Years ago, when I was a Family History Consultant, I compiled this list of ideas. Because there are so many of them (101), I will divide them up into fourths and take the rest of the week to post them. Feel free to share them, but please find something that interests you. The most important thing I learned, during this calling, was that researching isn’t everything. There is something that everyone can do. The MOST important thing is to come to know, and love, our ancestors.
101 FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT IDEAS
We can all remember when Nephi was commanded to go back and get the plates from Laban. These plates were “a record of the Jews and the genealogy of [Lehi’s] forefathers.” The brothers murmured, saying “it is a hard thing” which Nephi had required of them. “But behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord…for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Ne. 3:5,7).
We have to ask ourselves–Why did the Lord want Nephi to go all the way back to Jerusalem to get those plates? After all, someone else had already done all the work and recorded it, right? The commandment must be that all of us must come to know our ancestors personally and learn what they have to teach us, in order for us to stay on the path and live the gospel as we should. But, here’s the rub. As we learn about them, we begin to love them. And when we love them, we want to save them. Thus, finding all of our ancestors becomes the driving force within all of us as we share those eternal covenant blessings with our entire family.
Following are 101 ideas that are bound to tickle anyone’s Family History bone in one way or another.
First 25 ideas:
1. Create a FamilySearch.org account and bridge the living in your immediate family to your dead relatives building your pedigree chart in the largest family pedigree chart in the world. This video will show you how.
2. Write your own life history.
3. Gather information on extended family life histories through research and interviews. Write these life histories and share them with family.
4. Take your family to the nearest Family History Center and take a tour. Some have activities for children. Those in foreign countries can help you find specific, hard-to-find records in that particular area, to begin your research.
5. Scan your family photos and documents at your local Family History Center. Be sure to use the highest dpi. Then upload them into Memories at FamilySearch.
6. Create a scrapbook, photo album or book of remembrance of family and family memories.
7. Learn to create a media scrapbook on the computer.
8. Input life histories into FamilySearch, that have already been written, so they can be easily shared with other family members.
9. Check for names that haven’t been submitted to the temple yet. Look for the green temples.
10. Research and add new family names to your family tree on Family Search making names available so others can find green temples.
11. Contact family members to find out where your family stands in the work. Offer to research a family line or do a part of the work that interests you.
12. Organize your family by creating a family organization.
13. Publish a book on your family (with pedigrees and family stories) and donate it to the Family History Library.
14. Sign up for free through FamilySearch all the partners, such as Ancestry, and many other companies and apps that help you with your family history.
15. Have a family reunion inviting newly discovered family relations.
16. Sort through, label, frame and make copies of very old family pictures.
17. Discover the “skeleton in your closet.”
18. Use my Personal History Workshop to write your own personal history in a fun way, or be brave and volunteer to teach a class.
19. Discover, research and write a history of your ancestral home.
20. Gather stories of your family members and record them using the FamilySearch–Memories app.
21. Share temple cards with family to get the work done faster.
22. Keep a journal about your children. (Funny things they say, do, and experience. Memories you never want to forget.)
23. Volunteer to serve a mission in your ancestral country or at the Family History Library.
24. Connect with a distant cousin and compare pedigrees. (This is easy to do on Ancestry.com.)
25. Visit family cemeteries and make tombstone rubbings or take pictures.
My mother-in-law was the first person in her family to join the church. She immediately got started doing her genealogy writing letters, gathering information, etc. After a while, it was dropped and left disorganized. I decided I was going to take on the challenge of organizing all that she had started. I was completely shocked to discover that many of the names had already had their work done. (It helps that 3 branches ran into Royalty, where most of those lines were completed by the temple long ago.) So it became a matter for me to organize the material available and collect ordinance dates, and put them all in one place. I used a computer program, as well as a hard copy file system. (It gives me security to know I have everything on paper, in my file–and not just on a computer.) I have loved getting to know these people. They may be my husband’s ancestors, but they are MY family now.
Once while traveling through Connecticut, I insisted we stop at a cemetery that I knew two of my husband’s ancestors were buried in. As we began searching for these graves, I noticed familiar family names, from group sheets, all over the cemetery. Little did I realize so much family was buried here! I felt as if I had gotten a glimpse of what entering heaven will be like as I am greeted by our family. It is easily one of my most cherished memories.
Continue to Part II here