How To Get Kids to Fill in Family Genealogy Trees?

How to fill in family genealogy trees in for ancestor detectives - Kids! If you want to interest your children in genealogy, rather than trying to convince them to spend their time looking for dead relatives, encourage them to be Ancestor Detectives. Kids love a mystery, and once you fascinate them with the intricacies of becoming a genealogy gumshoe, they’ll forget all about their previous indifference to family history.

Making genealogy fun is really not difficult at all. Depending on the actual ages of your children and the different generational distractions available to them, the basis for a good time to be had by all is already there. Besides the multitude of analogical twists one can apply, there is genuine detective work and treasure hunting aplenty.

The historical aspect in itself is interesting and can be entertaining as well. Rather than merely searching for nineteenth century documentation, look to experience the character of the age. Introduce historical events; watch a movie that takes place in or around the time or place that you’re investigating. If they’re at an age where reading them a good story would be more appropriate, do so. They can imagine their ancestor in such a place or situation. This sort of imaginative approach to introducing you children to genealogy will benefit not just them, but you also; and perhaps future generations of genealogists.

PEDIGREE CHARTS: Free Printable Pedigree Charts
5 WAYS TO GET KIDS INTERESTED IN GENEALOGY: Kid’s Genealogy Ideas

The perfect way to introduce genealogy to your kids is to begin by filling in a family genealogy tree. Use the Free Kids Family Tree Fan Chart we have available for download. It’s designed specifically for this purpose. The four generation family genealogy tree for kids will allow them to record their lineage back to their great grandparents, so there will be some interesting research involved.

Begin though by sitting down as a family and writing down what everybody knows about their ancestors. If you’re children didn’t already know, they’ll be delighted to find out that your birthday or that of your parents or grandparents is close to or the same as theirs! Go around the table asking everyone, including yourself, and jotting down all the information you have uncovered.

Once you’re satisfied that you’ve garnered as much info as possible it’s time to write it into the family genealogy tree fan chart. You can include all of the children together as the "seed" relative for this family tree. After they have learned the basics, encourage them to develop their own. Write down all of the children’s names, followed by their birthdates and places in the first section. Once that is completed fill the remaining information you have available into the appropriate sections for it. Now that all of the data you had is entered, show your children where the holes are in your family genealogy tree. This is where the detective work begins.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to make genealogy fun, because it really already is. You simply need to highlight the fun aspects of it in order for children to appreciate what it really involves. Some valuable lessons can be learned from genealogy also. Helping your children to fill in a four generation family genealogy tree template will help you to bond and bridge the generational gap between you. They will learn organizational skills and develop powers of reasoning and deduction. And you never know, you might just raise a world famous genealogist!