welcome back to the ancestral findings podcast if you want to get your kids or grandkids interested
in genealogy a great way to do it is to come up with fun genealogy activities for them
doing genealogy in a fun way when they are young can build up an interest in it for
them when they are older one fun activity you can do with the kids is to make a
jigsaw puzzle out of an old family photo this is the best way to do it
if you love genealogy it is only natural that you would love it if your children or grandchildren
were interested in it too after all who is going to take your research into the future
add to it and share it with new generations who are you going to leave all of your research to
with the sure knowledge they will protect and love it as much as you do who can you talk about the
family history with in your own living family your children and grandchildren are the most
obvious answers one of the best ways to get kids interested in genealogy is to involve them in fun
genealogy projects there are several that most kids will love one that you might want to try is
to take an old family photo of ancestors that the kids don't know and turn it into a jigsaw puzzle
you can turn photos into jigsaw puzzles on a number of print on-demand websites and it's
pretty cheap to do putting the puzzle together can be a terrific activity that you and the kids can
do together over the course of one or several days it makes for wonderful quality time with the kids
while putting the puzzle together you can take the opportunity to tell the kids about their ancestor
or ancestors in the photo make the stories as interesting as possible and encourage your
kids to ask questions if you ask them what they want to know about the person or people
they are more likely to ask their own questions and this opens up a delightful genealogical
dialogue with the kids once the puzzle is put together you can compare it to the original
photo it was created from and even show the kids other photos of that same ancestor or
ancestors they will probably be interested in seeing them at that point and it provides
you a great opportunity to tell them even more kid-friendly stories about the family history
to keep the kids as interested in the photo as possible
it is best to choose a photo to make into a puzzle that the kids have some tangible connection to
as an example you can choose a picture of their parents when they were children along with their
parents parents and or grandparents you could also choose a picture of the child or children
who will be doing the photo with you being held or standing near a relative who is now gone who
they may barely remember or not remember at all this way the child feels a better connection to
the photo and will be more excited about putting it together with you if you want the kids to keep
that connection to the photo and the people in it as well as remind them of the fun time they
had with you putting together the puzzle you can have the puzzle framed and hung on the kids
bedroom wall or some other place in the house that they spend a lot of time in they can look
at this puzzle with pride and it can well be the jumping off point for an interest in genealogy for
them thanks for listening to ancestral findings podcast be sure to visit ancestralfindings.com
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i hope you have a wonderful day and happy searching