Pedigree

By Mary Ellen Jolley

Some Sunday afternoon when your family is together or during a family home evening, everyone might like to play a game called pedigree.

Draw a large pedigree chart on a chalkboard or a large piece of paper in advance. Your chart should look like this:

Explain to your family that a pedigree chart is a place to record all of their direct ancestors—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, second, and third great-grandparents. Tell them to print only one name on each line. The father’s name should always be placed on the top of the joined lines, and the mother’s maiden name (name before she was married) should be placed on the bottom line.

The object of the game is to see how many ancestors your family knows without looking in any books. To begin the game, give the chalk to the youngest child in your family who is able to print and have him print his own name on the farthest line to the left. Then pass the chalk to the members of your family in the order of their ages. When they can no longer fill in the blanks correctly, you could let them guess or suggest a few names.

Unusual sounding names can help make this game a lot of fun. After everyone has guessed or made up some names, erase any incorrect ones and then have your parents help to complete the pedigree chart properly.

Be sure to finish the chart with the correct and complete names as far as possible before the game is over.

Illustrated by Charles Quilter