If you live anywhere on the U.S. East Coast, it's probably a very rainy, windy day - perfect for staying inside and doing some genealogy research. Today I just want to give a shout out to all the people who volunteer their time transcribing and indexing family history records for the LDS's FamilySearch website...if you've never used it, check it out. And if you have the time, do as I say, not as I do, and volunteer to help them getting all their invaluable worldwide genealogy records accessible online! Today I went on the website to continue looking into my husband's family tree - his family is from Honduras and those records are in Spanish, which thankfully I read, and many are unindexed - that is, they WERE unindexed. I have spent months scrolling through probably thousands of images of handwritten Spanish hoping to untangle and add to his tree, only to discover today that many of those records are now available by simply typing the desired name into the search engine. Technology is amazing. And I am frustrated. And exhausted. But that is the life of a genealogist. My grandmother had to do this research without any internet - she probably thought I was spoiled just having online images available to me, even if I had to search page by page without an index. And I have been spoiled. And my children and grandchildren will be even more spoiled as more and more genealogy resources become more widely accessible, just as it should be. It makes me a little sad though too, I'll admit - as much as it's an amazing help to be able to just plug a name into a search engine, half of the fun and satisfaction of family history research is doing the detective work yourself. But I want to go on record now that I am going to be that grandmother who tells stories of "how I did genealogy back in the day..." I can't wait. :)
Happy Friday everyone - stay warm and dry!!