Genealogy

Today a member of my church, who a few weeks ago I gave her a name I found in my genealogy because it was very close to her husband's surname, came over so I could help her use new.familysearch.org. It was a rough start but once we started entering information it was fun to see what we could find and do. I help her take names off a pedigree chart and put them on new.familysearch, then we looked at familysearch.org because she realized that you can't search for information at new.familysearch. I never had much luck with familysearch but...today we typed in a name and right away we found a census record with his name on it. We found his children and could guess on about birth years so we added those to her family on new.familysearch. Then she mention that she had just gotten information from someone in the family, and she couldn't understand it. I looked at it and realized that the family we just added to new.familysearch were on the top of that sheet of paper, with birth date, and location. So we edited that information, and add some children who weren't born at the time of the 1910 census. Then I looked at the bottom of the page realize that the mother of the family add the top of the page, had her parents and siblings at the bottom of the page, so we added them. She was then excited to find out that by adding that family she came across temple work that was finally done. That family went back a few generations and most of their work was done. By the time we were done, I was able to explain most of what was in the packet of information, that she had gotten from her husband's family. It was an interesting to look at someone else's genealogy, and figure out how it was all connected. I've never had to look at someone else genealogy and see how it fit together. I know that she was impressed how I could take a few notations on the sides of the paper and figure out what they meant. So it was a good day, I'm glad I could share some of my knowledge of genealogy with someone else. And she can't wait to try this on her own, later this week. I also was able to get more of my own genealogy done, after she left so I only have 300 and some odd people to search before I finish the first search that I'm doing using FamilyInsight. So I'm excited about that also.

What I've been up to...Genealogy

This summer I was looking at my genealogy and realized that I/we could get a lot of my family temple work done if we focus on it. So I was looking at ways to see if there was work that we missed, and I found that there was a program called FamilyInsight. And with it I could search all of my family files names in new.familysearch, and find work that we missed or didn't know was done. Then I could combine those names and get it combine on my PAF file and new.familysearch at the same time. Which is a huge time saver, I also find out that we have 7000 names in our PAF file which I never knew before. I also like that FamilyInsight shows those that were living due to birth dates.  I wish I could find away to see how much work is done, how many are living, how many are in the 55 years that we can't do work for, and then how many names we actually have left to work on. I'm excited by the work I've been able to get done, over this last part of the year. I figure in the next few months I'll have all the names combine, and really know how much work there is really left to do. Then we'll reprint the family file sheets once the temple is work is done.

Empty space

So my parents are actually having people look at the other house, which is great. The one problem I see is that that house is still full!!! Then I realize that in the hope of getting my grandmother's stuff out of the house and make that room a functioning part of the house I've created an empty space. It's not big by any means, but it is a space, will the carpet get laid, probably not...which again was part of the goal I was working toward. It also means that the room won't be ready by Christmas and the family will once again have only one room to gather in with two small children, the house still won't be baby proof...and I already want an excuse to boycott Christmas. My dad is still fighting the fact that we're trying to organize the house...and I think just the knowledge that what I did was basically pointless has made me feel defeated. I've been told that without the space I created we wouldn't have anywhere to go with the other stuff...but I doesn't help much. I'm not a person who cries much...but I have to admit that this hurts enough that I did cry. I already realized that yes dad does love the progress to a point but without his help...I'm stuck. And with him bitching about it, it tells me that he isn't ready to move forward. Mom isn't going to change her work habits because one room is clean. She isn't ready to move forward either, and realize that she can have a life outside of work...one which includes her husband, and children, not just her mom. But getting her to leave work early one day a week to have dinner with her mom has been a huge accomplishment though. AND Me...I guess I really just don't watch everything move into the hole I created, it will hurt. I feel like I worked so hard and was actually motivated to do SOMETHING for days and weeks on end and now it just seem pointless. Granted I do feel that everything I did this summer is preparing me for the future...just what I'm not sure of. I know that I enjoyed piecing together our genealogy with the obits and newspaper articles, I've also come up with a way to help others start from the beginning with just obits. I hope I get to put that to use, just to see how and if it works, and I did like helping my family declutter. I just need someone who is actually WILLING and READY to help other out. Unlike here, I've also done more baking and some new cooking. And want to try more I just need more people to share with so I don't eat it ALL and the other home improvement work I've been doing around the house this year...just all makes me feel like I'm being prepared for something. I just wish I knew what it is and how I can get to that point so I can move on, because I'm ready. And I wish I could just market myself as someone who wants to work on genealogy and decluttering...but somehow I'm sure not/yet sure there is a market for what I want to do but how and where it would be.

Obits. and showing off what I did this weekend.

This just one of the families with obits., wedding announcements, and  newspaper article on different family members.

This is just the THOMAS family...it was fun to sort.

So over the last few weeks I've been sorting through the family obituaries, taking the data off them to check if PAF and new.familysearch is up to date, and that I have all the information I needed for each individual. So after doing that I had stacks of obituaries divided by main families example: THOMAS, ROUCH, JOHNSTON, HERSHBERGER,  then I put them in a clear plastic sheet with the family tree/family group sheet binder for the families. Then I still wasn't sure what to do with them we had a family group binder from years ago that just glued the information to the back of the individual's page, but in my case I didn't think that would work since I want to do a reprint in the next couple of years, since most of the temple work should be done by then and I want that information on those pages too. So I was talking to Doug, and he mention alphabetizing them, when I realized I could glue them to a completely separate page (colored to help it stand out.) Then place that right behind their family group sheet, that way I have them organized and yet if I reprint at anytime I don't lose that information.

Talking with Eli

I have to say this and in a place where I can't get in trouble from my sister for it...this is the second time I've been able to talk to my sister and get something important from it...not just listening to her talking about breast feeding, and other mommy things that I don't want to listen to for 2hrs plus. So I have to wonder if this goes back to my priesthood blessings and being told to talk to my family and to share with them my thoughts, feelings, and concerns. Granted even now it is mostly her talking, but with at least me, I do actually am starting to get to be able to share some myself...just not about breast feeding...today, maybe tomorrow though :) I'll share last weeks helpful hints. Since I've been talking to Doug from Iowa and seeing how hard it is to date with a 6 hrs drive separating us, she mentioned I should plan a trip to where he lives and do so serious job hunting in person for about 3 weeks, since I've used google to really look up what I'm already interested in for a new city...so that is in the works. I think I'll head out for a week while my parents are visiting grand babies... Then I called her about genealogy, I was looking for some female temple names which she didn't have. But she gave me an amazing idea about how to organize my temple names for Doug, so he would know which could be seal right after finishing their endowments and which of them couldn't. So what we did is take a temple envelop, you know the kind you get back after printing a new batch of names, and probably have a lot of...okay those. Look up each name individual and check if their father's work has been done if it has place it in a newly marked envelop "Ready to Seal." We then wrote that name on the outside of it with whatever work he has to have done before he can be sealed. That way when Doug, goes through the temple all he has to do, is look before he goes in if it can that person can be sealed afterwards or not. When he's done he can also put the name back in the correct envelop without my help...we hope. If the father's work isn't done that name gets place in an envelop marked, "Not Ready to Seal," or to something of that effect, and again the name and what work needs to be done is on the outside of the envelop. Now what my sister does so she makes sure to place the person back in the right family, since we've always tried to group them by family, is she takes the paper clipped family and paper them to the outside of the envelop while she's doing the work for that one person. So when she's finished for the day that name can be group back to their family very easily which I like also. You could as then keep it there when you leave so you could work on that one family until you've done all their work, instead of just grabbing a name at random. Tomorrow I'll share's today's helpful hint, but I want to think and talk it out with Doug first...sorry. Stay tuned until tomorrow.

Why I believe Wednesday Missionaries and Priesthood Power

. This event in my life holds a special place in my heart because it helped through a difficult time. I remember the day I was told my grandmother was in a hospital in Indy, my parents asked/told me I would need to pack so I could take care of my two younger cousins so my aunt could focus on my grandmother. I remember during the drive to my aunts just praying for the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to show up at some point so I could get a priesthood blessing to help me be calm, and have the ability to help with my cousins. I prayed that prayer everyday not sure how and when it would be answered but knowing it would be. The oldest cousins was in school, kindergarten, I believe and I was home with the youngest all day. It was hard, my aunt and uncle had just switched phone service and I couldn't call long distance to my family, I was getting daily updates from my father every night and him calling to make sure I was doing fine. My uncle was working, then going to work basketball games, and then heading to the hospital to check on his wife and mother-in-law, so the kids didn't see him or their mother for most of that time. All the had was ME??? I remember one night both of my aunts who were staying at the hospital came home to take the oldest to a basketball game for her. I had a question I wanted to ask my aunts but wasn't sure how they would react to it, so I went to bed. I couldn't sleep so I went back out and talked to them and asked if it would be okay with them for us to have someone give grandmother a priesthood blessing, they agreed and told me to never be afraid of asking or talking about something that is important to me with them. So, Elizabeth Thomas, called me back and I told her we had permission to have someone give grandmother a blessing. I don't know how it was arranged all I know is that it was. That weekend as all of the family gathered, including me and the two that I was watching at the hospital. The two priesthood holder from Carmel, IN came and gave the blessing. I remember them saying how impressed they were that the whole family was there. It was a blessing that gave me comfort, and peace, but before I could ask them for one of my own they were gone. So I continued to pray and even know I am so amazed by what happened. See I was home alone most of the time, and missionaries can't come into a house with a single women or maybe even a women alone (not really sure which it is but I know definitely single woman.) So in the middle of a really cold January I was trying to figure out how was I going to get this blessing. I figured the front porch or the garage with the door up might be the best I could do, or I knew one of the neighbors was a stay-at-home mom, if that would work those were my choices. But Heavenly Father had a different plan and a better plan: on Martin Luther King day, my uncle stayed home from work, my aunt came home from the hospital, and bright and early two missionaries showed up at the door. My uncle invited them in partly because I was standing in the doorway with them, because I needed to talk to them, and because he felt they had the chance to come out of the cold themselves for a bit. They were able to give me the priesthood blessing I was needing at the time to help me comfort and be calm for my younger cousins. I'm not sure I did all that the blessing asked of me, but I know that Heavenly Father sent them to me the only day I could have gotten the chance to talk to them, and get that blessing. That is why I KNOW and BELIEVE missionaries are inspired by the Holy Ghost to go where they are needed, and one of the reason I believe in the priesthood power.

Music

This has been an interesting week concerning music, it started when I drove back from Nauvoo the song the House that Built Me, came on and one line jumped out at me. Then I was lying in bed trying to go back to sleep later than night and the words from I Am a Child of God, came into my mind. I've always loved the second verse and this time it really hit home...Come little child... to me it was like an invitation for children to become a part of my life either through me giving birth to them or by any other way. Which was an interesting thought considering my own fears for my natural children, but I found it very comforting. Then Keith Urban's song Without you, talks about the miles in between them and how somehow they ended up together? or finding each other. I thought that was very fitting to what is happening at the moment. Then a line from You and Tequila (wow I actually spelled that right on my first try.) Make Me Crazy, the line One is one to many but One is never enough, reminded me of a conversation with my brother about kissing and how careful we'll have to be in the future. I also guess the songs really started at the dance in Nauvoo, when I heard Just a Kiss Goodnight, which I heard for the first time one the way to talk to my branch president during the repentance process. I had been thinking on the way up how was I going to prevent this in the future, and that song came on so I turned it up and through the static I got the jest of the song. Only to have the president ask me the same question, and I of course laughed because that had been my thoughts on the drive and because I had the answer. Luckily he knows me and how I react to music so he knew that it really was my answer to my prayer and thoughts. So to hear it as I was dancing with Doug was fun because it reminded me of the answer to my prayer and the promise I had made to the president. I think that were all the songs that talked back to me this week.