“Psych”-ed About Family History

Have you ever seen the TV show Psych? I’m sure a lot of you have. It is a fun detective comedy that has been running on the USA network for the past 8 years.

The basic premise of the show is that the lead character, Shawn, is a very clever and observant man, and he parlays his abilities into convincing people around him that he is a psychic. He uses his fake psychic abilities to solve crimes.

The show has a very loyal following. Some of my kids have been invited to weekly “Psych” parties where they gather around and get their Psych fix for the week. I am a fan, but not a fanatic.

Turns out that my youngest is hooked.

Last week, FOML5 hurt his foot, and was down for a couple of days. Apparently he spent much of that time binge-watching Psych on Netflix. While Saturday was full of chores and running around, he was plowing through an entire season, commercial-free.

When Sunday afternoon rolled around, I figured it would be better to keep the TV off and look for something else to do.

Over the past few weeks, my son had been pestering me about getting him set up on FamilySearch with his own account, and to teach him how to find names. I excelled at putting him off.

So yesterday, we got his account set up, and he started looking around. Initially, none of it made any sense to him, so I introduced him to the handy-dandy “Descendancy View” tool. (Go to the FamilySearch homepage, and click on the “Finding Our Cousins” link.)

We selected an ancestor to start with, and then I told him to start looking for “green temples.” (Which are flags to show that there are ordinances that need done. This is really low-hanging fruit, and an easy way to get started.)

And then I left him to his own devices.

Within a few minutes, he came and got me because he found a man that needed to be baptized. (His first name was John) I came to double-check, and sure enough, he was right. I helped him verify the information and reserved the ordinances. He is exited to take a name to the temple to be baptized for him.

That was cool – but then it got even better. I told him that now it was time for the fun stuff – time to get his “Shawn Spencer” on, and find some new people. I explained that being observant and clever are two of his best family history tools.

And then we started searching. We took that name he found, and stated pulling up census records, birth and death certificates, immigration logs, etc. We looked through pages to try and find John’s family.

I was impressed by how well a twelve-year-old can grasp this stuff. I would pull up a census record, and he would say, “It can’t be John, because he immigrated in 1872,” etc.

Within several hours. (Yes, hours) My little sleuth had found a little family: John, his wife Mattie, and their only son, Edward. We worked together, a genealogical Gus and Shawn, to verify and reserve the names.

We was psyched. I was psyched.

Turns out that my youngest is hooked.

What better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than to be about saving souls?

(Disclaimer: This post in no way endorses Psych as age-appropriate television for your child. That is up to you, and we aren’t discussing that in this post.)

(Disclaimer #2: This post in no way implies that Shawn Spencer, or any of the characters of Psych are proponents of Family History research. However, if they weren’t fictional characters, and understood how important it is, they probably would.)