My granddaughter Mollie found a very intriguing rock the other day. It looked as if someone had tried to make a scoop of it, and then left it still attached. We marveled at it, wondering how it might have been formed. It has been way too easy to pass my curiosity to my grandkids. I now have about 200 pounds of “interesting” rocks.
I mention this because I have fostered this interest in geology without even trying. It is easy to find a rock and make it fascinating to a child. The same thing can be done with genealogy, and it’s much lighter! (Well, not my 17 binders, of course, but a little at a time.)
Weekends, school vacations and holidays are the easiest times to get together with kids. Some forethought can leave you armed with “factoids” to sprinkle about. For kids, keep it short and sweet (like me!) When trying to make those connections, keep in mind that children are naturally self-involved. Use this in preparing. How can you tie-in things for a specific child?
Think about the ages of your grandchildren, and what some ancestors would have been doing at that age. Consider the child’s name, and make a connection. Does your child have an interest in common with someone in the family? Plan time in areas where past families lived or played. Do some children particularly value alone time with you? Take them to a library or historical society where you know something interesting can be found, and then help the child “discover” it. They love very old things.
When we pass Foxcroft Academy the 5-year-old excitedly says “That’s Dad’s school!” Each time, I use the opportunity to point out different facts: many relatives also went there (use names and relationships whenever possible); or mention that the boys used to climb the side of the building to ring the bell after a football victory, or how I used to watch Santa on the front lawn as a child; or how old the school is and that it started downtown.
Passing the police station, I mention that their grandfather was born there when it was a nursing home. The hospital is an obvious opportunity for a century’s worth of stories. (Unfortunately the more gruesome the better) They never tire of the story of the aunt who was injured in the elevator accident at Brown’s Mill. They’re going to love the story of the uncle who moved a man’s house in the middle of the night as a joke.
We pass the site of my mother’s one-room schoolhouse, and they know that “when my mother was your age” kids would bring a potato for lunch and put them in the woodstove used to heat the school, by lunchtime they would be cooked and a little burned. My mother learned to like burned baked potato and would sometimes deliberately burn hers (now I like that, too.) Someday I hope to bring my metal detector and see if we can find an old coat hook or something.
The point is to make it personal and significant to a child. You have a lot of knowledge to share, and someday this will all be theirs. Teach them while they’re young to appreciate family history.
Editor’s note: This regular column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society. The group meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501. Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft, who has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com.
