Holidays and Genealogy

 

The holidays are upon us. We could discuss family traditions, family history gifts or traditional holiday recipes. Here are some ideas:

1.     Gather questions for the Thanksgiving dinner table: Who was the oldest relative you met? What’s a favorite Thanksgiving memory you have?

2.     Write a Christmas/holiday letter and include a family history story or game. Does your family like word searches or crossword puzzles? Is there a great story to tell?

3.     Gather all the information for a family recognitions certificate. Nebraska has three to choose from, and yes, other states have them, too, but we won’t talk about that.

4.     Gather some favorite family recipes. Make a book, put them all on a blog, or have a party and make all the food. Make sure to include photos in the book or blog.

5.     Collect family photos and share them. Scan them and give to family on CD or thumb drive. Put them on a Facebook group or in a blog. Make them into a book or scrapbook. Create Christmas ornaments from the photos. Make a wreath from the photos.

6.     Watch a genealogy show together. My “top 5” include: Relative Race (byutv.org), Finding Your Roots, Roots Less Traveled (Formerly called A New Leaf), Who Do You Think You Are? (new season in UK, check YouTube) and The Genetic Detective.

7.     Discover a new-to-you website. Some options below:

NEW (OR LESSER KNOWN) GENEALOGY WEBSITES

A.     www.trackuback.com This is based out of Sweden but anyone can join. They have a free level and a paid level. You get 5 things with the free level: family tree, geography window, timeline, tools for editing, and managing your images. You get 10 additional things for the paid level. Subscription rate looks to be $90 a year.

B.     www.davidrumsey.com A historical map collection with over 90,000 maps.

C.     www.genteam.org Indexed records of the German-speaking area, with over 18 million entries. Some of the website is in German, so you may want to translate.