As family and friends gather around the table on Thanksgiving Day, consider adding family history to the menu.
FamilySearch recently published a social media post with five suggestions for incorporating family history into one’s Thanksgiving festivities.
1. Please pass the yams — and the app
Take a survey of who is familiar with the FamilySearch Family Tree app. Many may not know what the app can do — view one’s family tree in portrait or fan view, add or edit information and relationships, search and attach records as sources, generate tasks lists, search for duplicates and merge them, and more.
Also introduce them to the Get Involved app — a tool for reviewing names generated by artificial intelligence and fixing any mistakes.
2. Use ‘Relatives Around Me’ for a delicious discovery
To help connect everyone at the dinner table, introduce them to the “Relatives Around Me” feature on the Family Tree app. The feature will reveal who is in the same family tree — and perhaps never-before-known connections between friends, neighbors and in-laws.
3. Make memories as you share memories
Using the Family Tree app or desktop version, take turns sharing memories that have been posted about one’s relatives on FamilySearch Memories. This feature allows users to add journal entries, photos, obituaries and more to an ancestor’s profile.
Don’t have any memories included for an ancestor? Add them on the spot. Record someone telling a favorite story about that person and upload it to their profile.
4. No app, no problem
For those who don’t have the app, take turns sharing family stories. From the hilarious to the heartbreaking, these stories are a reminder of the importance of gathering.
5. No goals, no pie
Before dessert, consider making family history-related goals for the coming year as individuals and as a group. Revisit childhood memories, learning something new, gather family recipes, take a picture a day, plan a trip — whatever it is, it can add even more to the conversation at next year’s Thanksgiving.
Read more at familysearch.org/en/blog/5-family-history-thanksgiving-activities.