Hometown Tour: Family History Travel with Children

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Do you incorporate family history with your family travels? We do, and it is a blast! One of our favorite activities has been taking tours of the cities where our ancestors lived. Children can relate much better to a family member that lived long ago if they can learn about them on location. To learn that great-grandma went to school when she was a little girl by actually visiting the school and holding a picture of great-grandma as a little girl while you are there… now that makes old history seem very real.

Hometown Tour -- Boundless Genealogy

Last year, we prepared for a hometown tour in a unfamiliar city by mapping it out on google maps. We marked every location we knew of from interviewing elderly family members, census records, city directories, and burial records. Then when we got to town, the kids helped us plan a route to take us by several of the locations.

This year we brought the family history timeline even closer by visiting John’s (my husband, my children’s dad) hometown. This is more current family history, but to kids it still seems distant enough; it happened before they were born! Plus, John included a lot of his experiences growing up visiting with his grandparents and great-grandparents, which definitely covers several generations of family history.

Hometown Tour -- Boundless Genealogy

My husband took us past the house where he grew up and showed us all the fields (now with many homes on it) where he used to roam as a child. Our six year old son even expressed jealousy that dad got to enjoy such a free-range childhood. Our tour also included schools, the church, dirt paths he rode on his bike, the cabin where he visited his granny and what that was like, the cemetery where he created a directory for his Eagle Scout project, the Dairy Queen where he worked during high school, and he explained what had changed in the town since he lived there.

Hometown Tour -- Boundless Genealogy

It was quite encouraging to see how much information the kids soaked up as he was sharing with them. They asked lots of questions and were repeating some of the funnier stories back to each other during our long drive home.

What town could you visit to take your family on a tour through their genealogy?

To learn more about family history travel with children see the “Crossroads for Kids” section of the summer issue of Crossroads magazine published by the Utah Genealogical Association. My tween daughter Rebekah and I contributed the articles for this edition.

This post is part of the Family History for Children blog link up for July 2017

Family History Travel with Kids – Blog Link Up July 2017

Cordial genealogy wishes,

Melissa


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6 Comments

  1. Great post and wonderful ideas for helping children learn their heritage. I agree that we often forget that telling about grandparents and great-grandparents is an excellent start for young children!

    • I’m glad you enjoyed the post, David. I have to remind myself often that our living memory of relatives we have known in our lifetime is “ancient history” to our children, and needs to passed down to them.

  2. Your family is such an inspiration. I love how you consciously plan ways to engage your children in your family’s history. The new website is beautiful!

    • Thank you, Diana! We try to make family history part of our lifestyle, and not just an event. Congrats on completing your accreditation! I look forward to seeing you again next week at BYU.

  3. Fantastic article, and thanks again for your contribution this summer to the UGA Crossroads for Kids!

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