Creating a family tree has many advantages. Like solving a mystery or completing a puzzle, it provides answers as well as giving a picture of your family and who they are.

Preparing a family tree can be a family project. It can be as simple as tracing your extended family for two or three generations, or as involved as going back hundreds of years.

Why build a family tree?

  • For fun. Get your children excited about the project and help them enjoy it. Imagine that you are a reporter. With a pencil and paper or a cassette recorder, have fun talking to your relatives. Imagine that you are an explorer, searching through family Bibles, journals, old letters and photos. You can create your tree on paper, film and audio. You can make a mobile. You can create a collage or a scrapbook using traditional paper and pencil or digital technologies.
  • For health. Another good reason for knowing your family tree is to chart the health history. Doctors can better understand your health by knowing what kind of diseases or risks are in your family. As your children grow, you may be better prepared for future ailments and they will be prepared by knowing their background.
  • For Learning. Children can gain valuable learning skills while having fun with their family history. These include:
Research skills
Learning to ask the right questions
Understanding ranking order'(who came first, Great Aunt Josephine or Cousin Harold?)
Organization skills (grouping everyone's name by family, generation, relationships, putting thoughts on paper, etc.)
Practicing their English and writing skills
How things change and history (family names, the way people lived and dressed, the things they had, politics, travel, etc.)
Math skills (subtracting birth and death dates)
Sorting (putting the information into the right genealogical lines and families, sorting by same last name, same grandparent and same parent)
Understanding chronological order
For younger kids: letters and numbers
For older kids: graphing or mapping skills
Learning about multiple ethnic backgrounds and new culture
  • For family knowledge. Do it to understand who you are and where your family has come from. Do you know the truth behind the stories your family has told about their ancestors? Do you have a hidden celebrity, hero, or notorious person hiding in the branches of your family tree? These are the stories that your children will love to hear and to retell.

 Getting Started

Children of many age levels can begin basic family trees. As you explain what a family tree or family history is to your child, even a child of 4 or 5 can get excited about interviewing grandparents. Sit down with them and think of some fun and interesting questions to ask, give them a tape recorder, and see what happens.

Early elementary children can begin using their writing skills to make simple trees with their immediate family and grandparents names and when they were born.

As the child's abilities grow, additional skills learned in school and at home can be included in creating a more extensive family history.

Begin with your immediate family. Write down all you know about your immediate family, then they can go back through their grandparents, their aunts and uncles and their families, grandparents, their siblings, and so on.

As they interview family members, keep records of who told each piece of information. Ask to photocopy any documents and make copies of photographs.

Perhaps you want to combine video and written interviews to make both a booklet and a visual record. Later, family members can chip in for copies.

Visit the library if you want to dig deeper. Most libraries have genealogy departments or at least a way to help you begin a more extensive search. Also check the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C. 20540).

The internet offers ways to expand your search. An excellent source is Ancestry.com. It includes access to over 3,000 databases and all of the U.S. Federal Census Images. There are also charts and forms available for downloading to help record your family information.

Whenever possible, include dates and locations of births and deaths.

Helpful magazines and their Web sites:

Family Tree Magazine

Family Chronicle Magazine

Building a family record, a tree or a forest can be an exciting project for everyone in the family and a legacy that can be passed on to your children's children.

 

Kathryn Lay is a freelance writer.