Genealogy is about more than researching your family’s past. It’s also about documenting the present for future generations. For this week’s genealogy prompt, take some time to write down or otherwise document your family traditions for your children, grandchildren, or other family.
Why Document Family Traditions?
When you keep records of your family’s traditions, you give later generations insight into what life was like during some of the most important events and holidays you celebrated.
It adds a unique, personal touch to their later research while giving you an opportunity to reminisce and find ways to connect with your own ancestors by tweaking old traditions to make them your own.
3 Ways to Document Your Family Traditions
There are several ways you can document your traditions. For example, you might:
- Write about your traditions (and how they changed during your lifetime) in a family history journal.
- Collect photos or items related to a family tradition and put them in a scrapbook or memory box.
- Create videos of family events so future generations can see what happened in real-time.
Even better, why not document these traditions in more than one, making them easily accessible to others in your family?
What Kinds of Records to Document?
When you’re ready to record your family’s traditions, here are some of the types of events you might include:
- Birthdays
- Holiday celebrations
- Events celebrating new births in the family
- Family vacation traditions
- Any regular family rituals you engage in
When documenting these traditions, keep records of things like:
- Decorations
- Schedules
- Recipes
- Songs
- Stories and superstitions
- Crafts (keep some, or take photos of them)
- Family heirlooms related to these events
- Films you watch together
- Games you play
- Other events you do as a family
The idea is simply to document all the little things that make your traditions memorable and special to you. So if you’re looking for something new to do as part of your family history journey, consider documenting your family’s traditions to preserve them for yourself and others.
