What does genealogy mean?
Word: Genealogy
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Genealogy means the study of a family's past, showing who was related to whom and how.
How do you spell genealogy?
Syllables: ge - ne - al - o - gy
Tricky part: The ending has an a where most words of this kind have an o. Biology, geology and zoology all pull pupils towards geneology.
Watch out for: geneology, geneaology
Memory tip: A is for ancestors, and that is what this word is about, so the a stays in.
Genealogy in a sentence
Example 1: My grandfather keeps a handwritten genealogy of our family in a steel trunk.
Example 2: Genealogy has become a popular hobby, helped by old records going online.
Example 3: The royal genealogy on the museum wall runs for twelve generations.
Fun Fact
The family tree of the Chinese thinker Confucius is often called the longest genealogy on record, covering more than 80 generations over some 2,500 years.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
_en_alogy
a) j, i
b) j, e
c) g, e
d) g, i
Show answer
c) g, e. The opening sound is a soft g, as in gentle, and an e follows the n.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
Every Saturday my aunt visits the district archives to continue the geneallogy she began when she retired from teaching two years ago.
a) retired
b) geneallogy
c) archives
d) district
Show answer
b) geneallogy. Just one l stands before the o.
Mingle-Mangle
Rearrange the jumbled letters in the sentence to form the right word:
For her project, Anaya traced her family's eoglenyag back six generations.
a) generosity
b) geology
c) geography
d) genealogy
Show answer
d) genealogy. Only one option has both an n and an a.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is spelt correctly. Choose its meaning.
1. genealogy 2. heritege 3. biografy 4. sensus
a) a record of the people from whom a family is descended
b) a written account of a person's life
c) an official count of all the people in a country
d) the traditions and buildings passed down from the past
Show answer
a) a record of the people from whom a family is descended. Biography has ph before the y, heritage an a before the ge, and census a c at the start.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which document would help most with genealogy?
a) an old railway timetable
b) a shopkeeper's price list
c) a school's fee receipt
d) a great-grandfather's birth record
Show answer
d) a great-grandfather's birth record
2. Two cousins work on their genealogy. What will they end up with?
a) a chart of their relatives down the years
b) a list of their best holidays together
c) a map of the shops in their town
d) a plan for the next school reunion
Show answer
a) a chart of their relatives down the years
