach my kids about it, I was a little worried. How could I make this topic interesting enough to hold their attention?

But then I remembered something important: family history isn’t really about records and charts. It’s about stories. More importantly, it’s stories about them, where they came from, where they got their dimples or their laugh or their wild streak.

So I fished out some old family photos and invited my mom to help me. As soon as we started, it was like magic. The kids sat in spellbound silence as if they were listening to their favorite fairy tale. By the questions they asked and they comments they made, I could tell they sensed that somehow these people were important to them, an aunt, uncle, or grandparent they hadn’t met before. I was actually amazed at how much they valued the stories. To this day, they like to bring them up and ask questions about them.

If you’ve been aching to share your family history with your kids, how do you plan to do it? If you’ve already done it, what tips do you have for the rest of us novices?