Our BIG list of Family History Activities

There are so many ways to celebrate and learn about your family history.  Try some of these with your family!

• Visit a cemetery where one of your ancestors is buried.  Pack a picnic and bring along stories about them to read while you're there. Make a treasure hunt out of locating your ancestor's grave.  Do a service while you're there ... tag some headstones with your phone for Billiongraves.com.
• Celebrate your ancestor's birthday by throwing a birthday party!  Eat cake (or some recipe they passed down to you), wear party hats (or period-clothes from their era), and give them a present by posting photos of them on your online family tree.
• Tour your ancestor's home town.  Is the house they lived in still there?  Visit special historical places in the area and try to guess what life was like when your ancestor lived there. 
• Scan and upload photos of your ancestors.  Moms, dads, grandparents, aunts & uncles sometimes have awesome photos that need to be digitized.  Take it upon yourself to help them preserve those memories for your entire family to enjoy!  You'll need a portable scanner & laptop to take to their house ... unless you're lucky enough to borrow the photos!
• Create ancestor art work!  Like to draw, color, create?  Make some representation of your ancestor's life.  Share your pictures/sculptures/artwork with your family.
• Index!  You may not find your ancestor in the records you index, but you'll be doing a great service for the genealogy community.  And it's fun!  Someone else's indexing may help you to find your ancestor, too.  Just find a website that uses volunteer indexers and sign up!  Our favorite is FamilySearch.org.
• Make a video documentary about your ancestor.  Share it with all your cousins on youtube or invite them over to eat popcorn and watch it. 
• Design a pedigree poster.  This would be an awesome school project, scout project, or family night display.  You can make a pedigree chart with names and/or photos.  Decorate it with leaves to make it look like a family "tree".
• Reenact a story from your ancestor's life.  If he was a store clerk, play store!  If she was a pioneer, take a long walk!  If they were farmers, organize your stuffed animals and plant some seeds in the garden!  Find a way to play that will remind you of their lives.
• Try an old family recipe.  The best recipes get handed down from generation to generation (either because they taste awesome, or because it's a fun family tradition).  We still draw faces on our hard-boiled "humpty dumpty" eggs and drop them on the floor to crack ... because that's what great-grandma did for fun.
• Go on a Google Earth vacation to see your ancestral homeland!  Some people can afford to get there themselves, but you don't have to!  Just sit down at the computer and walk the streets of the distant towns your ancestors lived in.

MORE ACTIVITY IDEAS COMING SOON!