Geneology--He Is Doing It!

It may be hard to see from this picture, but every one of the leaves on this family tree contains a name, date, and birthplace of one of Harrison's ancestors.  As an extra credit project for school, the students in his class were asked to make a family tree that (if possible) went back all the way to their grandparents.  Harrison decided that was for chumps and he went back to his fourth great-grandparents.  Booyah!  The amazing thing is, he could have gone even further back.  He had a great time talking to his grandparents on the phone and learning about his ancestors.  For real.  I've never seen him so excited about a school project.  He loved learning where his ancestors came from (Germany, England, Denmark, and Sweden, primarily) and how he fit into that big family picture.  I loved that all of the information we needed was easy to access on Family Search.

An article in the New York Times last March talked about a study conducted regarding children's ability to overcome challenges and live happy lives.  What they found was that "the more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned."  I'm grateful to be able to tell my children stories of their family history, because my parents shared those stories with me.  (That's probably why I'm, like, SUPER confident, too.)