Research your Family History

Family Tree Research Project Families will have incredibly diverse structures and this topic will have to be dealt with sensitively. Students could create their own family tree, paying special attention to the different places their family members have come from. Encourage children to talk to their parents or guardians, ask questions about their family history. Alternatively, they could research a celebrity. See the next slide for Barack Obama’s family tree.

Barack Obama’s Family Tree

Family Tree Research Project The next slides shows how people born in Nottingham and the UK can have forbears/ancestors who came from many different places. The next slide shows part of the family history of the two children born to the designer (Nettie) and the writer (Peter) of Jumping on my Shadow. This is how Family Trees are constructed by Genealogists…people who study the history of people’s families.

Nettie and Peter’s Tree Family tree by kind permission of Win Mabbutt

Family Tree Research Project The next slide shows the complete family history of those two children going back four generations (over 100 years) to when, and where, their Great Grandparents were born.

Four generation Family Tree for Flo and Sol

Family Tree Research Project What do you think the stories might be behind this family history? Why so you think so many family members moved from one generation to another? Looking at the dates of people’s births and deaths, and their places of birth, how do you think wars and other important events might have affected both why and how they travelled from one place to another? Where do you think other members of the same family, who we can’t see here, might have moved over time? Where do you think Flo and Sol might move in the future…and why?

Family Tree Research Project The next 2 slides are templates for creating a pupil’s own Family history. The Word versions can be found and adapted in the Resource Bank. They can be adapted to share the information each child knows, or wants to share, They can reflect the many different ways that families can be structured (e.g. adding step parents, half siblings etc.)

Research your family history See also PSHE: Discussion - Home and Belonging.