I wrote these up when coming up with the January Family History Activities sheet… This was the initial draft that just ended up having way too much content for a one-page activity sheet for kids.
So here’s the longer version!
Ten Ways to Do More Family History this Year
- Set the Family Tree app as a prominent icon or widget on the home screen of your phone and open it regularly. Having the app front and center will hopefully be a regular reminder to spend some time on it!
- Make sure notifications are turned on for the Family Tree app so you can get alerts for temple work and discoveries that you may not have otherwise received!
- Go through the Family Tree app and “follow” any relatives you knew personally. This will create a notification anytime anyone adds or changes information related to that relative.
- On the Family Tree app, look at your contributions from last year and make a goal to beat that number this year. If you only did 10, maybe shoot for 20. If you did 100, maybe shoot for 1,000! Remember contributions count as anytime you do a task, add memories, or create a person on your family tree.
- Before you get on social media, make a goal to dedicate just a couple of minutes to family history. You can knock out a few tasks, add a memory to a relative, or maybe just read a story about an ancestor.
- Every Sunday, make a goal to enter at least one family memory for a relative. You’ll be surprised at how many great stories have yet to be written down. How did your grandparents meet and fall in love? What hobbies did your parents enjoy as kids? The list is endless. Just ask a parent or grandparent to tell you a story from their childhood and write down what you learn.
- Digitize! So much of our family memories are stored on paper documents shoved in the corner of a closet at your grandmother’s house… Don’t let them rot away! They need to be digitized! This can be a large project if you’re doing it yourself, but it’s worth it. Scan documents, pictures, and maybe convert audio and video recordings into digital media. If you have the budget, maybe use a service like LegacyBox.com to simplify things!
- Regularly attempt to teach your family members how to do family history work! Anyone 8 years old and older can have an account on FamilySearch.org. Help them get logged in so they too can experience the joy of family history work!
- Make a goal to attend the temple regularly this year! If you’re an adult, go often! Maybe once a month or once a week if you can do it! If you’re a youth, help plan a regular temple trip for your family or ward. And if you’re still in primary, make sure to share names to the temple on the Family Tree app so others can do the temple work for you!
- Get inspired to include temple work and family history in your regular routine by reading the talk by Elder Dale G. Renlund titled “Family History and Temple Work: Sealing and Healing.”
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