Themes
Family heritage

FAMILY HERITAGE

Story link
Ida Traill was able to learn more about her family by talking to her grandparents and visiting places that were special to her family such as the graveyard at Holy Trinity Church, Woolstone and Leeholme. Ida also knew that places and special objects can be used to tell the family history.

Here are two activities that can build on work already done in previous days.

Make your own family tree Print and hand out copies of Miss Traill's family tree.

Click here to view a print version of Miss Traill's Family Tree.

Go through the format of Miss Traill's family tree - you can see that the reason Miss Traill ended up with all of the treasures was because she was the last one to survive. A lot of her aunts and uncles either never married or had no children. The tree is easy to follow.

Use Miss Traills family tree as a model to trace the children's relatives to their grandparents or great grandparents. They can illustrate this tree by pasting on photographic images or drawing them.

Final Presentation
The students use their completed family tree combined with some of the family stories they collected for Day 3 to find 5 things (objects, photographs, names of places) from home that they can use to tell the story of their family.

Over different lessons the students can present these stories with the props and family tree to the class.

Reflection and class discussion
What have they discovered through Ida's Quest?

Lead a discussion based around the value of family histories, of fitting personal history into local history and broader history.
Do they think that they will be able to pass on the knowledge of their family and district to their children or to others?
Why is this important?
How do you find out more?