Activities:
Temple and Family History

Enjoy Temple and Family History Activities

When you and your family do temple and family history activities, you not only make great memories, you become closer to each other, closer to those who have gone on before, and closer to Christ. These activities also help you to gather Israel on both sides of the veil. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started!

First, sign up for a free account on FamilySearch and fill out four generations on your part of the FamilySearch Family Tree. See step-by-step, easy instructions in The Family History Guide here, and check out All About the Free FamilySearch Family Tree.

Find and Create Great Activities

Explore the following places to find hundreds of activities, and have fun creating some of your own!

The Family History Guide is the place to go to find all kinds of Latter-day Saint-focused activities. See the Index for Latter-day Saint Activities to see what's available. Many of the activities for families, individuals, youth, and children can benefit you and your family on the covenant path. In addition, the Come, Follow Me Companion has family history activities related to each Come, Follow Me lesson—see an example here.

FamilySearch In-home and Online Activities gives you ideas to do with or without the internet. Sign in to your FamilySearch account to see even more activities. You can track which activities you do and share them, too!

The BYU Family History Technology Lab has games and activities using the information you have entered on your branch of the FamilySearch Family Tree. Make sure you have four generations filled in. Some favorites include

• Geneopardy
• Reverse Indexing
• Wheel of Family Fortune
• RelativeFinder

The ChurchofJesusChrist.org Family History Activities for Youth is a great place to go for all kinds of ideas and help. Check out Children and Youth Discover to find ideas for goals, activities to do, resources, and messages from church leaders along with invitations and suggestions for the hashtag #Strive To Be.

FamilySearch Discovery

Watch this creative way to make discoveries about people in your family.

Use the ideas in the video to make discoveries about a living relative or an ancestor, and share them with your family.

Check out how easy it is to interview living relatives:

• Using FamilySearch Apps to Record Oral Histories
• Record stories from your life or from the lives of your relatives
• The FamilySearch Memories Gallery

To get your family talking about their stories, try playing FamilySearch Discovery—All About Me. Add any birth year and let the fun begin! Read more about this fun game here.

The In-home and Online Activities are amazing! Here are some more to check out:

• Time Capsule Questions
• Family Trivia Game
• The Year I Was Born
• Walk Where They Walked
• Eat What They Ate
• Compare Your Face
• Picture My Heritage

The Family History Fun Basket

Along with the Latter-day Saint activities in The Family History Guide Activities Index, many other activities can be adapted to be Latter-day Saint- focused. The Family History Fun Basket is a favorite: you get to write your own questions. Give it a try, anytime and anywhere!

Internet-Free Family History Activities

Unplug and do some quick and easy "internet-free" family history activities!

• Guess Who: One person gives some clues and everyone else guesses which ancestor lived in a dug-out, crossed an ocean, fought in a war, joined the church as a youth, etc.
• 20 Questions: everyone asks the leader yes or no questions to discover which ancestor he or she is thinking of.
• Ancestor Fruit Basket: Select a few ancestors' names and assign one of them to each participant. Like "musical chairs," there are enough chairs for all group members except one. The person standing calls out the name of one of the ancestors and all assigned to that name switch places along with the caller. Whoever is left standing is now in the middle and gets to say something about that ancestor.




• Tell family stories with a twist, such as each person telling a part of the story and the next person starting when the previous person stops. See Ten Ways To Discover, Gather, and Share Ancestor Stories.
• Play big group games including "The Human Knot" and "If, Then ..."




• Family History Pictionary, where you draw pictures about your family history, and everyone guesses what they are about. See instructions here.
• Charades: act out family history stories without using words; everyone guesses the story.

Making The Sabbath A Delight

Watch this video to discover what President Nelson counsels us to do on the Sabbath Day, and decide what you can do.

Taking Ancestors To The Temple

See the Take Ancestors to the Temple page for more ideas, help, and counsel.

If you haven't yet, think about accepting Elder Neil L. Anderson's challenge to find as many names for the temple as you do baptisms you perform in the temple, and to help others to do the same.

Discover how to find names quickly and easily using the Ordinances Ready tool.

Of course, there are times when more research and revelation are needed for some challenging goals.

• Find Temple Activities from FamilySearch for preparing for the temple and doing proxy work for those on the other side of the veil.
• See Project 5: Indexing in The Family History Guide, and this FamilySearch blog post, to see how to serve others by helping them to find their ancestors who need temple work. See the Service link (top of the page) for more ideas on service with family history.
• See Temple and Family History on ChurchofJesusChrist.org for more ideas. You could also make a list of the promises in the following videos and put the list where you can review it often.

The 21-day Family History Challenge

Do you want to be happier, closer to your family and to Jesus Christ? Sister Wendy Nelson offers an invitation to do family history activities each day for 21 days—and watch for the miracles! Could you make a new habit in just 21 days?

President Nelson: "I invite you prayerfully to consider what kind of sacrifice, and preferably a sacrifice of time, you can make to do more family history and temple work..." RootsTech Family Discovery Day 2017

See 50 "Five-minute" Ideas that can be part of a 21-Day Challenge, or enjoyed any time.

You or your family members may also want to participate in an online 21-day Project. You can select a plan to follow for ideas and motivation for the entire family, or select a plan just for youth. Read more about it here.

Ward or Stake Youth Activity Idea

Help plan an interactive, informative, spiritual, and fun event to involve all of the youth in your ward or stake such as the one featured in the video below. See activity ideas that could be included along with suggestions and instructions here.

Watch this video for ideas.

More Activities

01: Early Church Ancestors
Find out the names of your earliest ancestors who joined the Church. Where were they baptized and how did the Church change their lives? Make a book of the conversion stories. These stories could be sent with missionaries when they go to share the gospel. See this FamilySearch blog for details.

02: Family History Youth Conference
Learn how to organize and work with your leaders to plan a family history youth conference.

03: Family Traditions
Learn about the power of family traditions in drawing families closer together and appreciating their history.

04: Taking Ancestors to the Temple
Learn about your ancestors and prepare their names for the temple with help on LDS.org and in The Family History Guide. Watch the video on the left to learn about Elder Anderson's challenge. You can also help 11-year-old children prepare names to take to the temple when they turn 12. See the announcement about new temple and family history opportunities for youth here.

05: Indexing—a Fun and Helpful Service Activity
As you create indexes to help family history researchers find what they need you are performing a valuable service. Plan indexing get-togethers with family and friends to multiply the fun. To get started with web indexing, see Project 5: Indexing in The Family History Guide, this FamilySearch blog post, and more videos like this one from the LDS.org Youth Site. Read these inspirational stories from youth about their family history experiences.

06: Embark on a Family History Activity (YM/YW)
Punch your passport for an exciting youth family history activity.

07: Preserve Living Memories
Interview living relatives or people in your ward to help document their treasured stories and memories. Encourage other youth to visit a living relative and record an interview that can later be transcribed and entered in FamilySearch tree. For more info, see this LDS.org article.

*08: Sanctifying the Sabbath with Family History
Learn about 10 ways to sanctify the Sabbath day with family history, including family history research, finding temple ordinances that need to be done, keeping family records, uploading memories to Family Tree, and taking a walk through a cemetery to photograph headstones for BillionGraves.com, a FamilySearch partner. Watch this video to discover what President Nelson counsels us to do, so we can "Make the Sabbath a Delight."

09: Helping Others with Photos and Documents
You can help others add photos and documents to their FamilySearch trees. Find instructions in FamilySearch Project 2: Memories in The Family History Guide.

10: Cemeteries and Smartphones
Who knew they could be a great pair! Check out this article to learn more, and the Temple and Family History Youth Activities page to learn how to get started making photographing headstones with your phone, and how you can make a difference. Learn about your own ancestors and, if you live close enough, photograph and preserve a record of their headstones. You can also do research to find graves at FindAGrave and BillionGraves.

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