Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Family History Library offering free virtual consultations, online learning center

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The mammoth Family History Library in Salt Lake City closed its doors in March 2020 because of COVID. According to this news release from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, they’ve been spending time while they’re closed improving online services, which is a real boon for genealogists.

They’ve launched a new website for the Family History Library (which is part of FamilySearch.org) that will provide “new online patron experiences and up-to-date information on the library’s services and activities,” according to the press release.

One thing that exited me was the availability of free 20-minute research consultations. According to the website, in those consultations “We can help with evidence analysis or translation of key words, or we can help identify a good next step. The goal is to empower you in your research journey.” The sessions are offered in English, Spanish, Chinese and American Sign Language. Detailed information is available here.

It’s important to note that the researchers are not physically at the library (due to COVID) so may not have access to resources that you don’t have already have access to. But their expertise and knowledge of the collection is bound to be helpful. Doesn’t being empowered by professional researchers sound great?

Another exciting development is the new Online Learning Center, which is making hundreds of previously recorded how-to webinars available on demand, all free of charge. When I clicked on the Learning Center link at the new website, just a few popular lessons were listed on the resulting page. As a test, I searched for Civil War and got a listing of 120 available lessons. I haven’t taken any of these lessons, but I look forward to exploring what’s available and taking some to expand my knowledge this way.

The news release says that while the library is closed during the pandemic, improvements are being made to improve visitor access to materials and services. That’s fantastic. I’ve had the opportunity to research there several times and I look forward to visiting the new, improved Family History Library. In the meantime, I’m delighted about the enhanced online access to learning.

 

 

 

Exercising my microfilm muscle

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I headed to Salt Lake City this morning to attended RootsTech. I landed at 11:30 a.m., dropped my suitcase off at my hotel and made a bee-line for the Family History Library. I had a list of things to look up and I was raring to go.

Just a few days ago, I had come across an index to deed books for Hopkins County, Kentucky, covering 1807-1939. Both the index and the deed books themselves are available at the Family History Library. But only the index has been digitized; the books themselves (with the exception of a couple) are available only on microfilm.

I was so happy to find the index right before, rather than right after, I was going to be in Salt Lake City! So today, I looked up the microfilm numbers, found the six rolls of microfilm (I didn’t realize I was supposed to limit myself to five at a time) and took up residence at the microfilm reader. At first, I was uncertain and slow. But by the third reel, I was a microfilm ninja!

At the Family History Library, in order to get a copy of the document you find on microfilm, you take the microfilm spool, along with the take-up reel, and carry them to a scanning machine. This way you’re saving your place on the film.

I was intimidated at the prospect of scanning from microfilm using unfamiliar software, but the staff member gave me a patient lesson (she used a pointer to point at the screen!) and after getting help just once, I was able to do it on my own the next eleven documents. It’s a little more complicated than it sounds because you have to zoom in and out, straighten pages and adjust the brightness. I felt so empowered!

I found some great stuff in those deed books and though I was a bit bleery eyed four hours later when I’d made it through all my lookups, it was well worth the effort. I’m grateful that I seldom have to use microfilm. Searching and browsing digital copies of documents and downloading with a single click is so much easier. But I always like it when I gain an appreciation for all the work that pre-internet genealogists went through.

It was a great start to my RootsTech week!

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