Let’s face it — historically, family history has been for old people. But not anymore.
In years past, genealogy has required a significant investment of time and effort that younger people just couldn’t afford. But today, billions of records are easily searchable online.
This change has enabled people both old and young to succeed in family history work in a fraction of the time. In fact, several members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have invited teenagers to get involved in genealogy and temple work (see, for example, these messages from Elder David A. Bedar, Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder Neil L. Andersen).
But if the teenagers in your life are slow to jump on the genealogy bandwagon, show them these five websites. These too-cool-for-school tools use FamilySearch to reveal fun factoids about a person’s family and may be just the things that get more teenagers excited about family history.
1. KinMapper.com
KinMapper maps the data from your family tree to show where your ancestors lived (or died, or were married or were otherwise recorded present) for eight generations (as a start — you can ask it to do more). When you log in with your FamilySearch account, the app’s world map automatically updates with pins for every place mentioned on your ancestors’ records.