Researching Family History

This LibGuide is used when teaching a 30 minute workshop for Honors students who are required to research an immigration story from their own family tree.  They have to research their geneology to the point where they find an ancestor who immigrated to the United States. They will try to find why that immigrant came to America and whether they are part of a particular wave of migration, i.e. slavery, Irish potato famine, industrialization, etc...

Since everyone's family story is unique, and some students know their history and others are still building their family tree, we start the workshop with a Choose-Your-Adventure type quiz. Students are encouraged to pick where they are in the research process and are ultimately led to 3-4 resource suggestions that are likely to work, whether searching for obituaries in local newspapers, searching Ellis Island records, or regional migration research from a variety of resources. 

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
AnthropologyHistory

Type of Institution:

License Assigned: 
CC Attribution License CC-BY