Are questions like “Dad, did you ever meet George Washington?” common in your household? They are in mine. Getting young kids involved in family history is great, we just need to remember that they are still learning the concepts of ancestry and family trees. So you might have to start out with the basics.

Children know the world around them the best. It can be hard for them to imagine someone living a long time ago in a land far away. Here are a few things that you can do to introduce young children to your family’s history.

Keep It Simple
Most young children know who their grandparents are. But ask them who their dad’s dad is and they can get stumped. Simplify the family tree to help them understand. Tell them that dad’s dad is your grandfather. Mom’s brother is their uncle. Grandmother’s mother is your great grandmother. Using these types of examples help them understand the structure of a family.

Namesakes
Lots of parents, like myself, give their children names with special meanings within the family. It could be the name of a loved relative, or a family last name that isn’t used anymore. Explaining to your child where their name came from is a great way to expose them to their family history.

Grandparents’ Real Names
It is common for grandparents to have nicknames like NaNa, MeMa or Gran. There is nothing wrong with these names, but we also need to teach our children that their grandparents have real names just like us. Our kids don’t have to use these real names all the time, but this is knowledge they should learn.

Maiden Names
Maiden names can be confusing to kids. You mean mom had a different name before she got married? That’s weird. Talking about maiden names can be easier when you relate it to the names of maternal grandparents. This helps make the connection that mom is a child of those grandparents.

Exposing our children to their family history is easy to do, especially when done in small steps. While you are riding in the car or looking at family pictures, throw in a few questions like “Who is mom’s mom?” or “What is granddad’s real name?”. This will help them begin to understand how their family is structured and that George Washington was dead long before dad was ever born.

We’ve got some great news. Today we are announcing a partnership with GenealogyFreelancers.com to help make researching family history easier.

We know that sometimes questions on Tpstry can stump you. This often happens when the question is in regards to a person several generations back and there is no relative that remembers the answer. Do you give up? No. You get help.

GenealogyFreelancers is a great place to find a professional researcher to help you get past that roadblock. Using GenealogyFreelancers is easy. On their site, you can upload a project prospectus, or basically the ins-and-outs of what you are looking for. Then professional researchers from GenealogyFreelancers will look over your project and see how they can help you.

So where does Tpstry fit into this mix? Well, every research project starts out with the known information like names, places and dates. Since Tpstry already collects this type of information, we are making it easier to use this information outside of Tpstry. Soon we will be rolling out the ability to export your family information in GEDCOM format. This means that you can use Tpstry to enter all your known information, export your GEDCOM file and give it to your researcher. This gives the researcher a head start when investigating your family’s past.

Once your researcher has helped you find the answer to that stubborn question, don’t forget to enter that information in your Tpstry family.

So visit http://www.genealogyfreelancers.com to post your project prospectus or look for the “Hire a Professional Researcher” links within the Tpstry website.