Involving Family and Local History
1. Organize a Family History or Genealogy Club in your school. Your local Family History Center can provide you with forms and information to help you get started.
2. Clean and fix up a neglected cemetery and transcribe inscriptions on the stones.
3. Talk to your LDS stake record extraction coordinator about the possibility of performing a long or short-term record extraction assignment. LDS church record extraction projects benefit family history researchers worldwide. Contact your local Family History Center to find out the name of the extraction coordinator.
4. Contact your local genealogical society, historical society or public library about the possibility of helping with any record extraction or indexing projects they have available.
5. Organize and direct your scout group in visiting a senior citizen center. Interview the residents and with the information you gather, compile a life history for each resident interviewed.
Or
With each resident’s permission, compile the histories into one volume and present it to your local public library, genealogical society or historical society.
Or
Interview the residents, asking them questions specific to their memories of your community. Compile their memories into one volume and present it to your local public library, community historic preservation director, genealogical society or historical society.
6. Organize and direct a special fundraiser to benefit your local genealogical or historical society.
7. Organize and direct a family history fair for your community.
8. Many cemeteries still keep their records on file cards in file cabinets. Contact a local cemetery with a sexton’s office. Inquire about the status of the cemetery’s records. If they are not yet stored on a computer database, offer to take on the job. Work with the sexton to design and create the database.
9. Contact your community’s historic preservation director. Volunteer your time or your group’s time to clean or fix up a community historic site.
10. Years of genealogical research are often donated to Family History Centers because relatives do not know what else to do with it after the researcher has died. Contact your Family History Center to see if they have any collections of donated research that you can organize and prepare for microfilming.
11. On the Internet, explore www.usgenweb.com or www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/ The sites list opportunities to participate in record transcription and cemetery transcription projects. Find a project you might be interested in and contact the project coordinator.
12. Measure, grid and map out a local cemetery. Note the location of graves. Build and erect a locator map in the cemetery or post your map on the Internet.
13. Build a hanging or freestanding rack for your local genealogical society or family history center on which they can display pamphlets, brochures and handouts.
14. Design and create an Internet web site for your local genealogical or historical society.
15. Learn how to scan and digitize vintage photographs. Learn to digitally “repair” the images of photographs that are ripped, torn or faded. Teach the skills you have learned to other scouts. Offer your group’s services at a special event held at a senior citizen’s center. Provide each senior with a disk containing the images you have preserved digitally.
16. Learn to use a genealogy software program such as PAF (available for free download or inexpensive CD purchase at www.familysearch.org). Raise funds to purchase copies of the program to donate to local senior centers. Volunteer your time to help seniors learn the program to enter their genealogical information into the program.
17. Help make it easier for yourself and others to locate vital records by participating in the FamilySearch Indexing project. Help your entire scout troop sign up as indexing volunteers and set a group goal to index an agreed upon number of names.
Visit "101+ Fun Family History Activities for Kids" at: www.oocities.org/genealogy4kids/genealogy4kids.html
For LDS Young Women Value Project Ideas, visit: www.oocities.org/genealogy4kids/yw.html
Copyright 2002 Linda Mahood Morgan
I welcome new ideas and comments via email: genealogy4kids@yahoo.com