Activity: Growing your own Family Tree

Family Tree - A Letter Home - Meet the Roeddes - Memoir Bag - Learning to Marble - Family Time

FAMILY TREE ACTIVITY
Growing your Own Family Tree
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Materials Needed:

Paint or markers

Large sheet of blank paper

List of Family Interview Questions (click here)

Activity Description:

Well, I've told you about my family tree, now let's find out a bit about yours!

Finding out about your family tree is a bit of a detective game! Where do you think you might find out clues about your family?

Public Libraries have genealogical collections and sources for people whose ancestors arrived in Canada during or before the 19th century . . . . . . . census records . . . . . . .loyalist lists . . . . . . .land indexes . . . . . . .parish and vital records . . . . . . .immigration and passenger lists . . . . . . .the British Columbia Provincial Archives . . . . . . .your city archives . . . . . . .the National Archives of Canada . . . . . . .

Let's start growing our own family tree by talking to family members. You can click here for the list of questions you can use for your interview. It's probably best to print a copy and then come back here to learn how to do the rest of the activity.

Decide which parent or family member you wish to interview. If you have the time, you might want to interview someone for "maternal" information (information from your Mother's side) and "paternal" information" (information from your Father's side).

Once you have finished doing the family tree interviews, put the information into a family tree diagram (you may want to do this at home, so your parents can help to).

1) Paint or draw a large tree on a large piece of paper

2) Using the appropriate family tree vocabulary put the data from your information sheets to your tree picture. (see Activity: Growing a Family Tree)

3) Is this a maternal or a paternal branch of the family?

4) If possible, bring some pictures of your family to include in the family tree

5) Did you learn anything about anyone in your family that was especially interesting?

6) Put up your family tree in class, and have a discussion about what you learned about your family while doing this activity.

Click here for a full lesson plan of this activity