Need Ideas for a Geneology Project

How far back is needed to go?
Can you focus on one relative ?
Maybe interview a grandparent or greatgrandparent?
If you can focus on on relative maybe tell about one that came here first. or someone famous ?

He could print out a basic map of the countries where your ancestors came from, and then elaborate. For example, print (or draw) a map of England. Put a photo of a grandparent with English roots on the map, and then make some cards to place on the map with facts that he can learn about his English roots. He could include any info that you know (like your great-grandparents came to America from Liverpool in 1885 on such-and-such a boat). Do one map page for each country represented in your family line.

Or how about a food genealogy project? He could learn to make a dish from each country that your ancestors came from and make a family recipe book. This would be good if you have any relatives who could recall any actual recipes. On each recipe page he could include a photo of the person that country and recipe represents and maybe a little about them. "This is my grandfather. He's from Scotland and he always talked about his mother's famous sausages" or whatever.

My son did a genealogy project too. His grandfather took him to the cemeteries where family members were laid to rest and told him stories about those people. (this worked because it was all in one geographic area. There were about 4 old cemeteries to visit). So my son's notebook consisted of pictures of the headstones and typed-up notes from his grandfather's recollections. "Grand Dad remembers hearing that this ancestor was injured in the civil war and could never walk without a cane and without a lot of pain again. But he still farmed and milked 75 cows every morning without help", etc.

Or, if you have a lot of ancestors who fought in past wars, your son could do a military project. Get a poster board and put photos of actual family members or get photos that represent their regiment or flags of their battalion. Put info about their military service and any personal family history with each person's name. That's a good way to learn American history, too.

Ancestry.com will let you have a free trial 2 week subscription, by the way. If you use your 2 weeks well you can find lots of info and pictures.

I love this question! I have been thinking about it for the last couple of hours or so since I saw it. An idea just came to me. Some homeschoolers do something called lapbooking. It is basically a unit study that is put together using file folders. You can get free resources online for lapbooking. I searched geneology lapbooking and found this site: http://www.lapbooklessons.com/FamilyTreeLapbook.html. Some of the graphics may be a bit juvenile for him, but you can certainly use the concept and make your own images. It really looks pretty neat, and I bet the teacher would be pretty impressed. You can download any of the components for free and print them out. Here are a couple more links that explain lapbooking better, with some examples: http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking
http://thehappyhousewife.com/homeschool/lapbook-ideas/
Have fun!

My son did this project last year. He used a 3 sided poster boards. In the middle he did a family tree. On the sides he printed the flags from the countries his ancestors are from (France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, etc...) One side was for my side of the family and the other was his father's side. His paternal grandmother is 1/2 Blackfoot Indian so rather than a flag, he used a picture of a Blackfoot Indian Chief. Good luck!

Dress in garb from his ancestors time period(using today's clothes). Open it up with music from the country of origin(s). Big poster with pictures from the country.

pictures of family members and stick them on the appropriate "tree" line. Include date of birth/death. You could either draw a huge tree on poster board, or make one using materials like cardboard and cut out a shape of a tree. Then use string to attach the pictures, and glue note cards on the back of the pictures with their information on them.

Not sure how involved you have to be. When my daughter did her first geneology project they were given manilla folders and told to assemble a family tree. it was pretty simple. on the outside of the front cover was a picture of her. inside on one side was a photo of me and above it was a photo of my mom and dad on the other side inside was the same for my hubby. on the back was photo of me and hubby and our children.

now my youngest son had a project last year. much more involved. he followed my husbands family back to italy and got copies of the ship manifest where my hubasands grandfather signed in at ellis island. he got a photo of the ship itself and had that blown up. He has family tree on both sides going back close to 200 years. He put all of this into a power point presentation.

I myself have just started a family tree in our stairway going up to the bedrooms. I got a cool metal sculpture of a tree at big lots and all around the jeweled leaves I am putting photos of my hubby and me and our kids.

hope any of those helps

You know the old diorama projects we all used to do? How about something similar. But each box is a different generation? It would come out looking kind of like an xmas tree. Essentially Mom's side on one side and Dad's side on the other. You/he could put a photo in the back (not necessarily of the person), and hot glue in some objects that represent that person OR the time period. If he really wants to go all out; paint/ tissue paper/ etc could be used to color code. Mom Red. Dad Blue. Maternal Grandparents Orange, Paternal Granparents Purple. And then continue down in a colorwheel type arrangment with Dad's side being cool colors and Mom's side being warm colors. (on the outside of the boxes).

Images on the inside could be things like photos of the person, photos (or printed images from online) of their jobs (military, farmer, doctor, mills)/ geographic locations (ESP cool for the travel aspect> country of origin (norway, egypt, spain, etc.), colony they were a part of (plymouth, rhode island, etc.), or city they immigrated to (historic image of the city IN THAT time period like NY, Boston, Charleston, etc.... but NY in 1700's or 1950's... whenever it was that the first gen came over). If the person was known to be involved in something in particular (like union or confederate soldier a flag on one end of the box ditto for country of origin......or WWI or II the unit badge....Doctors/Nurses get a red cross on the side... teacher gets a book...etc).

I would suggest toddler shoe boxes cut in half OR (if you go to a cake store, or package store) you can get the little 4"x4"x4" boxes for about a dollar each. And (kinda obviously) work DOWN, pyramid style. Son on top of mom and dad, on top of their mom's and dad's, on top of theirs.

You could make it a 3D type thing by building a tree of paper mache and labeling the branches with names.
Or do it as a book, allowing for more detail.
Or use a hanger as a base and have the generations go downward from the hanger--you could cut out photos of the people if you have them.