Category: Archiving

How To Work With Local Youth Groups To Accomplish Digitization // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

A few years back, I volunteered with a local county digitization initiative and helped prepare county probate documents for scanning. We removed the documents from envelopes, unfolded and smoothed them flat, and removed any metal staples, pins, or thread (!) holding papers together. The experience was a lot more interesting and educational than I thought it would be! Some of these packets had not been opened in over a hundred years, and it was really beneficial to me as a family historian to see how these probate files were arranged and what types of documents were included, even though they were not at all connected to my own family.

As I thought back over that experience, I realized that kids, from upper elementary ages through teens, very easily could do this, too! And, like me, they could learn a lot about the sources they are helping to digitize.

What Kids Can Learn From Digitization Projects:
*Kids learn about the documents and record sets they are digitizing through hands-on observation.

*Kids will understand that they are doing a service to the community and to family historians searching for information about their ancestors.

*Kids learn the value of using digitization to protect documents (and the information contained within them) from natural decomposition, fire, and water damage.

Would your local genealogical or historical society like to initiate digitization projects, but doesn't feel like it has the 'manpower' necessary to accomplish them? Would your group like to attract more young faces to its ranks and become more visible in your community? If the answer is yes, consider designing and implementing a digitization project in partnership with a local youth organization or school group.

Some school districts, scouting groups, and churches require or at least encourage kids to complete service hours, and a project like this would be perfect for a teen who maybe doesn't want to volunteer in the local food pantry or church nursery. Perhaps even work WITH the churches and schools in your area to digitize some of their historical holdings that would surely be of use to family historians in your area. Our local high school has a history club and this type of project would be a perfect activity for them!

Don't think you have the technology to accomplish a digitization project? Check with your local library; many public libraries have both standard and oversized scanners, as well as laptops, available for patrons to use and sometimes even checkout. And library meeting rooms are great areas in which to meet and do the actual work of organizing and digitizing. (Just be sure to reserve those rooms far ahead of time so they are available.)

Not sure about how to make the digitized records accessible to your members and/or the community? Guess what - kids can help with that, too! For many teens, creating and editing webpages comes as second nature, and there are many easy-to-build-and-edit website services that would be a breeze for your society to maintain. The holding organization (library, courthouse, archive) may also help get the digitized database and images online.

Tips For Creating A Digitization Project in Cooperation With A Youth Organization:
*Decide what will be digitized and get permission to digitize from the holding organization, library or archive.

*Identify and contact local youth groups you think might be interested in participating. Contact group leaders through phone or email and explain your vision.

*Plan an adult-only meeting with the leader(s) of interested youth groups sometime either at the end of the school year or during the summer before a school year begins. Determine what the leaders are looking for their kids to get out of the partnership. Decide on a project meeting location and meeting frequency (monthly, semi-monthly).

*Confirm that the meeting location and necessary technology are available and reserve those days and times as far ahead as possible. Recruit and sign up adult volunteer members from your group to assist and oversee during each meeting date.

*Attend one of the youth group's meetings and introduce your group and it's mission to the youth members. Clearly articulate the goals and purpose of the digitization project to the youth members. Explain to them what their jobs will be during the process.

*Consider an 'open house' style of project meetings in which participants can come and go within a designated time frame at their convenience. (It's not as chaotic as it sounds, once kids understand their tasks and the process behind the project, they will be able to jump right in at any time.)

*Provide participants with (non-messy) light snacks or bite-sized candy. Participants will find their experience more enjoyable with food.

*Be prepared to sign-off on service hours, if necessary. Create a sign-in sheet or perhaps a simple form that can be easily filled out at each meeting, so participants can return them to their group leaders.

*Make it a yearly project, if possible. Youth organizations have a high-turnover rate; kids are continually 'graduating' out of groups and new members are always joining.

With good planning and an enthusiastic attitude, your society CAN successfully partner with local youth groups to accomplish great things towards preserving important pieces of your community's history.

©2017 Emily Kowalski Schroeder. All rights reserved.

0 Comments

Family Photo Worksheets

10/17/2016

Identifying and documenting family photos is an important aspect of preserving family history. When I was a kid, I remember looking through photos that my mom had just had developed (at the grocery store!) and I even remember helping her put them into photo albums. Unfortunately, in the age of digital photography, most kids these days do not spend much, if any, time holding and looking at physical prints of photographs, which is a shame because photos are one of the most engaging primary sources that family historians use to document family history.

I created a couple of simple notebooking worksheets that will help elementary-aged kids examine. family photos, and even give them a hand in documenting them. The worksheets are identical, except one is for horizontally-oriented photos and the other is for vertically-oriented ones. Click on each image to be directed to a downloadable PDF.

Family Photo Documentation FREE Worksheet from GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Document a Family Photo Worksheet

And, just for fun, I also created a 'Hashtag a Family Photo' worksheet. For young people who use social media apps like Twitter and Instagram, communicating in hashtags is almost like its own language. For those not familiar with them, hashtags are labels put on photos or tweets (using the # symbol) that help classify them and help other people on that network find them.

This worksheet would be a lot of fun at family reunions. Give everyone a copy with the same family photo on it and ask each person to create hashtags. Then, read them aloud to everyone. Social media hashtags can get pretty comical at times, and I think the same thing would happen at a reunion. And this is a great way to engage young people at reunions in a 'language' they can understand and relate to.

Hashtag a Family Photo FREE Worksheet from GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Hashtag a Family Photo Worksheet

You can also download these and other free worksheets from the Growing Little Leaves Printables page.

©2016 Emily Kowalski Schroeder

0 Comments

Research and Source Documentation for Pre-Readers

9/18/2016

Hands-On Research and Documentation Activity for Pre-Readers from GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Teaching kids who can't even read yet the basics of research and documenting their sources? Can't be done, you might be telling yourself. But I will show you a simple, hands-on activity/game I developed to teach young children to do just that! Admittedly, this is not an activity that will teach children anything about their individual ancestors, but it introduces an important SKILL that is necessary to learn, not only for genealogy research, but for research in virtually ALL academic fields.

In simple terms, research is just one big scavenger hunt, which is already something kids LOVE and are fully capable of doing, even at young ages. Documenting research sources is something none of us really like to do, but we know that it's necessary in order to have a successful research outcome. As with any activity, the keys to making this work with young children are to make it short, hands-on, and FUN!

You will need:
4 small (Amazon-sized) boxes
12 manila file folders
Construction paper or cardstock in four different colors
Computer with printer and clip art worksheets (see end of blog post)
Glue Stick
Clear tape
Scissors
Pencil
Clipboard (optional)

This activity consists of four numbered boxes: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each box holds three manila folders labeled A, B, and C. Each of those folders holds four clip art images, for a total of twelve images per box. Each box has it's own theme: Animals, Food, Transportation, and Sports. Each image in a folder is covered by a different color: red, pink, blue and purple. (The colored paper is just taped to the white paper along the top, so you can still flip it upwards.)

Food-themed Box with Folders

Color flaps that cover each clip art image.

Aside: Since this is a genealogy blog, you may be asking why I didn't use photos or other images pertaining to our family tree. The purpose of this activity was to teach the method of looking for something and documenting it, so I wanted my daughter to not get bogged down with details of dead people. That is why I chose simple, familiar images from everyday life. With older children, you could absolutely rewire this activity using images from your family's history, and they would still benefit from learning the method by which they found the images. I'm thinking about trying it with my 3rd grader - I would have categories for people, heirlooms, buildings, and jobs.

This is one of the worksheets I created that my daughter used in this activity. First, I explained to her that the picture on the left is what she needs to find.

Next, I showed her the numbered boxes with the folders in them. The boxes are 'labeled' with clip art images that more or less show the category of pictures that are found within that box (see photo above). When we are researching in a library, we don't look for sports books in the food section, so this was a simple way to talk about that concept when you are looking for something in a research setting.

When she did find the image she was looking for, I explained that she should circle the number of the box she found it in. Then, she had to circle what letter of folder it was in, and finally which color the image was under. After we did the first one together, she caught on quickly and did the next two by herself.

The real teaching moment in this activity is when we gave her completed worksheet to big brother and asked him to find the pictures based on her worksheet notes. He was able to do it MUCH quicker than she originally did because she had essential mapped out where each one was located. And THAT is why we write down where we find things when we research anything. :-)

If you would like to try this activity at home, below are the links to the clip art images and documentation worksheets I created. All of the images are from OpenClipArt.org, so if you'd like to create your own set, I suggest starting there. As always, a link to this exercise will be included in the Activities page of the Growing Little Leaves website.

prereader_research_and_documentation_worksheets.pdf
File Size:	1070 kb
File Type:	pdf

animals_clip_art.pdf
File Size:	912 kb
File Type:	pdf

food_clip_art.pdf
File Size:	577 kb
File Type:	pdf

sports_clip_art.pdf
File Size:	563 kb
File Type:	pdf

transportation_clip_art.pdf
File Size:	775 kb
File Type:	pdf

box_label_clip_art.pdf
File Size:	488 kb
File Type:	pdf

0 Comments

Celebrating Family Creativity

1/14/2016

Celebrating Family Creativity with FREE Worksheet from GrowingLittleLeaves.com

I've been thinking about creativity a lot over the past week, not in small part because the world lost one of its most creative and expressive people of our time when musician David Bowie passed away last weekend.

We are fortunate that David Bowie left us with a vast collection of music and performances with which to remember him, but how do YOU, as a family historian, preserve the originality and imagination that runs through YOUR family? Do you maintain notes or images of ancestors' creations in your family tree database programs? Do you write about the creative talents of past family members on your genealogy blog? Do you discuss those talents with the younger members of your family?

I firmly believe in helping children develop their own senses of creativity at all stages of development. Fostering creativity in day-to-day life helps children develop empathy, understanding, and compassion, not to mention an ability to see things from different perspectives, which is a necessary part of invention and innovation. And, like so many other things, family history can help children discover the creative talents that wait inside of them, ready to emerge at first inspiration.

Though you may not have any famous, professional creative artists in your family tree, the personal creativity of our ancestors was expressed at many levels in many different ways. Read through this list while thinking of only the grandparents and/or great-grandparents you knew, and I guarantee you will find evidence of the creative spirit. And today, creativity can be found in many technical and computerized professional fields, so don't forget to talk about current family members when it comes to creativity, too!

Woodworking, metalworking
Embroidery, sewing, knitting, crochet, needlepoint, weaving, quilting, cross-stitch
Painting, drawing, sculpting
Dance
Singing, playing, composing music
Fashion - designing, creating, wearing
Cooking, baking, cake and cookie decorating
Writing - journals, stories, poetry
Theater writing and acting
Flower/garden designing
Photography, videography
Designing and building structures
Writing computer programs
Computer graphic design
Tattooing (Many tattoo artists are incredibly talented, creative people!)

It's important, when talking with children about their ancestors, to not only discuss the factual, mechanical details of their lives, but also, as much as possible, to try to give children a sense of their ancestors' personalities, and creativity is a big part of one's overall persona. Do you have something physical that an ancestor made? Show it to the children in your family. Do you have journals or stories or poems that an ancestor wrote? Read them to the children. Do you have sound or video recordings of a family member performing in some capacity? Play them for the children. Even if all you have are simple photos or newspaper clippings or memories attesting to a past family member's creative hobbies and talents, share them with children, and emphasize the joy those family members found and expressed to others within their creative mediums.

I've created another of my family history 'notebooking' worksheets where children can either write or draw about the creative talents and hobbies of their family members. When used in conjunction with some of my other (free) ancestor worksheets, which can be found here, you and your child can create a binder full of ancestor facts for kids to collect and browse through while learning about family history. Click on the image below to open a PDF of the 'Our Family's Creativity' worksheet, which is six pages in length. Pages two through six can be printed off as often as needed so that you can add as many family members as you want to your notebook. And don't forget to ask the child to include him/herself on the worksheet, showcasing his/her creative abilities.

0 Comments

Engaging Children in Family History With The Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner (and GIVEAWAY)

8/11/2014

Engaging Children in Family History With the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

**GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED**

Disclosure: I was provided with a Flip-Pal mobile scanner in order to facilitate this review. All opinions, ideas, and photographs remain my own.

Children are naturally drawn to and curious about new technologies. They have no fear of gadgets and they seem to have an innate ability of learning how to use new technologies incredibly quickly. Of course, I am always searching for ways in which to get my kids (ages four and six) more interested in their family history and the people and events of the past who made them who they are today. I thought that using the Flip-Pal mobile scanner would be a great way to use my kids' love of technology to get them more interested in looking at and learning about old family photos, scrapbooks and photo albums.

Probably like many of you fellow keepers of family history, I have a box that looks like this. Old family postcards, wedding invitations, random photos - some are ten years old, some fifty years old. Like all old pieces of family ephemera, they need to be digitized to ensure that they are protected in case of loss, decay, or disaster. I thought, "Why not allow my kids to help me in the process?"

I placed the battery-operated, cord-free Flip-Pal mobile scanner on the ground with the box of photos and asked my four-year-old daughter to join me. (Isn't it the truth that kids are most comfortable on the floor?) She was immediately intrigued by this new gadget. I showed her how it worked and pretty soon, she was scanning like a pro on her own! (It really is THAT simple to use.) As we scanned each photo, we talked about the people in the photo and about how old they were when it was taken. Just this simple exercise of scanning old photos and postcards was exposing my daughter to decades of family history!

Engaging Children in Family History With the Flip-Pal // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Now, I have in my possession a family Christmas scrapbook that I made a few (ok, many) years ago using old holiday family photos. It is over-sized, so it's really impossible to scan the pages on our conventional scanner that is connected to our desktop computer. I had been planning for many months to make a trip to our local library to use their large scanner to digitize the scrapbook pages.

Engaging Children in Family History with Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Not surprisingly, I haven't yet found the time to make it to the library. By myself. Without the kids. When the scanner was available. So, I thought my daughter and I would begin the task of scanning the scrapbook pages with the Flip-Pal mobile scanner. The Flip-Pal comes with a 4GB SD memory card that is pre-loaded with EasyStitch software - for larger photos or documents, you scan different sections and then the software creates one high-resolution image using all the images. My daughter was interested in helping me with this, too.

We scanned eight sections of this scrapbook page and here is the image after the software stitched it together. The EasyStitch software really did a great job; the image quality compared with the original is just about perfect.

EasyStitch Scan // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Aside from the wonderful applications related to old family photos and scrapbooks, there are many other uses for the Flip-Pal that, as a mom, I can think of in my daily life. Here is a sampling of other items I would scan. Imagine how much clutter you could rid yourself of!

- Important receipts
- Your child's artwork (Yes, even the over-sized ones with the EasyStitch software!)
- Your child's award ribbons, certificates, and/or merit badges
- Recipes that you've printed out or torn out of magazines
- Ticket stubs, postcards, maps, brochures and other memorabilia from family trips
- Greeting cards that you have received from family members

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner Giveway

This giveaway is for one new Flip-Pal mobile scanner (includes the SD card pre-loaded with the Flip-Pal Toolbox 2 software, SD-USB adapter, and four AA batteries installed) valued at $149.99. One-year limited warranty. Good Luck to you all!

Liability Disclosures, Rules, and Policy Statement:
No purchase necessary. This contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada aged 18 years and older. The contest will begin at 12:00 a.m. EDT 8/12/2014 and end at 12:00 a.m. EDT 8/20/2014. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Rafflecopter will randomly choose and winner and that winner will be announced on this blog within 48 hours of the contest's end time. Void where prohibited. All entrants agree to release of liability of the sponsor, Emily Kowalski Schroeder and the Growing Little Leaves blog. Winner will be shipped prize directly from manufacturer.

**THIS RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED**

0 Comments

Making a Time Capsule

5/23/2014

It's towards the end of the school year, and one of my Kindergartner's projects was to make a time capsule for himself that we will keep and open when he graduates from high school. I think it's a great idea, and has applications in the family history realm, which is why I am sharing the idea with you today.

The time capsule is just an ordinary shoe box. My son was allowed to put in anything that would fit in the box, with the understanding that he wouldn't see these items for twelve years (which meant no toys that he was in any way attached to). We settled on a little Darth Vader toy and stickers to represent his love of Star Wars. We got a plastic Lego Movie cup at McDonald's earlier this year, and we decided to have that represent his love of Legos. The kid loves Altoids mints, so we included an empty tin of those as well. I printed out some photos of him from throughout the year , and included those in the box. I threw in a couple of his drawings, too - one of the Solar System, which he loves reading about, and a scene from the movie Frozen.

Making a Time Capsule // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

But my favorite suggestion from the Kindergarten teachers was to include letters from family members. My husband and I each wrote one. I also asked his grandparents to write one and my siblings even wrote some, too. Twelve years is a long time, and, unfortunately, all of the loved ones in my son's life may not be around in the year 2026. This exercise ensures that, no matter what happens, my son will have a message from all of these people in his life who care about him, and they will be able to wish him well as he starts his adult life, even if they aren't physically present anymore.

Another option, in addition to the letter-writing, would be for parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents to talk about what they would have put in time capsules when they were six years old. Depending on what we have or haven't saved over the years, some of us may even be able to show the child our old toys and childhood drawings and photos. If none of your childhood stuff is around anymore, you can always just write down the answers to some questions about your childhood. Put your answers to those questions in the child's time capsule. Now, they automatically have a simple chronicle of an ancestor's childhood. And it doesn't require a lot of time or writing on your part - just answering some simple questions, like the ones below:

- What toys did you like to play with?
- How did you get to school?
- What did you wear to school?
- What did you eat for breakfast?
- What books did you like to read?
- What did you like to do for fun?
- What sports did you like to play?
- Who was your favorite family member to visit or spend time with? Why?
- What were your best friends' names?
- What was your favorite holiday? Why?

Right now, in genealogy research, there is such a huge emphasis on interviewing elder family members before the information they know is lost. Young children are not really interested in sitting down with a family member and asking them to answer questions about their past, but that doesn't mean that they won't want to know this stuff about their ancestors when they get older. And when they open up that time capsule at age 18, and read a heartfelt letter from a grandparent, that just may spark an interest doing a little more research about that person's life. And we all know how much that can snowball, of course. :-)

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder.