Family history draws you in. Even those not doing the research still pause out of curiosity when told “you have your grandmother’s eyes” or “you are good at woodworking as your great grandfather was”.
- Why we explore our family history
- Why include grandchildren in our family history search
- 7 ways to spark your grandchild’s interest in your family history
Why we explore our family history
The reasons we explore our history is as varied as we are as individuals. Participants in various surveys, polls and forums said they wanted to:
- know their heritage and where they came from;
- know where their past became their present;
- ensure their kids, grandkids and all generations to know where their family came from and to be proud of all of them; and
- pass down some family information to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Familyhistorydaily.com agrees with them summarizing it into four main reasons:
· To honour those before us
· To preserve our family story for those who will come after
· To understand ourselves better
· To bring family together to share history
To that, I would add to understand inherited family health. As the Mayo Clinic points out that we inherit half of your genetic profile from each parent. Those genes determine our appearance and they may also increase our risk of certain medical conditions. A family medical history can reveal the history of disease in your family and help identify patterns that might be relevant to your own health.
As a Canadian grandparent, my interest in our family history is a curiosity sparked by family stories and photos, documents and letters. They are a peek into our family past albeit a snippet, almost like a teaser.
Browsing through them, I wonder who these people were and why was it so important that we kept the photo all these years. I want to share the photos with my grandchildren so they can understand the bravery, leadership and talents that are inherent in our family and where theirs comes from. But it was when I read about a study done in the early 1990s that made me want to actually include my grandchildren in the research/ development of our family history.
Why include grandchildren in our family history search
Dr. Marshal Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush, two researchers from Emory University explored the theory that children who know about their family do better when faced with challenges. To do so, they developed a series of Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions including: Do you know where your grandparents grew up?; Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school?; Do you know where your parents met?; Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family?; and Do you know the story of your birth?
Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001 and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed in their families.
They further tested their theory after 9-11 when they interviewed the same children again to determine how they reacted to such a traumatic national tragedy. They found again that the children who knew about their family showed more resilience. They concluded it is the family history and family narrative that supports a child’s development.
7 ways to spark your grandchild’s interest in your family history
Tips from the experts like ancestory.com and familytreemagazine.com.
Keep a journal
Help grandchildren understand they are part of the family history by encouraging them to keep a journal of the important things in their lives. To help them get started or keep at it, offer questions or topics to discuss e.g. what do you remember most about the family vacation or camping overnight in your friend’s backyard. Give them a journal to keep their stories. Show them how their story fits in with the family history and draw out similarities between them and an ancestor e.g. a grandchild likes to build and an ancestor was a carpenter.
Drawing and colouring
Drawing and colouring is an activity that starts very early in their development. Encourage them to draw a picture of something they did or liked or of a person special to them e.g. draw a picture of a family birthday party or a time at the cottage. Watch for pictures/ photos of the same type of activity in the family history and show them what they liked was important to others in the family.
Family story books
Recording family history does not have to be a chronological timeline. It can be a series of interests that ancestors shared with us ora family recipe book captures shared culinary interests. Be sure to try the family recipes found and enjoy what they enjoyed. A family vacation book showcasing the vacations ancestors took and the ones the grandchildren are enjoying now. While they may not go to the same places, emphasize the family aspect like they all travelled together or they traveled by car as they did or they all liked swimming when on vacation.
Talk to relatives
Encourage grandchildren to talk to relatives. It helps them be part of the family history project and it helps them learn to talk to older adults. They become comfortable with the interactions learning compassion, acceptance that helps prevent ageism.
There are so many questions you will want to consider asking relatives to get the conversation started. Questions can be about where the person grew up; who their friends were; what they did with friends; what school was like, what music they listened to and the games they played; what hobbies they had; what their brothers, sisters and parents were like; and, what activities they did as a family or where they travelled.
Consider how you want to record the conversations. A voice recording or a video or simply writing down the answers. This is a good opportunity to let the grandchildren lead the way with technology.
Tell your own story
Be open and honest about your story. What is it you want them to remember and appreciate about the family? Keep the story to the point – don’t ramble. Share your lived experience using old appliances from your youth. Ellen Degeneres challenged a millennial to folding a map, using a phone book and dialling a phone. She challenged another to using a boom box, a typewriter and a 35 mm camera. Show your grandchildren how you used these and have some fun as they try. Start with a rotary phone.
Share photos and family heirlooms
A picture paints a thousand words. Encourage the grandchild to help sort photos and help dig through old boxes. They will delight in what they find which encourages conversation. Ask them about it and see how they are seeing things passed down from generation to generation. Recognize what is similar and passed along. Look for similarities in grandchildren and with the ancestors. My cousin saw a video of her father walking with his family. She noticed that her son walks with the same gait as her Dad, his grandfather.
Explore together
Plan a “roots” trip taking you back to where your ancestors lived. Another exploration is to visit an historic attraction to see how ancestors lived “back in the day”. There are heritage sites across Canada. If ancestors come from another country, see what heritage/ historical sites are in the area where they lived. Encourage them to use old technology to understand their ancestors lives. Start with Google maps.
“Five hundred and fifty generations have lived here. Only the stories we tell each other will create us as a true Canadian people.”
Rudy Wiebe Professor emeritus, University of Alberta
Two time winner of the Governor General Award for Fiction
Have some fun with your grandchildren. This alone will create a shared experience that will last a lifetime.