Since we are all in quarantine, this is the perfect time to give your children a long and big project, the family tree. Yup as you can tell from the title that is what this article is about.
Why create a family tree with your children? Well it gives a sense of history, teaches research, teaches geography as you will be looking at maps and you might even connect to distant relatives. We certainly have.
Now I may have been lucky as my cousin Josh, aunt Jane and Great Aunt Fran had done most of the work on my mother and grandmother’s side of the family but thankfully they have given me access to all of the information and shown me how to go about it. Here are the websites I use to research and build my tree:
Find My Past – For English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh history
JewishGen– Jewish ancestry records
Fold 3 – military records from Revolutionary war to the present
There are more sites out there based on region and what you are specifically searching for. I will write posts based on that but this is to get you started.
Now there are a few different ways to organize your tree, you can do it by hand on paper or use an app. Personally I like using ancestry and family search to keep my tree organized. You can save an print as needed
Now that you have a good list of resources, where do you actually begin? Start with yourself and immediate family. Your name, location and birthday plus year you were born. Add your parents and any siblings that you have with the same info. Slowly work your way backwards. Interview living relatives by phone, Skype/zoom or email before using the websites I provided to fill in information. For tutorials on how to work the websites and create your family tree (and more) please check us out on Pinterest (search allyneznamy) and YouTube