Artifacts at Home: Examining Pieces of Your Family History
First, print this page to take home with you.
Then ask the members of your family to help you locate treasured family artifacts -- special objects from the past that tell something about the history of your family.
These artifacts might include jewelry, pottery, clothing, toys, tools, or other special things that have been in your family for many years. You might look at old family photographs to find images of some of these objects.
Then talk with your family members about each object's place in your family history. With their help, choose one special object and answer the following questions about it.
Record your answers on a separate piece of paper.
- What is the object?
- What does the object look like? (If you have a photograph of the object, you may want to attach it to your answers. Otherwise, you may want to draw a picture of it.)
- How old is the object?
- To whom in the family did the object first belong?
- What is the object's place in the family's history? Why is the object important?