ANCESTOR CAKE

Tonight we started a new family tradition that will help the family learn, in a fun way, a little bit of their family history.  Ancestor cake.
I went back six generations and wrote down all the grandmas and grandpas birthdays and did the same for Larry's family.  This month we have eight ancestors who had birthdays.
I looked to see if we had a photo of them, wrote down their vitals and if there were any interesting tidbits about their life.
We took turns reading a life snip-it of a birthday ancestor and then sang happy birthday to them.  The kiddos got to blow out the candles and then we talked about family history memories over dessert.
I hope that with us doing this every month, it will help our family realize their ancestors were real people.
Also, I hope it ignites some family history interest.  Some of our ancestors, all we know is a birth and death date.  No photos.  No personal information about their life.  Some ancestors have a few mysteries to solve.  Some have skeletons in their closet.  Some information is heartbreaking.  Some, we have loads of information about, including fun journal entries that really help bring alive their personalities.  I hope when my children are studying something in school, like the Civil War, for example, they come home and ask me, "remember that one grandpa that fought in the Civil War?  Can you tell me more about him?"
More importantly, I hope they connect with an ancestor and want to help fill in 'the dash' between their birth and death dates.
This new family tradition, besides being delicious, is enlightening, humbling and exciting.