Family History is Fun!

  Dear Brothers and Sisters, We apologize for missing last week.   Time got away from us and then Relative Race was on BYU TV.   We really enjoy this show as the contestants are discovering more family.   What an awesome Family History adventure!   If you have not seen it, check it out!   Sunday nights at 6 PM (Comcast lineup) on BYU TV.   This week we are continuing our discussion of the information you can find on Census records.   The last blog posting covered the names of residents and the personal description that was included in the census form.   The description included parentage, birth place, naturalization, and if they spoke English. Today, before we go further, let’s talk more about naturalization. The Census records prior to 1870 did not usually contain any information on place of birth or if the person was a naturalized citizen.   However, the 1870 Census records include the place of birth (if in the US, the enumerator...

 Dear Brothers and Sisters, As we strive to serve in our covenant duties to gather Israel and seal families together, we often come across various records that help….. some more than others.  One source of information that we use to gather the families is the Census records.  What can they tell us and how can they help?  Over the next couple of weeks, we would like to help sort out the information found on these valuable documents and will be focusing on the Census records from the United States. In the heading section, almost all census records contain the county and state of the area where the census was enumerated. Most also contain the date of the enumeration and the name and title of the enumerator.  Some also contain the city and other governmental jurisdictions such as ward number or name, precinct number or name, etc.  These are very valuable in determining the location of our family members at a certain period of time.  We may have more than o...

  Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today, Brother May and I had the opportunity to fulfil a photo request for Find A Grave.     We have blogged about this service opportunity before, but we thought we might go into a bit more detail on how we do it. The reason we are bringing it up at this time, is that we were impressed with the thought, that we have the opportunity to do this kind of service in our own family history research.     It is a great service project that the entire family can get involved with.   Even toddlers can help!   In addition, you can just take photos, do some cleaning, or go all out and clean the headstones to spit-shine and then photograph.   It is up to you.   So what is our procedure?   We clean the headstones to the best of our ability before photographing.   Over the years we have collected the items we keep in our “cemetery kit”.   It started with a 5-gallon bucket and two Home Depot tool aprons tied a...

  Dear Brothers and Sisters, Many of us are on social media and receive the posts from FamilySearch.   Lately they have been posting quite a few stories of people who served in World War I and World War II.   Along with that, I have been reading novels of people who lived during those turbulent times – from various points of view.   They are all fiction based on facts and cover the stories of the Jews, the Germans, the French, the Japanese and Chinese as well as other ethnic groups.   The FamilySearch posts and the books I have been reading got me to thinking of our ancestors.   Do we know their stories?   Have we recorded them? In an earlier blog post I told the story that I have posted on FamilySearch of my father who was a Pearl Harbor survivor aboard the USS Nevada.   But I am not sure you know the story of Brother May’s parents.   It is truly a war-era love story! The year was 1944.   Brother May’s Dad, Daniel (Danny), was an ...

  Dear Brothers and Sisters, We have been taught that this life is a journey, a test, and the way for us to use our God-given strengths and talents to become more like our Savior.   We are here on earth to learn, to experience adversity and up-lifting times, and to grow towards our eternal potential.   As we do this, we are writing the story of our mortal life.   Are we recording that story? In a past post, we encouraged you to add stories to your FamilySearch pages.   One of the pages you add to should be your own.   When thinking of what to write, most people think of special news-worthy events, spiritual experiences and funny anecdotes.   We tend to forget the daily activities and struggles.   However, our posterity will be just as interested in those stories as they are in the “note-worthy” ones. Our ancestors may have lived through the pandemic of 1918 or experienced one of more of the World Wars.   Do we have their stories?  ...

 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Have you received an email from FamilySearch that said you had new notifications?   Have you been on FamilySearch and noticed the red dot by the little bell icon on the top right hand corner of your home page?   Have you heard the expression “you have “a leaf”? So many questions, right?   Family Search regularly sends out notifications when there are changes to the family members you are watching on your tree, or when they have new records for a family member on your tree, or if they have updated your family tree birthday calendar, etc. They also notify you when ordinances have been completed for a name on your reserved list. These notifications help you add sources, documents, fun stories and more to your family tree and to stay on top of changes that may have been made. One of the more common forms of notifications comes from Ancestry.com, called a Leaf.   FamilySearch uses this same type of notification process and posts it o...

 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Do you sometimes feel that your schedule is so busy that you just cannot add one more thing?   We all know that family history takes time and, if you are like us, your family history tasks can be put on the back burner when the schedules get really crazy. Did you know that you can still do family history even if you only have 5 minutes?   FamilySearch is looking for volunteers to help correct place names in the program and it only takes a couple of minutes to help out.   You can do it while waiting for a doctor appointment or while taking a water break at work or at any time where you can log into your FamilySearch account on your phone, computer, or tablet for a couple of minutes. Just follow these simple directions: Log into FamilySearch and look in the upper right corner of your home page for the Pink/Purple box that says Volunteer Opportunity .   Click on the Try It box.   (On an iPhone, go to the More icon at the bo...