Tonight I went fishin’ for a while. I don’t get nearly enough opportunity to do that –“fishin’” as it relates to family history. Here’s how it works: I go to FamilySearch or Ancestry and enter very broad search terms – say, a surname like “Smith”. Then I sort out all the results to drill down […]
I was 17 when I graduated from high school and I had to wait until I was 19 to serve a mission. That gave me a full year to pursue some college. I vividly recall a freshman history class where a professor during a lecture about the American Indian gave a passing opinion of Brigham […]
Certain dates tend to stick in the minds of most avid family historians. 1890, of course, is notorious. That year of the federal census was mostly lost to history due to a fire in 1921 that wiped out most of the records. Nearly every family has a missing piece of information tied to that census […]
Our ward is headed to the Temple this weekend, a combination of Ward Temple Night and Youth Baptisms. I volunteered some family names for the kids to do, forgetting that the well was temporarily dry for baptisms. We’ve been doing a lot of baptizing the past several months. I so spent some evening hours this […]
As I write this in the dark of night, my mind flooding with thoughts, I realize that I’m about to share some things with you that are deeply personal and sacred. I recognize as well that I am about to share some history of living individuals and that I’m going to share some stories and […]