www.thefhguide.com
From Justin Masters
I'm trying to come up with some interesting ideas to motivate youth for family history work, and with distancing in place, we're relegated to some ideas that keep people safely away from one another.
I was wondering if others might pitch in some creative ideas as well.
A couple that I came up with are centered around videos (zoom, perhaps as the medium). We have someone in our ward who is good at doing filming/video and he offered to put something together (okay, he was a cinematographer on a few award winning films), and thought of:
- Virtual trek "out in the wilderness" with pioneer ancestors, where people talk from a script, acting their parts around a "glowing campfire", with darkness, dressed the part in their old clothes. Maybe a storyline that told about a family tradition, or an interesting story that they lived through. A decent script would be needed, and have various people "talk" to one another on their video feed or pass some object (like a horseshoe) to one another as a continuing story, and have it stitched together/edited for a full story. Have bishopric or youth leaders participate.
- Scavenger hunt/escape room: Needs a good storyline about someone's life, and making some of the records come alive by showcasing some of the lesser known aspects of the records (ie, some records show if you own a radio, or rent/own a home, how many years of schooling). I emailed back and forth with someone who has done a few of these, and he uses google forms as the basis for tracking choices made in the scavenger hunt/escape room. Hopefully this link pasted in will work: http://www.thefhguide.com/blog/virtual-family-history-escape-rooms/
- Have competitive contests for teams to crack a tougher case, with both teams connected by zoom with each other, but with an audio phone bridge between the teams, or a virtual scoreboard that each team (or a parent) can monitor for progress of each team.
- Indexing night. Make it a remotely connected indexing effort, with interspersed commentary of historical elements of the ancestors of the youth, for instance, "This ancestor was a member of the civil war, as he marched toward the south, but he was captured and held prisoner for 6 months. He went on to become a country doctor, and had children in the midwest. This youngster is named after this ancestor, and surprisingly looks somewhat similar (show picture). Who is it?"
- Share testimonials of adult leaders of youth about what they have learned about their own ancestors, and what it has meant to them. If they don't have a story, then have them do a little research about their ancestor, or find out from the family historian in the family. (Maybe find those in the ward who have given compelling talks and are good storytellers) Have musicians in the ward provide background music (sad story might have a violin, old western story has a harmonica.)
- Make a video with a montage of family photos while a story is told in a foreign language (of their ancestors), with english subtitles. (Members who served foreign speaking missions could speak the part.) Or have a youth speak AS their ancestor, and tell the story in the first person, and put in some emotion as they went through difficult times. (Method acting, I suppose)
- Put video snippets together with people excited to go back to the temple, and what they're doing to get ready again, and blessings they receive (without being too specific about spiritual experiences, such as strength, revelation, help with tough choices, etc).
- Have returned missionaries give video testimonials about how temple and family history work was done on missions, or how their skills learned before going on a mission blessed others.
Any other activity ideas that have been used to help get youth more engaged, or be touched by their ancestors? We had a "fireside" one time at a bishopric member's home, and the kids had some pretty good stories of their ancestors that they shared, and what those ancestors meant to them. Doing this with zoom recordings might be good as well.
There's a part of me that thinks there's too much work going into this, and kinda drifting away from more simple efforts.
But I wanted to also hear ideas from others (sorry, if the above is disjointed. I got interrupted a few times)