Youth Activity Idea: Ancestor Connections

Last week I wrote about how to use Compare a Face to find out which ancestor you most resemble. This week, I want to share a youth activity idea using Compare a Face. Please note that each youth will need to be signed in to the FamilySearch Tree app and have at least two or three generations of ancestors on this tree in order to participate in this activity. This is always a hangup at family history youth activities, so it will be worth your time to ensure that everything is in place before the activity.

Start by having each of the youth access Compare a Face in the FamilySearch Tree app. Do this by going to More on the bottom right of the iOS version, or the menu button at the top left of the android version. Then choose Family History Activities.

Under the heading, You and your stories, scroll to the right until you see Compare a Face and select it. Sign in and run the program. Have each youth choose one of the ancestors they resemble. I chose my grandmother, Rebecca Bischoff for this example.

Next, have each youth calculate what year that ancestor would have been their age. Rebecca was born in 1910. Pretend I am a fifteen-year-old. Rebecca would have been fifteen in 1925. I can learn what events were happening in 1925 by going back to the Family History Activities page in the FamilySearch Tree app. I will then choose All About Me. This is a program that tells you what was going on in the world the year you were born. However, there is a button to View a Different Year. Tap on that button.

I will enter 1925 to see information about that year (note that information in this application is only available for years after 1900, so encourage the youth to look at a recent ancestor like a grandparent or great-grandparent for this activity).

Scroll down to see different categories to tap on and learn what your ancestor’s life was like when they were your age (some of my Grandma’s are listed here).

• A Top News Story of the Year – Mount Rushmore in South Dakota to Become a National Memorial to U.S. Presidents.
• Top Technology Breakthroughs of the Year – First recognizable television image transmitted by John Logie Baird.
• A movie ticket cost 14 cents.
• A gallon of gas cost 22 cents.
• The most popular film was The Big Parade.
• A popular song from that year was “Yes Sir! That’s My Baby” by Gene Austin.
• There were only six Latter-day Saint Temples in the world in 1925.

These are just a few of the options, but it will be fun for the youth to connect with their ancestor in this way.

Another place that might be fun to look is back on the Family History Activities page. Go to Activities > All Activities > All About Your Ancestors and choose a category of interest. For example, I chose Challenging Times and learned that my grandmother lived through two world wars, the influenza pandemic, and the great depression.

You can brainstorm ideas of how to pull all of this together into a complete activity. Consider things like having the kids look up and listen to the popular music their ancestors listened to. Maybe they could learn a little more about the challenging times their ancestors lived through and compare that to one of our modern challenges. Maybe they would like to write a social media post or create a TikTok video about the interesting things they discovered about their heritage.

I hope this will spark an idea for how to incorporate family history into an upcoming youth activity. This would also work well as a family activity!