One of the merit badges for Boy Scouts focuses on genealogy. This can be an interesting badge to work towards. It can also be a fun merit badge to teach. If you are a Scout leader you may choose to look for a local family history center or research center at your library to have a genealogist teach your troop. In fact contacting a genealogist or local center is one of the steps to achieve the merit badge.
One of the requirements of the merit badge is to keep a journal for six weeks or to create a timeline of someone’s life and write a report. This is a great project for the boys because it makes the record keeping aspect of genealogy come to life.
Another great part of the merit badge is that the Scout has to interview someone about his or her life or genealogy. This can help bring the family history to life and also reinforces the work of genealogy for the scout.
The rest of the merit badge focuses on doing the actual research. A scout will need to prepare a family group sheet as well as go back two additional generations in order to earn the merit badge.
The merit badge also has the Scouts examine the way that technology has affected the way that people do genealogy. They look at both computers and microfilming. Finally they need to be able to clearly discuss how all of this research has affected them.
If you enjoy doing genealogy then you may want to consider becoming a genealogy merit badge counselor for your local Boy Scout Troup. The counselor will work with boys and pass off the steps as they do them. It would be a great opportunity to introduce them to a new hobby and to help them learn more about their families.