Family History Has Changed!

Family history isn't just the names, dates, and places all written out on stacks and stacks of papers. It's about changing hearts. "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." Malachi 4:6

Think about the following activities and see if they apply to family history or turning of the hearts.

Do you enjoy looking at old photos and seeing how things have changed? Check out our Community Projects Tab for options of viewing some old photos from our communities.

Do you enjoy taking photos and preserving current family events for future generations?

Can you take a photo with your phone? If so, you can preserve photos to FamilySearch with that same click. Note: FamilySearch is not to be a storage place for all your photos of living people, but rather a place to share photos of deceased ancestors. Uploading photos to FamilySearch

Do you enjoy reading or listening to stories about your grandparents? Did you know there is a website called "All the Stories" that will populate a listing of all the stories on your family tree in FamilySearch?

Or, do you enjoy sharing your own stories with your children or grandkids? Are those stories recorded for future generations? Consider recording them with Memories app or something like using Marco Polo. (Note: this video was done two years ago and some of the screen shots are different, but the basics are covered.)

Ever have that fun evening gathered around the tv or computer and enjoy viewing old family movies? Or, are those movies just sitting in the attic or the basement on the old reels or tapes that you can't even view because you don't have the proper equipment to view them? We can help you with that at the center - we can digitize about any media you might have. Check out all of our options.

Maybe you like to scrapbook current family events or make tribute pages to your ancestors? You can digitized those old scrapbooks and upload them to FamilySearch so more people can enjoy the pages and learn about their ancestors.

Does your family have a Facebook page honoring a family line or an important individual in your family? How about sharing those memories on FamilySearch? Or, honoring one grandparent a month with all of the cousins sharing their favorite memories online? Three ways to honor our ancestors

Do you, following Thanksgiving dinner, have the older generation share with the family the happenings of their lives? Or, share the greatest things they have learned while on this earth? Have you thought about recording those - using the Memories app with only a few clicks, they can automatically be put on FamilySearch.

As temples are constructed, they often contain a time capsule. Have you created a family time capsule to be opened in 20 or 50 years?

What adorns the walls of your home? Photos of ancestors, visual family tree charts, quotes about family, photos of family or of the temple?

Ever made a recipe from an ancestor's homeland? Those are easily available on FamilySearch in the activities tab. Or, by visiting the Family History Center and playing on the big Discovery screens. You can email them directly to yourself from there.

Do you have Christmas traditions? Reading the Christmas story from the Bible? Maybe your family had traditions they started years ago. Maybe it includes acting out the nativity by the younger children. What were the Christmas traditions of your ancestors? Christmas Traditions Around the World

How about those Christmas newsletters in sharing special events with other family and friends? (Even if it takes on a more technical form of blogging or electronic family newsletter.)

What other traditions might your family have in relation to holidays or observances? Back to school blessings? Thankful statements before Thanksgiving dinner? Daily scripture reading or family prayer? Family temple attendance? 20 Family Traditions Ideas

What would it mean to you to hear the voice of your loved one? Do you have audio cassettes hidden somewhere among those boxes you got from grandma? We can help digitize those at the center as well. They can then be shared on FamilySearch.

And don't forget - have you recorded your own life story? How about your testimony? Those things can be recorded on your FamilySearch account and will not be made public until your death. And, we have a state of the art recording studio at the Center where you can record those stories 4 minutes at a time, complete with video options. Record My Story Activity

This is not an all inclusive listing of family history activities, but just a sample of things you can be doing. And, probably things you are already doing and didn't realize they were really family history related. Maybe now you might do some of these activities with a little more purpose.

In case you didn't notice, there's a lot of things we can assist you with at the FamilySearch Center. And, FamilySearch is a great place to share these treasures so multiple family members and many generations can enjoy them. Come see how we can assist in your family history endeavors!