Lesson 17

Lesson Title: "Keeping Family History Records"

OTHER RESOURCES:

• Resource Guide for Young Women Manual 2 at lds.org.

OBJECTIVE:

Each young woman will learn how to keep important family records.

PREPARATION:

1. Bring a completed pedigree chart of your own-one that includes pictures if possible-and a completed family group record. Be prepared to tell briefly about several of your ancestors whose names are shown on the pedigree chart. Also bring a pencil, a blank pedigree chart, and a blank family group record for each young woman. If you do not have access to these forms, make copies of the ones at the end of the lesson.
2. Make a paper chain by cutting colored paper into at least seven strips approximately six inches long and one inch wide. Staple, tape, or glue the strips together to form a chain. Make the links representing past generations one color, one link in the middle representing the young women a second color, and the links representing future generations a third color. If possible, put a picture of one of the class members on the middle link.
3. Write on a poster or on the chalkboard: "The earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children" (D&C 128:18 ).
4. Assign a class member to tell a brief story about an ancestor.
5. Assign young women to present any scriptures, stories, or quotations you wish.
   Note to the teacher:
   

   Find out what family history resources the young women in your class have available to them-family records and family organizations, for example. In this lesson, the young women should have many opportunities to show things they have and to participate in other ways. Be sure to allow enough time for the class to complete the activities.

   Prepare yourself for this lesson by making sure that you know how to fill out a pedigree chart and a family group record. The ward family history consultant or someone else with experience in family history work could help you present this lesson.

ATTENTION GETTER:

Show the paper chain, and explain that each link represents a generation in a family's line. Those in earlier generations are called our ancestors. Those in future generations are called our posterity.

• Whom does the single link in the middle represent?

Point out that the middle link represents a living person who helps bind past generations to future ones through family history and temple work.

LESSON:

CONCLUSION:

Ask the assigned young woman to tell briefly about one of her ancestors and, if possible, show where he or she fits on her pedigree chart.

HANDOUT:

They can take home the Pedigree chart that you had them fill out. You can also print out the poster on pretty paper for each of them or just one for the front of the room.

MID-WEEK ACTIVITY IDEA: