Ancestry® understands the challenges teachers and parents are currently enduring, and they are here to help by making this school year a little easier. Whether you’re teaching in the classroom or embracing remote learning, Ancestry now offers free resources to inspire educators with new ways to engage students.
“Family history research is a powerful tool for building resilience, connection and understanding for all ages,” said Margo Georgiadis, President and CEO of Ancestry. “We are deeply appreciative of the work of educators, particularly during this challenging time. Ancestry is proud to provide free tools to support educators with their focus on inspiring students with new curriculum topics and to make richer and more personal connections to important moments in history.”
Free Ancestry Subscriptions for Teachers
For the first time, Ancestry will provide K-12 teachers across the US a free 6-month World Explorer subscription to access billions of historical records, providing support in lesson development and project creation for the school year ahead. Teachers can verify their credentials on Ancestry.com/BacktoSchool.
The free subscription will give up to 10,000 teachers the tools to help students make connections to their ancestors, historical places, and events throughout time. By pulling records around historical events to contextualize chapters in history like WWII and the Civil War, teachers can bring their curriculum to life in relevant and exciting ways–which is especially important for keeping students engaged during virtual learning.
The World Explorer subscription includes:
- Unlimited access to most records on Ancestry, including more than 3 billion international birth, marriage, death, census, military, church and other records
- Access to all public family trees on Ancestry
Free Remote Access for Parents, Tutors and Educators
Parents, tutors and educators can utilize remote access to Ancestry Library Edition to help contextualize and learn more about moments throughout history. For library patrons of over 2,100 libraries that subscribe to Ancestry Library Edition, the offering will provide instant free access to a wide range of resources for genealogical and historical research. Distributed exclusively by ProQuest and powered by Ancestry.com, the program grants card holders access to billions of records in census data, historical photos, local narratives, oral histories, indexes and other resources in over 30,000 databases that span from the 1500s to the 2000s.
In addition to the wide availability of resources obtained through Ancestry Library Edition, parents and educators also have access to an intuitive search interface, detailed search indexes, and helpful Learning Center tools, making Ancestry Library Edition an indispensable resource for education this school year.
To access this database, contact your local library to ask if they participate and for more details.
Free Programs For Schools in Classrooms and Lesson Plans for Teachers
For nearly a decade, Ancestry® has been offering its AncestryK12® services, a no-cost program for K-12 schools and teachers in classrooms nationwide that includes access to content from the U.S. collections of Ancestry, Fold3.com and Newspapers.com.
Family history projects for K12 students allow them to build powerful inquiry skills, while the sources and documents found on Ancestry gives students across the nation the opportunity to make connections to their ancestors, historical places, and events throughout time. Their research journey will provide powerful insights into their own family and bring their curriculum to life in relevant and exciting ways.
The lesson plans target a number of core subjects, with educational topics ranging from the American Revolutionary War to the 1940 U.S. Federal Census. They have been written by teachers according to the History Standards administered by the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles under the guidance of the National Council for History Standards. Schools and teachers can apply for the AncestryK12 Grant here.
For more information on additional back-to-school resources and creative solutions for teachers and parents, please visit www.ancestry.com/backtoschool.