Create a genealogy quiz for your next family reunion with Google Slides in 5 easy steps!
1. Start Your Quiz Design
- Begin a new, blank slideshow in Google Slides.
- Add a meaningful background image to the slide. In this example, I added an image of the little valley where the ancestral family settled. You could choose a photo of the ancestral family, or the ancestral home as well.
- Expand the photo to fill the whole slide and then in the image options, slide the transparency bar until the image becomes a light background.
- Add a question number in the corner.
- Duplicate this base slide for each question you add to your quiz: Right Click on Slide Thumbnail -> Duplicate Slide
2. Create Your Questions
- Limit your quiz to 10-20 questions to keep it short and interesting.
- Begin with questions about a generation that some folks at the family reunion would have known in person.
- Then work your way back up the tree as the questions progress.
- Ask questions about names, dates, places, occupations, family relationships.
- Give multiple answer choices.
- Include photos when possible.
3. Add Your Answer Slides
- Duplicate each question slide and change the number to say “Answer 1”, etc.
- Change the question to the answer.
- Add a little history lesson or a short story to go along with the answer. This way, your relatives learn a bit of extra info about their ancestry when they check their score.
4. Remember the Answer Sheets and Pencils!
- Your family members will need a way to record their answers and see how they did on the quiz, so make sure to bring answer sheets and pencils to the reunion.
- I have included a 20 question answer sheet here for download.
5. Share the Quiz
How to Share the Quiz at Your Low-Tech Reunion
- Size your slides for printing. This setting is found under File -> Page Setup. It is best to choose your printing size, and set your page size when starting the quiz design.
- Set size to 11″ width, 8.5″ height for printing on standard paper
- Set size to 10″ width, 8″ height for printing on photo paper
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- Download each slide as a .jpg file to send to the printer or photo center: File -> Download As -> JPEG Image
- OR Send slides directly to your home printer.
- Protect printed slides with clear page protectors.
- Bring tape to hang the quiz at the reunion.
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How to Share the Quiz at Your High-Tech Reunion
A. Embed on a family website: File -> Publish to the Web -> Embed -> Copy the generated code to your webpage. Have the website with the embedded quiz loaded on one or more computers at the reunion.
B. OR Chromecast to a large screen and present it as a live slideshow: Present -> Present on Another Screen
At our family reunion this summer, relatives young and old enjoyed the quiz, and it really got the conversation flowing. Try a quiz at your next reunion!
Cordial Genealogy Wishes,
Melissa
I love this too! I was planning to put together a jeopardy style game for a reunion a few years ago, but time got away from me and I had to downsize my plan. I still think that would be a fun reunion game.
A jeopardy game would be really fun, and would definitely capture the attention of competitive family members. At our reunion, we had more activities than we had time to do, since we shared stomach flu and were down for half the week!