Janet Few at BIFHSGO

As I pulled into the parking lot at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa conference shortly after 8 am on Saturday to find this camper van which I recognized from Rockstar Genealogist Janet Few's blog posts.









She gave two presentations. The first Harnessing the Facebook Generation: How to Encourage Young People to Appreciate Family History attracted some of the youngest attendees.

Having given the reality check in this photo Janet had numerous suggestions of ways to interest and involve the young. For the youngest she suggested special people cards - photos of family members with their names. Activities involving movement are effective such as getting children to put post-it notes on items that might have been found in their home before a certain date, and getting them to physically step backward, year by year, through history telling them about things in their and their family history that happened each year. Have them research names of a war memorial which, through prior research you know have special significance for them, such as then living in the same house -- that's prior research just as the celebrities in WDYTYA experience.

Janet's second presentation was Putting Your Ancestors in Their Place: Sources for Reconstructing 19th Century Communities,a discussion of the steps in conducting a One Place Study.