Set your holiday table with family history place cards

While American genealogists (and non-genealogists) are busy celebrating Thanksgiving today, genealogists elsewhere can take advantage of a collection of place cards Ancestry created to generate conversations about family history around the holiday dinner table.

Each place card has a question, such as  What were your favorite songs, books, or movies when you were young? and What did you do for fun when you were a child?

Creative genealogists are bound to come up with a few questions of their own to encourage guests to share and learn.

Although the place cards have a fall theme, it is easy to create customized place cards on a home computer and printer for any family get-together. For holiday-themed images, there are plenty available online. Start by Googling key words.

Instead of using an online image, you could put a different family photo on each place card, and let people guess who it is.

Or if you have young children around the house, let them decorate each place card.

For those concerned about having to listen to long-winded stories from some of the dinner guests, the personal questions could be replaced with questions specific to family history. Multiple choice answers would allow even the little ones to have a chance at guessing the right answer.

As an example, two of the questions and answers on the place cards at my family dinner table could be:

When did our Dever ancestors first come to Canada?
A) 1812    B) 1862    C) 1902.

Where in Ireland did our Dever Ancestors live?
A) County Galway    B) County Antrim    C) County Donegal.

If those questions are too challenging for the youngest generation, make them easier — and sillier.

Where did our Dever ancestors come from?
A) Russia     B) Ireland     C) France     D)  The moon.

Be creative, keep it simple, and make it fun for everyone.

And a word of warning. Don’t tell your own lengthy family history stories at the dinner table. Unless everyone is begging you to do so, leave that for another time.

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