Family History Project Does your family history matter?

The task To research your family history and produce a project explaining the process that you went through and the things you have found out.

When? Mostly for Homework This will be the homework task for around 6/7 weeks Each week you will be set a different task in relation to the project You must fill in the homework record sheet each time to show what you do for homework each week. I will check and sign it.

What first? Mind map all you know about your family history at the moment – brothers/sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins etc. Where do they live, what do they do, anything else of interest. It is crucial that you don’t ask any members of your family for help with this first bit – the idea is to have something that demonstrates the level of your knowledge before beginning the project!

Use of technology to help the process As you gather more and more information you may find that simply recording it on paper in the traditional way limits what you can do. I would suggest that if you have easy access to a computer then the use of a family history program would be extremely beneficial.

Which one – there are loads! I have tried out a free one which works well and is quite easy to use. You can download it from: come/pafDownload.asphttp:// come/pafDownload.asp It allows you to add family members, notes and even multimedia files such as movies, pictures and sound files. And it will put it all together into a family tree for you! There is also an add on which costs $6.75 and allows you to print family tree’s in colour etc.

Homework 2 – you don’t need to write the whole thing in – it’s ‘homework 2’ on the sheet. Find more out about your Family History etc by talking to relatives and checking out dates etc. Concentrate on relatives that you may only get to see during the holiday period – Christmas is a time when many people get to see relatives that they rarely meet. Remember to record interesting stories, events etc – either through notes or with an audio recorder.