Tapping into your Heritage

The definition of HERITAGE according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:

the traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation

Children who grow up learning about their heritage, grow up to be more self-assured.  They know who they are and where they came from and that in itself brings a feeling of security.  Historically, stories told orally have kept traditions alive.  Modern times, however and the rush of everyday life, have slowly been stripping these traditions away. So is the world a melting pot or a salad bowl? A melting pot allows traditions to melt into each other, individual flavours being lost and creating a new one.  A salad bowl respects the individual flavours of each tradition, while mixing together to create an explosion of flavours. It is important to adapt and integrate yourself into new situations, but it is equally important to maintain your own culture and traditions,  your heritage.  These combined circumstances define who you are.

Over the last couple of weeks, my daughter has been asking the names of her great and great-great grandparents, so we thought it was time to start working on our family geneology, making a simple family tree with our girls. We have a lot of information on our family thanks to my parents, who years ago started piecing our family tree together on www.geni.com. Geni is wonderful to build a complete tree. As a larger family we have managed to make and maintain contact with branches of our tree which were previously "lost". Another tool online site is  http://www.ancestry.com/


To help you get started with your research, here is a link that coincidentially just popped in from Good Housekeeping...   http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/travel/family-genealogy?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1443_60316788

However, with young children, you want to keep it simple.  Here are a couple of ideas that I´ve found around the net to help you get started.

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http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6171:my-family-tree-handout&catid=2171


This is a great site with different family tree templates:
http://genealogy.lovetoknow.com/Family_Tree_Template_for_Kids

Some ideas from Family Holiday.net www.familyholiday.net

Home decor family tree

my wonderful family

There are loads of other ideas online to help make a visual family tree for the children.

Making a family tree is a fun family project that is a visual tool for children to place themselves within a family.  While making your tree, talk about where family members currently live, where ancestors were born and moved to and why.  There is a very real possibility that they too may move around at some point or that family members or friends may move around, and knowing of others who have done it, makes it a natural part of life.

Celebrating your heritage everyday.

Make sure to include in your days things that celebrate your heritage.

• Keep in touch with family members in different places
• Cook traditional meals, 
• listen to traditional music  
• read and tell stories, nursery rhymes
• speak the language
• celebrate holidays
• teach basic history and geography, have them recognize the flag

In short, keep it alive, make it real and make it fun!