Genealogy and Family History Game Zap the Grandma Gap Pedigree Challenge

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Our newest genealogy and family history game, the Zap the Grandma Gap Pedigree Challenge, is a fun educational game that is great for all ages and any number of people.  It helps players understand how to read a pedigree chart by asking questions about age, relationships, and locations of births, deaths, and marriages. 

Cards marked with a yellow star indicate easier questions. The Pedigree challenge includes the chart and 52 question cards.
Sample questions include:

·         In what month were Scott and his siblings born?

·         Who is June’s husband?

·         How old was Emily when she died?

·         Where was Linda married?

·         How many generation of descendants does Thomas have?

Enjoy our Zap the Grandma Gap family members as they teach concepts such as using the chart information to calculate age, determining how many cousins they have, and how a pedigree chart diagrams relationships.  Make it extra fun by letting players earn a prize with each correct answer. 

Available in 3 different versions:

• Vinyl Large Size : Perfect for family reunions, family history conferences, and family history centers.  Printed on vinyl in an extra large size for durability and visibility. $59.95
• Laminated:  Perfect size and laminated for durable use in the classroom, scouting and the genealogy merit badge, and repeated home use. $29.95
• Paper:  Value edition printed on paper for home use.  Fun for home use, family game night, and homeschooling units on genealogy. $19.95

Click here to order the game for your family!

The most inspiring keynote I've ever heard

Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow.
Congratulations to Bret Peterson and Ginny Ackerson and their team at the UGA Spring Conference.  I have never seen a conference planning committee nail a keynote speaker like these people did. Paul McCarty was honestly the best keynote speaker I've ever heard. I couldn't take notes fast enough. 

Paul is a Psychology professor at BYU.  He volunteers at the Family History Center at the Utah State Prison.  I don't know if they have Family History Centers at other prisons but from what he talked about it sounds like they should.  (I'll have to look into that.)  Paul talked about the amazing rehabilitation that he sees in his work at the prison.  I had heard about this program but the stories he told were fantastic.

One of the examples he gave was a young prisoner who had been incarcerated for some serious gang activities.  Paul said he was angry all the time.  When he started doing family history research, he found out that he was descended from a Spanish prince and from some of the conquistadors.  You can imagine what that did to his self image and he reported feeling the presence of his ancestors.  Paul said he did a 180% turn in just a few weeks and was quickly involved in leadership and mentoring positions in the center. 

Like I've talked about many times here, apparently family history is helping to heal the prisoners' relationships with their mothers, their children and other members of the current families too.  No surprise there. 

Another prisoner he talked about was in prison for life without parole.  He was angry all the time and quite violent with the other prisoners.  He actually found out that his great great grandfather had been a security guard for a frontier bank and his great grand uncle had arrested Black Bart.  He was so enthralled that he actually ended up writing to some of the people back home and with permission started researching the family history of some of his victims.  He sent the information that he had found to these victims families and there was alot of healing and forgiveness that came from it. 

He said that indexing and researching family history gave the prisoners a chance to "escape from prison" and do something good in the world.   They are able to feel good for a bit and leave that guilt at the door.  It has also become a key part of the rehabilitation when these prisoners are released from prison as well.  After they are out of prison, they are encouraged to volunteer once a week at the FHC near them and they do much better when they do.  Paul said that Family History is the "key to changing an attitude of failure to a person of worth." 

That's what it is all about isn't it?  Wow wow wow wow wow. 

Another Great Family History Activity

This spring I found a fun new game that our family has enjoyed and your family might as well.  Your Family Tree--the Game has great questions that have gotten us talking about our history together.  My family has had some great conversations because of this game so I had to tell you about it. 

Your Family Tree--the GAME brings families around the kitchen table to have fun with family history and to share insights and stories with each other.  Roll the dice, move your game pawn up the branches and down the roots, and enjoy learning about each other.  Four categories of questions:  Your Family, Your Ancestors, About You, and Nice to Know.  This game will bring your family together to share things that really matter.  All ages can enjoy this game together.

Facebook to the rescue and Youth Family History Centers

We've worked really hard on Matthew's presentation for RootsTech and I know he has it down, but I've still been a little worried because--for crying out loud--he's only 15, and this would be a lot of pressure for some kids.  He is completely unruffled and not nervous at all.  But I thought I should get him a little more speaking experience before the big event if I could.  And Facebook came to the rescue.

I love the genealogy social networking crowd.  And they really came through for me this time.  I wrote a post asking if anyone had a youth group or family group that Matthew could practice on last week and several of my friends jumped at the opportunity to have someone young come and speak to their youth.  Thank You So Much!  We're looking forward to speaking for a couple of groups Sue Bankhead has arranged.  She has been so supportive and excited it has made us really excited too. 

On Thursday last week my friend Sue Maxwell had us come up to her new Family History Center designed entirely for youth.  So Awesome!  It has just been set up and they are planning to open it with just youth staffing it in the afternoons and evenings.  That is that "youth teaching youth" idea at work.  So So Cool!  Take a look at the pictures:

I told Matthew I wanted to move closer to that FHC :)

And by the way--someone mentioned on facebook that Matthew was "brainwashed" or being manipulated.  Like I said on Facebook, this kid won't do anything he doesn't want to do.  Just try making him get off the computer and go to bed.  I've thought about that some--with my books and with trying to help people involve their children in family history.  It isn't so much about manipulation, as about being a good parent or grandparent.  There are lots of things we do to teach our kids how to be happy in life.  This is just a really important one. 

Family History Center Permissions

At the RootsTech Conference this last weekend, I had requests from 15 - 20 Family History Center directors asking if they could make copies from my books for their patrons.  I was caught off guard by these requests and may have given some people the impression that they could freely copy and distribute pages from my books.  I feel I need to clarify copyright restrictions a bit more and make sure we are clear on how I will permit Family History Centers and Family History Consultants to use my materials.

I'm glad there are so many people who think the materials will be useful and I'm happy to have them distribute the ideas. If you are a family history center director, or a family history consultant, you are welcome to distribute predetermined copies of pages from my books using the following guidelines:

1 - Rather than making copies of pages from my book and website materials, please refer people to the website where they can make their own copies of the materials themselves.  You can find many materials from both books at http://www.zapthegrandmagap.com/downloads.  We will be continuing to add to those resources.

2 - If you have a specific need to distribute any other pages from the book or workbook, please contact me directly at janet@zapthegrandmagap.com and I will be happy to provide 3-5 pages of .pdfs with the zapthegrandmagap.com website address and my name on them.  You are only authorized to use these .pdf handouts and not pages directly from the books. Pages from the books and especially the workbook are only designed for use within the purchaser's family. 

3- I'd be happy to consider bulk orders for the books at a discounted price.  I'm available to talk to you about anything I can do to further your efforts.  You can contact me about speaking and conducting workshops to get our youth involved.  I hope we can work together to make Zapping the Grandma Gap a successful endeavor for all of us.

I hope family history center directors and family history consultants and will carefully consider what they use so that they can be completely honest about following copyright laws. We are gearing up to produce many other resources and workbooks in this series this year but can only do that if the books sell well and I have the resources to further develop this theme.  Combined, our efforts can contribute to the success of the books so that we can all work together to engage the next generation in this important work.