Family History- I am Doing It!

Lately I have been indexing and it's been really fun.  I really love seeing where the people who I index were traveling to either by plane or ship.  Many of them are from the early to mid 1900s but some are earlier. There are some documents that list what jobs people had on the ship. This week I reached 1,000 names that I had indexed! I have had a great example (my mom) who is indexing all of the time. She LOVES family history work and indexing makes it possible for others to find records about their ancestors through censuses and marriages and other documents.

 

I have also gained a love for the site familysearch.org. In order to view this site you have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but ancestry.com is another great website where you can create pedigree charts and look for your ancestors. It has been really exciting to upload pictures of my relatives to share with others so that their can be a picture to a name. Today my mom sent me a text saying my 10th great grandfather Hezron Leavitt was a juror on a witch trial in New Hampshire in 1680. Now I'm not sure if I'm proud of this but it's history and it brings my ancestors to life for me.

 

One of the reasons I scrapbook is because it is like my own personal history. I treasure my scrapbooks and every time I am home I look through them and reminisce about the good times I have had and how blessed I have been and even how stupid I have been. A few months ago I went home and Rylin and I looked through some of these books and it was really fun for me. The next time I came home Jordy wanted to look through my books and I knew it was because she had seen Rylin and I look through them and knew that that was a way she could spend some time with me. It was really sweet and Paytin would "look through" them by flipping the pages every two seconds. I keep a journal but having pictures along with the memories are more lasting to me.

 

Anyway I think everyone should learn more about their ancestors. It's a lot of fun and you learn so much more about yourself.