My Great Adventure!

I just came home from attending the RootsTech Conference in SLC for 4 days.  I flew out with my friend Joyce Williams.  We arrived a day early so we could do some research at the Family History Library.  I managed to squeek in 17 hours of research.  Wahoo!  I went looking for information on my current research project on the family of Godfrey Litchfield and Lucy Bowmer.  I managed to view and photograph over 120 images of Parish Records and Bishop Transcript records for quite a few of the family members on my research list. Here is the christening record of Godfrey (who married Dorothy Sarah Jennison) and his sister Lucy.  They were christened on the same day even though Godfrey was probably about two at the time.  Notice both of them are named after their parents Godfrey and Lucy. It is so exiting to me to find original records such as this!  The microfilm reader I was using was electric so I just pushed a button to move the film.  It was so much easier than the crank machines.  The second night of the conference the party was moved to the Library for a late night of research.  They brought in pizza, cookies, brownies and relish trays and stayed open until midnight!  Fun time!  

 While I was away, Rod was sick and Cassy's little Aubrey was sick.  Aubrey ended up in the hospital for four days with breathing problems, fever, RSV and bronchiolitis. 

I thought I might be flying to Arizona instead of Colorado when I left but Cassy's friends were doing a good job of helping the family.  Here is a picture of me on the phone, probably with Rod trying to get an update on everyone.  I kept my ringer off the whole time so I didn't forget during a session to turn it off and embarrass myself when it rang.  That happened to me two times at the Family History Conference on the BYU campus last year!

 This is my friend Joyce.  She was a great roomie.  We are two peas in a pod.  We ended up attending most of the same classes.  We are both in the same Family History Program at BYU and currently working on the same class although Joyce is considerable further ahead than I am.  I need to get my rear in gear, so to speak.  We were both very excited when we discovered the information desk in the center of the Exhibitors Hall had Mint Truffle Chocolates from the Lion House.  Boy were they good!  They just kept refilling that basket and we kept finding excuses to go back to the Exhibitors Hall!  They went through 2 cases of the chocolates a day at that desk!  It did not help my weight loss goal one bit!

  I loved the conference, the food, the company, the library time and all that I learned.  

I am so excited to follow through and try out some new things and new ideas.  One of them is to start up a genealogy blog which I will use as my research log.  I am going to make it open to the public so maybe somebody will querry the names I am researching and contact me.  I am excited about the possibilities.  Even if no one responds, at least I will have my research in a place (the cloud) where I will be able to access where ever I have internet connection.  I loved learning about all the new gadgets and technology.  FamilySearch launched a "app" for indexing on Friday.  I downloaded it on Saturday and started using it.  I was indexing in line at the airport and the young man behind me noticed and asked about it.  That was fun.  I am hoping to get a notebook to make my work more portable.  I am going to skip the laptop phase altogether and go from desk top to notebook. 

It truly was a Grand Adventure for me.  Cami said it was "Mom's EFY".  That it was!  Or maybe in my case it was and "EFGE"  (Especially For Genealogy Enthusiast!)

I can hardly wait until next year!