Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Having Fun with "Genealogy Password"

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We had 30 members and guests at our CVGS Annual Picnic today - lots of good food, good conversation, a white elephant gift exchange and a "Genealogy Password" game.

I set up the game using the rules for the TV game listed here. The words used were all genealogy oriented (requested from Genea-Musings readers here). I typed 64 of them up in an MSWord document table in three columns, printed them off and cut them into strips. During the game, I tore the strip into three pieces and put one piece in an envelope to hand to each team, keeping one for myself. We used only 20 words. I couldn't find my "ahnentafel" strip for some reason - I know I made one! I avoided words like "aliquot" and "metes," although I had them on my list!

We had six teams play, then had the top two teams play for the championship - John and Gary were the champs. We used five words per game. The hardest words to guess were "emigrant," "naturalization," "vital," "legacy" and "administration." The craziest clue was "hair" and "roots" was guessed immediately (go figure!).

The game stage was not ideal. We had a table set up at the front of the picnic area, and contestants sat across the table from each other, with the time and scorekeeper in between the clue givers. The audience was in back of the scorekeeper and clue givers, so some people could not hear every clue or response. We really needed a sound stage so that the audience could understand all of the clues and answers.

Nonetheless, a good time was had by all, and everybody appreciated how difficult it is to define the clues and to guess the answers under a five second deadline.

The picnic concluded with the white elephant opportunity drawing, and the door prize drawing (a $25 Office Depot gift card) won by Susan Z.
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