A sampling of instructional and activity books to help children start exploring family history topics:

Genealogy

• Climbing Your Family Tree: Online and Offline Genealogy for Kids by Ira Wolfman (Workman Publishing, $12.95)

• Family History: A DK First Activity Pack by Chris and Melanie Rice (DK Publishing, $16.95)

• The Family Tree Detective: Cracking the Case of Your Family's Story by Ann Douglas (Firefly Books, $9.95)

• The Great Ancestor Hunt: The Fun of Finding Out Who You Are by Lila Perl (Clarion Books, $7.95)

• Genealogy Just for Kids! by Sherrie A. Styx (Styx Enterprises, $2.50)

• Kids and Grandparents: An Activity Book by Ann Love and Jane Drake (Kids Can Press, $10.95)

• Me and My Family Tree by Joan Sweeney (Dragonfly, $6.99)

• My Family Tree Workbook: Genealogy for Beginners by Rosemary Chorzempa (Dover Publications, $2.95)

• My Grandmother and Me (Kids Can Press, $4.95): Fill-in memory scrapbook; grandfather, mother and father editions are also available.

• Roots for Kids by Susan Provost Beller (Genealogical Publishing Co., $16.95)

• Through the Eyes of Your Ancestors by Maureen Taylor (Houghton Mifflin, $8.95)

• Oryx American Family Tree Series (Oryx Press, $24.95): Genealogical guides for students, covering 12 ethnic ancestries.

• Who's Who in My Family? by Loreen Leedy (Holiday House, $6.95)

American history

• Across America on an Emigrant Train by Jim Murphy (Clarion Books, $17)

• The American Girls Collection (Pleasant Co., $14.95): The adventures of seven "American Girls" and their families illustrate 19th- and 20th-century history.

• Children of the Gold Rush by Jane G. Haigh and Claire Rudolph Murphy (Roberts Rinehart Publishing, $14.95)

• The Civil War for Kids: A History with 21 Activities by Janis Herbert (Chicago Review Press, $14.95)

• Daily Life in a Covered Wagon by Paul Erickson (Puffin Books, $7.99)

• ...If You Lived in Colonial Times by Ann McGovern (Scholastic, $5.99)

• ...If You Traveled on the Underground Railroad by Ellen Levine (Scholastic, $5.99)

• ...If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island by Ellen Levine (Scholastic, $5.99)

• Inside Laura's Little House: The Little House on the Prairie Treasury by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson (HarperCollins, $24.95)

• One-Day Trips through History, second edition, by Jane Ockershausen (Howell Press, $14.95): Heritage adventure ideas in the Washington, DC, region.

• Your Travel Guide to Colonial America by Nancy Day (Lerner Publications, $7.95)

• Picture the American Past series (Lerner Publications, $22.60): Describes kids' experiences on orphan trains, at Indian boarding schools, on the World War II home front and during the Civil Rights era.

Ethnic heritage

• American Origins series (Avalon Travel Publishing, $12.95): Traces the "roots" of Chinese, English, French, Germans, Irish, Italians, Japanese and Poles in the United States.

• The Peoples of North America series (Chelsea House, out of print): Books detailing the history, culture and achievements of nearly 50 ethnic groups, from The Afro-Americans to The Hungarian Americans to The West Indian Americans.

• Cultures of America series (Benchmark Books, out of print): Books on American ethnic groups, including African, Chinese, Cuban, French, Greek, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, Lebanese, Mexican, Polish and Puerto Rican.

• American Family Albums (Oxford University Press, $12.95): Historical "scrapbooks" of African, Chinese, German, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Scandinavian immigrants in America.