With Christmas just around the corner, it is time to think of some fun genealogy gifts that are treasured for years to come. Even though fifteen weeks may seem like plenty of time to prepare for Christmas, some presents take time to create. The two ideas in today's article will take some time to make but are well worth the enjoyment that they bring.
A great gift is to create a book about your ancestors that your children and grandchildren will want to read. Ancestors at a Glance is a book where you create just one page for the ancestor you wish to highlight. The book I made included all my pioneer ancestors. I added only one favorite story to highlight and kept the story on one page. I also included a photo and birth and death statistics on each ancestor. I put the husband on one side of the page and the wife on the back side and the second page would have a family group record for the family. By doing it this way, it kept the book simple, and your children and grandchildren are more likely to read one page rather than a large book. It may also create an interest in their ancestors where they are more likely to pick up a larger book and read about them.
If you lack stories, a good place to look is FamilySearch. Many are putting their ancestors’ stories, and photos on FamilySearch and these are just perfect for a book like Ancestors at a Glance. Google is another good resource to use to find stories and photos to use.
A twist to a book like this is to group your ancestors’ stories into a book of virtues. “Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong.” This is a description of William J. Bennett’s Book of Virtues from Amazon.com and a great example on how you can put together your own virtues book. You can add other virtues such as prayerful. A book like this makes an excellent resource for children to use for talks in Primary, church, and on other occasions. We can learn compassion from Grandpa’s story on how he used compassion to help in a difficult situation.
Books like these make the best Christmas presents!
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