Sharing your History
Passing on our family history is important so children have a sense of history, family and belonging.
My mother has always been interested in genealogy and I grew up knowing my roots and stories from the past so I was surprised when I asked my husband about his family and they knew very little about their history. Children love stories and why not enrich their lives with stories from their very own family. How can we do that?
Start from the source if possible. Ask questions and document everything. In my family, I have recently asked all moms and dads to answer questions in a book I gave them to fill out. So far I have one, but with a lot more nagging I may get the others. Find out a few interesting things about any ancestors and use this to share stories, make a family book or plot a map with the locations family have lived.
Family Book-Take a picture, scan old ones and write a little bit about each person, who they are, where they lived and how they relate to your child(ren.) Children may appreciate the little things like what pet they had. This can be simple and put in 81/2×11 page protectors for little ones to touch or more elaborate if you are crafty and would like to make as a keepsake.
