Telephone Family History
When lockdown 3 hit in January 2021 we immediately looked at how we could support those people who were particularly isolated, lonely and cut off from their communities. Zoom based activities are great for the digitally able, but how could we reach those not online? We decided to set up a family history activity using the good old telephone!
Family history is very popular, but many of the resources that you can access from home are online. Therefore, we recruited a team of volunteers who supported the participants through their family history search and phoned them regularly to chat through the participants’ findings, report on the searches they had done and most of all, provide some companionship.
For the volunteers and participants the project provided some much needed social contact, a chance to delve into something interesting and connect with others in the community. The project was a great success with volunteers and participants enjoying long phone calls of up to an hour!
Click here to find out how to access Ancestry through Leicestershire Libraries