How to Honor Moms in Your Family Tree

Mother's Day isn't just a time to honor your own mother. It can also be a great time to honor the mothers and grandmothers in your family history and to give thanks for the work they did and the sacrifices they made.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Family Photos
• Genealogy Books
• Acid-free Scrapbooks
• Photo Albums
• Genealogy Software

1. Research the women in your family tree. This work can be difficult, since until recently most women changed their last names when they married. Do as much research as you can, though, and include the information in a special book or journal.

2. Create a family tree as a family project. Include all the relevant details that you have about your foremothers and add photographs or copies of miniature portraits if you are lucky enough to have them.

3. Find books that discuss day-to-day life when these women were alive. Talk about their daily activities (such as laundry or cooking) with your family and discuss how much differently we perform those activities today.

4. Honor these women for doing their traditionally devalued "women's work." Remind your family members that even if their grandmothers and great-grandmothers didn't work outside the home, they still lived full and significant lives.

5. Remember that women of previous generations were often expected to be midwives, healers, seamstresses, and butchers, among many other things, for their own families.

6. Ask each of your children to prepare a small presentation about one of the women in your family tree. Listen to the presentations during a Mother's Day brunch or dinner. Have the children show photos or family heirlooms if you have them.

Tips & Warnings

• Even if you can't find a lot of specific information about the women in your family tree, you may be able to find books at your library or bookstore that will give you a good idea of what their lives were like.
• If you know where the women were born and where they lived, you will almost certainly be able to find material about women whose lives were similar to those of your foremothers.
• Be very careful if you use old family photos for crafts projects. Instead of using the originals, make color copies or scan the photos yourself. Color printers can capture the faded sepia tone of many old photographs.
• Be sure that old photographs and family heirlooms are handled and stored carefully. Remove photos from plastic album pages and store them in a special archival box or an acid-free album or scrapbook.