National Family History Month (NFHM) is an initiative of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO). NFHM has been an annual event in Australia and New Zealand since August 2006, originally organised as National Family History Week, which was held during the first week of August. But due to its ever increasing popularity, NFHM was increased to the whole month of August from 2013. With events held around Australia, over the course of the month – this is one for every Australian family historian to diary date.
NFHM for Organisations
The year is flying by, and May is here already, which means that it is time (if you haven’t already) to start thinking about what you would like to do for National Family History Month (NFHM).
Each year hundreds of groups, societies, museums, libraries and other ogranisations hold events thoughout August, in a bid to help promote family history, local history and military history to the general public.
It could be a beginning your family history talk, a scanning old photos afternoon, a tour through historical buildings or archives … and so on. Even online events. The list can go on.
Anyone who is organising an event can simply go to the National Family History Month website, click on the “Add an Event” tab and add the details online.
At the time of writing this post, only 30 events are listed for the whole of Australia for the month. Come on people, we can do better than that! We love family history, right? We would hate to see NFHM go, so why not make it truly something.
You don’t even have to do anything special. Genealogy and family history societies can participate simply by naming their monthly meeting in August their National Family History Month meeting or have one or more of their library open days during August a National History Month library open day.
We should be excited about taking family history to the public. This an opportunity to help someone else get started on the exciting journey of family history. So let’s show how much we love National Family History Month (NFHM) by organising and event or two.
NFHM for Individuals
Each year Shauna Hicks, the National Family History Month national co-ordinator, comes up with a number of ways that you as an individual can participate.
There are some ideas like the few below listed on the NFHM website:
– Visit your local State Archives, State Library or the local office of the National Archives of Australia
– Write your life story
– Interview a relative about their life story
– Label family photos
Shauna’s website does say that she will be offering the 31 Activities for Researchers and 31 Activities for Genealogy/Family History Societies during NFHM again, but she’ll put the link up closer to August. So keep an eye on http://www.shaunahicks.com.au/resources/ for that one. These lists are great, and you can do one every day, or a few a week or only one or two over the month.
Keep up to date
You can follow NFHM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest news and events.
http://familyhistorymonth.org.au/
