MALVERN — Students from the Gifted and Talented program of the Malvern School District got a lesson in genealogy Monday night from the Hot Spring County Historical Society.
Society members met with the students after-hours at the Malvern-Hot Spring County Library and provided them with a pedigree chart to fill out and introduced the them to some of the online resources available to investigate their family tree.
“We were just brainstorming in our last meeting about how we could incorporate younger people into genealogy, because most of our group right now, they are either middle-aged or above,” said Paul Adcox, co-historian, who proposed hosting the students. “We were just trying to figure out how we could bring them in and create an interest to preserve history for them as well.”
Kinney Black, vice president and program chairman for the historical society, contacted the Gifted and Talented program’s teachers and encouraged them to invite their students to Monday night’s meeting.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Susan Bryant, GT coordinator for the Malvern School District and the fifth- and sixth-grade GT teacher. “My students were excited about it.”
Bryant attended the meeting, along with fellow GT teacher Bridgette Jones and Malvern School District Superintendent Brian Golden.
Fifth-grader Aubrey Nix, who was among the students, said she was interested in genealogy and came “to learn more about it.”
She was using online resources to look up her family history.
“I think it’s some cool technology,” she said.
Before the students got started on their research, county librarian Ashley Parker gave them an introduction to the library.
“We want to make sure you’re aware of all of the really great resources we have here at the library, because the more you are aware of what we have, the more you can utilize them and the more you can expand your knowledge, not only of your personal history and your community, but your education as well,” she said to the group.
The library boasts 26 public-access computers and, thanks to two recently received computer grants, the library will be getting 13 more computers in a couple of weeks.
“We probably have triple the computer access in this library as libraries triple our size, so that’s something really to be proud of in this community,” she said.
She also introduced the students to the genealogy section, which includes books about different Arkansas counties, school yearbooks and family histories.
“Those family histories are really special because they are unique documents,” Parker said. “People in this community wrote those books, and we had them bound, so this may be the only place in the whole world where you can have access to those books.”
The Hot Spring County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization. Its mission is to promote the preservation, writing, publishing, teaching and understanding of the history of Hot Spring County and the surrounding area.
The group meets at 7 p.m. the first Monday of each month at First United Methodist Church of Malvern. For more information, call Black at (501) 337-0796.