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It's never too early to start researching family history. Christina Carlton is teaching kids how to find out who's hanging on the family tree.
It's never too early to start researching family history. Christina Carlton is teaching kids how to find out who's hanging on the family tree.Date published: 3/2/2004 By LUCIA ANDERSON ENEALOGY is about connecting with the past--the past that produced you. And it's never too early to start following the threads back to the stories that shaped who you are. The sooner you start, the more memories are still alive. That's why Christina Carlton volunteered to teach a Spotsylvania County Parks and Recreation class for children on how to find out who's hanging on the family tree. Carlton, 28, has been researching her family history since she was a teenager in North Carolina. Spotsylvania resident Kelly Smith thought the class sounded like it might be fun and asked her son, Charlie, if he'd like to take it. "He got very excited," Smith said. "I think it was the disposable camera on the list of things they needed" that hooked him, she said. Charlie's older brother, Sam is interested in history, Smith said, so she thought genealogy would appeal to him as well. Charlie, almost 8, and Sam, 9, arrived the first Saturday morning of the six-week class proudly carrying their ancestor-hunting kits--zip-up loose-leaf binders, highlighters, magnifying glasses, paint brushes and the aforementioned disposable cameras. Running the class on Saturdays has restricted what Carlton is able to do with the boys. Courthouses, where tons of records are stored, are closed on Saturdays. But there are lots of cemeteries handy. And the Central Rappahannock Regional Library's Snow branch, located in the county's Marshall Center where the class is held, has computers the boys can use and librarian Thena Jones to help them. The Internet has made genealogical research much easier, Carlton said, particularly for those whose forebears were scattered around the country. On the first day, Carlton assigned the boys to research their own family tree. She asked them to put down the full names of all the relatives they knew--brothers, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents--and to ask their parents to fill in as many blanks as they could. In the following weeks the boys were assigned to find out dates and places of birth and death for those relatives. The final touch would be putting photographs with the names.
Date published: 3/2/2004
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