Young Genealogists

[Siely]

My FH is a real struggle to research. How vitally important it is for grandparents to tell their family as much as they can. 

Encouraging young genealogists is something we can all do, maybe appreciating the importance of genealogy should be part of the citizenship curriculum at school ? 

[Tickettyboo]

Way back I did a 'family tree' pic for each of our grandchildren when they were just babes.
Very basic it was a laminated image showing them, their parents, Grandparents, Great Grandparents with photos and their dates.
These stayed in their toybox and, now and then (as they learned to talk), questions were asked about what these people did and where they lived etc.
Now they are older (early teens) they look at the expanded (by many generations) tree and ask yet more questions.
The seeds have been sown, the back up images of documents etc are archived for them.

Its up to them if they continue, but Granny has given them documented evidence of what she knows about their ancestors.
Best I can do :-)

Boo

[Siely]

It is priceless when parents / grandparents do things like that, it saves hundreds of stressful.frustrating and upsetting hours later on.

Opinions vary but I would say that a child knowing his/ her 8 great grandparents with full event date/location details is a good standard of knowledge.

[Nick_Ips]

...
Encouraging young genealogists is something we can all do, maybe appreciating the importance of genealogy should be part of the citizenship curriculum at school ?

...Opinions vary but I would say that a child knowing his/ her 8 great grandparents with full event date/location details is a good standard of knowledge.

Although many of us would sympathise with this point of view, I think you might struggle to get it accepted on a wider basis.

There is so much that children today are expected to learn in the few years they are at school the idea of adding genealogy as anything more than a passing reference in a single lesson would be a hard sell (I think money and personal finances would score much higher on the 'what kids need to learn' scale)

There's also the ticklish issue of many children not knowing who one of their parents is, let alone all 8 ggparents. (I'd fail, as one of my 8 is always going to be an 'unknown')

I'd also think twice about making something compulsory because making children research their family history might put them off for life - in the same way you hear people (proudly) saying they have no interest in maths, geography, religion, or history because they hated it at school.

I think it is something better left largely as a hobby people come to of their own accord, with just small nudges in that direction from parents and grandparents.

[Andrew Tarr]

My FH is a real struggle to research. How vitally important it is for grandparents to tell their family as much as they can. 

Encouraging young genealogists is something we can all do, maybe appreciating the importance of genealogy should be part of the citizenship curriculum at school ?

I agree with your first sentence (with qualification), but not the second.  Family history is about family, and should stay there.  Youngsters should learn how to discover or research various things, as part of science.

The qualification is that spoken information can be misquoted, or misinterpreted by young ears, ending up as 'Chinese whispers' but nevertheless regarded as gospel.  My gt-grandfather allegedly died after a rescue by an Anglesey lifeboat in 1877, while one of my wife's gt-uncles had been butler to the Duke of Northumberland.  Recent use of the internet has shown that the death was by typhoid six months after the lifeboat rescue (he had been marooned by rising tide), while the 'butler' had been footman or valet to the duke's younger brother.

[MollyC]

Are mothers usually better at talking about family?  I remember a conversation with mine when I was about 12-13.  I sketched out a small tree of her family on paper - and I still have that!  The rest came decades later.  When I was about 25 my father mentioned by-the-way that his grandmother had been brought up at a certain farm - which opened up whole new horizon when I got around to investigating it.

[susieroe]

I remember quite a few years ago children researching their family trees as a school project. their teacher would bring them to the Records Office, show them the Parish Registers and Census. The Archivist would give them a short talk. Some you could see were interested, others looked bored.
My friend's daughter had to do hers, but it was actually her Mum who took it up as a lasting hobby.

[Siely]

I think it comes under life skills not an academic subject. Many of us have been saying for decades that the number of school academic subjects could reduce and life skills training could increase for the majority of pupils and they would greatly benefit from it.

[Nick_Ips]

I think it comes under life skills not an academic subject. Many of us have been saying for decades that the number of school academic subjects could reduce and life skills training could increase for the majority of pupils and they would greatly benefit from it.

That was understood - the point was there are so many 'life skills' that currently don't get taught that making a list of everything which ought to be added would put 'family history' a fair way down the list.

The reason people have been suggesting changes for decades with nothing much changing is because adding something in means taking something away... and it isn't easy deciding what to take away because there will be knock-on effects.

My friend's children had an introduction to the topic of family history in primary school via history classes finding out about someone in your family who died (or was involved) in the First World War - with the option of making it someone who had lived in your street or neighbourhood for those who didn't have family connections.  I reckon that is about as far as anyone can reasonably expect genealogy to be embedded into the general education curriculum.