In some ways, Halloween should be a genealogist's favorite holiday: graveyards and cemeteries, the ghosts of those gone beyond, communion with the other side, skeletons and mummies we might be related to! Here are a few ways to turn the season into an ancestral celebration rather than a frightmare:
Dress up as ancestors/past professions, or if your children want to be historical characters like royalty, soldiers, Vikings, or so on, find the ancestral stories to go along with their idea. I once dressed up as a Salem witch for one of those ladies' witch parties...
Look through old photos to find costumes from the past that you, your siblings, or parents wore--try to recreate them now!
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| my aunt and uncle in the 1950s |
Carve pumpkins to look like a favorite family theme or interest, such as ideas here.
Set up decorative gravestones in your yard--arranged like a family tree with ancestors' names on them, or a family circle of ghosts, such as ideas here.
Play family games from past eras, like bobbing for apples.
Create relevant activities for the family to enjoy, such as a memory game matching pictures of headstones with ancestors.
Do a cemetery scavenger hunt together (find a baby's grave, find a flower carved on a headstone, find a soldier's grave, look for a tilted headstone, find someone who shares your initials, find the oldest person, find the one who was buried most recently, and so on).
Spend the day honoring the dead: indexing old records, attending the temple.
And if any ghosts appear, ask them for some answers you've been searching for!
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