Family History Fun over Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all time. I love the smells, the foods, the pies, the gathering of friends and family, the pies, the rest from cooking for the remainder of the weekend because there are so many leftovers, the pies, and the opportunity to express thanks. I don't eat pie any other time of year except Thanksgiving. This year we had 14. Abby makes coconut cream which was the favorite this year, Ella makes apple and pecan, Felicity makes chocolate, Matt made a new one called Texas Trash pie (I had two bites and was sugared up!), my parents buy several pumpkin pies from Costco, I make strawberry pretzel salad (which is totally a dessert) and I made a banana cream pie, plus family brought pecan bars, lemon cream pie, cherry cake, and more. And never forget the homemade whipped cream!

To me, Thanksgiving is better than Christmas because Christmas gets stressful with all of the planning and preparation involved. But Thanksgiving is just a little planning and grocery shopping and then lots of baking and cooking and fun and eating and relaxing. Remind me to share my tip regarding making Christmas less stressful with older children-it's been amazing! 

My sister and her husband and ten of her children came up from Kansas City - always a party when the Robertson's come! My other sister and her boyfriend joined us all the way from Utah and surprise! my niece, Liberty, came too! Our neighbor Crissa always joins us; it's tradition by now. Plus my parents so there were 30 of us! While Matt and I cooked (and some of the adult children), Karina helped Maggie decorate the tables with our hodgepodge of fall-time decorations. We only use them for a day but they're so fun including little Pilgrim teddy bears. 

What I did differently this year than previous years was a fun and easy family history-related activity that I'd like to share with you. Maybe you can use this idea at a future family gathering. I asked Maggie to place a printed pedigree chart at each seat at each table. It was kind of like a placemat. At the beginning of the meal, I told my family members that under their plates they would find a pedigree chart and it would be helpful if they used some of their mealtime to study the pedigree chart because the knowledge would come in handy after the meal...

We enjoyed eating, we played a fun version of "Name That Tune," we consumed dessert, then we cleared out the tables and chairs and I gathered everyone who was interested in game time. 

I connected my laptop to my tv and went to the following link: https://fhtl.org/familysearch-enhancements. Click on the log in to FamilySearch button (I am assuming you have a family tree on FamilySearch). The site will pull the names and dates and other info from your family tree and create games from your specific genealogy. 

We divided into teams based on where the participants were sitting and got started. First we played Geneopardy. Some of the questions were very specific but the resourceful kids used their pedigrees to figure out the answers! There were a lot of laughs! There were questions about marriages, length of life, places people lived, etc. We played Wheel of Family Fortune which was great fun and a little easier because the kids were now familiar with the names and dates on the pedigree charts. We ended with the Baby Name Generator game which got a lot of cackles. I asked each niece/nephew to select the parameters (boy name or girl name or either, length of the name, and range of years to pull from) and then I told them their first baby would be named... and we all saw what was generated. Here's an example: Margaret Susannah Francisco.

This family history activity was fun for all of the kids involved, aged 9 to 20. It was an easy, almost no-prep activity to get their attention on their pedigrees and become familiar with names, places and dates of their ancestors. The website also has clever games that kids (and adults) will enjoy in other circumstances including solitary games like word search, puzzles, and wordle.