- Define and explain Family Tree Basics in your own words
- Use key terms such as Generation accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Family Tree Basics: draw a simple family tree and learn who came before you.
Draw a simple family tree and learn who came before you.
Key ideas
The past lives in stories
Not everything from the past is written down. Families keep history alive by telling stories: how grandparents met, where they grew up, what school was like. Asking questions and listening carefully is real historical work.
Your life is history too
When you were born, what your first word was, the day you started school — these are all events in history because they happened in the past. Future historians could learn about the world today by studying the lives of ordinary children. You do not have to be famous to be part of history.
Key term — Generation: All the people born around the same time, such as your grandparents' generation or your own. Three generations might live in one family: grandparents, parents and children.
Name two people in your family who belong to an older generation.
Any two older relatives, for example a grandmother and a great-uncle.
Answer: Any two older relatives, for example a grandmother and a great-uncle.
- Thinking history is only about famous people Everyone's life is part of history. Your family stories matter just as much to you as kings and queens matter to a nation.
- Putting the newest event first Always start with the oldest event. On a timeline, the past sits on the left and today sits on the right.
Practice
To remember people and events, and to pass memories down to younger family members.
A line that shows events in the order they happened, oldest first.
Being born comes first.
Past: your third birthday. Present: your breakfast this morning.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "Generation"?
Put these in order: you learned to walk, you lost your first tooth, you were born.
- Family Tree Basics: draw a simple family tree and learn who came before you.
- The past lives in stories: Not everything from the past is written down.
- Timeline: A line that shows events in the order they happened, with earlier events on the left and later ones on the right.
- Watch out for: thinking history is only about famous people