Training Youth as Family History and Temple Consultants

General Ideas for Training Any Consultants
1. Ask for access to their tree, just as you would with any patron. Pray for inspiration as you look at their family members.

2. Do a One on One experience with them to help them find information to add to their tree.

3. Teach them to look for Hints. Then teach them how to use Hints: Make sure the hint applies to that person. Add new information to the tree as necessary. Hints connect them in a deeper way to their immediate ancestors. It is fun to find lesser know facts about them. Good sources from Hints helps prevent incorrect merges and in general makes further research easier and more accurate.

4. Some countries have more Hints. Don't forget to look for ancestors in places like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and England. They often have good sources and Hints. Teach them the skills they need to work with records in those languages.

5. Teach them to look on the FamilySearch Home page or the mobile App for Tasks. This is also a way to see what piques their interest and what they feel inspired to work on.

6.If they add new people, teach them to search for duplicates. Then teach them to use the Find tab to search more broadly for the people they plan to add. (The Find tab is in the drop down menu from Family Tree. Search for duplicates uses fairly tight parameters to search. The Find button searches for people with similar names, dates, and places.  The submitter may have had different parts of information than you.  Maybe they knew the place of birth, and you know the date of birth.) 7.Be sure while you are teaching them how to teach. Explain everything to them so they are prepared to work with people. Make sure they understand that they need to work at the patron's pace; and, that in almost all cases, the patron should use the mouse and keyboard. 8. Once you are sure they feel comfortable working in the Tree with some one on one experiences, you can train small groups. You could teach them to do descendency work and just be there to supervise and support as they work in their own trees.

Choose Skills That Give Easy Success at First
Get them working with patrons as quickly as possible, so they feel needed.

Teach them to index. Then they learn to read records and why they are so important. Then they can teach others to index. Consider pairing them with an older adult who is afraid of computers, but can read handwriting well.

Teach them to add memories to trees. It is fairly easy to do and they can start helping people right away.

Be aware that youth have many responsibilities at home, at school and in the community. Try not to overburden them. You might want to create lessons for them to share with patrons instead of asking them to create their own lessons.

Consider teaching a patron family with a youth and at least one parent at the same time. Then they have each other to rely on and the parent can help the youth make wise decisions, especially in that tricky 'merge duplicates' area

Show them fun apps on the FamilySearch website.

Let them play Compare a Face - it forces you to upload lots of family pictures to play the game. You've just taught them how to add a memory.

Introduce them to relativefinder.net. They can find out if they are related to their friends and the people in history they study at school.

Demonstrate All the Stories - All the Stories - it extrapolates all of the family stories and can be a source of great entertainment. They don't have to go to each file and drill down, it pulls them out.

Present Geneopardy - it asks you questions about your relatives, and you have to really stretch to get the $$$ (play money).