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For parents, guardians & teachers

A grown-ups' guide to Young Researchers

Young Researchers teaches real family history skills in small, encouraging steps. Here's how it works and how to get the most from it together.

What kids do here

  • Detective skills lessons — short quizzes on the words and ideas researchers use: sources, census records, maiden names, abbreviations and reading old dates.
  • Reading old writing — copy practice documents line by line, from clear typed print (easy) to neat handwriting (medium) and old curly script (hard).
  • Famous family lessons — kids look up a well-known historical person (George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Amelia Earhart and others) on real research websites and type in the person's dates and their parents' names and dates. Answers are checked instantly. After two wrong tries they get a hint; after five, they're shown exactly where to look.
  • Clue notebook — a simple place to write down a discovery, where it came from and how sure they are, which quietly teaches citing sources.
  • Research websites — a short list of free, reputable sites, each marked if it's best used with an adult.

Setting up

  1. Create an account (or sign in with your Holden's Archive account). You'll give your date of birth, confirm you're an adult, and choose whether the account is for a parent, a group leader, or both.
  2. Open the Family profile and make a parent PIN (4–6 numbers). The family profile is where you add up to three children, change your details, and add children to groups — all behind the PIN, so children can't change them.
  3. On a shared device, each child picks their name in “Who's researching?”. Their stars, unfinished lessons, notes, family tree and pin board are kept separately.
  4. Without an account, kids can still do every lesson; stars are kept on that device only.

Learning groups (classrooms)

  • Teachers, clubs and parent groups can turn on group leader in their Family profile, then use the Classroom to start a group, set lessons (choosing the level and which children each lesson is for), post announcements, and follow progress.
  • To join, a parent gets the group's code, looks it up in the Family profile, sees who leads it, and agrees to share their child's first and last name and progress on the group's lessons. Only parents can take a child out of a group.
  • Group leaders are independent and aren't checked by us — please join only groups run by people you know. See the Learning Groups Terms.

Tips for researching together

  • Open WikiTree or Wikipedia side by side with the lesson, and talk about where each answer was found.
  • When sources disagree (it happens with old dates), celebrate it — that's real research!
  • After a famous family, try the same steps for your own family: start with yourself and work back.
  • Interview a grandparent and save what you learn in the clue notebook.

Safety and privacy

The kids' section has no ads, no shop, no chat and no public profiles, and children can't create accounts. Read the Kids' Privacy Notice and Kids' Terms for the details, and contact us to review or delete your child's information at any time.