Fun Family History Activities for Tweens and Teens at Home
by Shenley Puterbaugh
TWEENS AND TEENS ARE DEFINITELY NOT MEANT TO DO SOCIAL DISTANCING! Since they are at home and getting antsy, we are providing you with 2 INCREDIBLE RESOURCES that will provide TONS OF EXCITING ACTIVITIES to do on a computer, tablet or phone that will give them HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT. When you combine these two resources, you have the jackpot of exciting family history activities! And best of all, these are family history activities that can be done individually, with siblings, or as a family.
Begin by getting them signed up with their own FREE account on FamilySearch. Next they will need to create a basic family tree. The more information they put onto their tree, the more fun the activities will be. Once their family tree is created go to the BYU Family History Technology Lab. Once you choose one of the following activities, login with your FamilySearch account and the information from your tree will be used to generate these games!
BYU FAMILY HISTORY TECHNOLOGY LAB
WHEEL OF FAMILY FORTUNE
This is a Wheel of Fortune game staring your family. Select the number of players, and start spinning the wheel to see if you can identify that ancestor first.
ANCESTOR GAMES
Crosswords, Word Search, Matching, Word Scramble, Coloring Sheets All of these games are created with names or photos of your ancestors! The coloring sheets are especially amazing because they can turn your picture, a family member or an ancestor’s photo into a coloring sheet!
RELATIVE FINDER
See how you are related to astronauts, authors and poets, constitution signers, entertainers, European royalty, famous Americans, movie stars, sports figures, US presidents, inventors, prominent business leaders, Mayflower passengers, etc. Tweens and teens will love discovering who they are related to and will have something exciting to share with their friends!
GENEOPARDY
A fun Jeopardy game turned Geneopardy. Questions are formulated using information from your family tree. Select the number of teams and how many generations back you want to include in the game. And voila, your family has a personalized Geneopardy game.
FAMILY CALENDAR
A calendar of your family and ancestors is automatically generated. Choose to include 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 generations. You can choose one or all of the following dates to include on the calendar: births, deaths, marriages, etc. You can even export the calendar and save it.
PEDIGREE PIE
See your family tree in an easy-to-read chart that shows your international heritage. The chart has a color code based on what country your ancestors lived and tells you what percent of your ancestors are from each country!
The FamilyTree App also syncs with FamilySearch. Here is what it has to offer:
2. FAMILYTREE APP
MAP MY ANCESTORS
See a map of the world dotted with locations where events took place in your ancestors life! Click on the dots and see which ancestor was their and what took place. This may inspire them to want to plan future trips to those locations.
UPLOAD PHOTOS
Do you have boxes of new or old photos that they can make digital? Have them scan or take pictures of old photos or upload newer photos to the individual profiles of living or deceased relatives.
AUDIO RECORD MEMORIES
When a photo is uploaded to a profile, audio record a memory to go with that photo. This can be done for photos of themselves or photos of living relatives or ancestors. They can tell the what was happening in the photo in their own words and it will be preserved. (Recordings and photos for living people are kept private and whoever uploads or records will only see them on their own account.)
RESEARCH
Expand your family tree by searching for ancestors in digitized records. Attach the sources to the profile of the ancestor. When researching, be sure that it is really YOUR ancestor in the document, before adding them to your tree.
We hope you enjoy these resources and have a great time getting your tweens and teens inspired to love family history!