Training The Rookie In Genealogy - Day 2

The rookie came prepared today. Our goal was to have her enter 5 generations of her ancestors in  PAF, the free software. I was excited to see she brought her thumb drive fully loaded with all 5 generations all done.

Now we have a rookie here, right! So how did she come so prepared? Answer, her daughter is active n genealogy and had loaded it and PAF on her laptop. The future is in collaboration and this is a fine example. Why should my trainee have to start over when it is already available. She shouldn't have to is the answer.

Where my rookie had rated her skill level as 0 or 1 on a 1 to 5 scale, she had under rated herself. I think that's a common problem. Folks, this genealogy game is not hard. The computer skills needed are basic. PAF is easy to learn. There are challenges, but they are the detective type challenges.

We had the assignment to print her 5 generation chart from PAF. It's done: Reports - select the type of chart - print. Done. The chart will be posted on the wall with our mission presidencies charts. I looked at the wall today only to notice not all of the presidency are able to go out 5 generations. They have work to do. They may have walls difficult to find.

Our next task was to start documenting what is in her PAF, verifying and proving what her daughter had provided her. Today we got part way through her fathers line.

The first site I took my trainee was to http://familysearch.org/ That should be your first place to search. Billions of names and files are on this site. Millions are being added each month. It's a serious initiative by the church and it's free. Here we found every person we worked on today in a census. She found some facts she was unaware of such as birth states of parents of those we were researching.

I took her through a tour of FamilyTree. She won't have access yet but the reason I did this was to have her decide how she will document her ancestors. When FamilyTree goes live it will be all about documenting mankind. You will hear that often I am sure. As a result of today my trainee will collaborate with her daughter on what documents they have, and how they will link them to FamilyTree. Eventually I expect the church will allow us to upload our documents, but it appears we will open being able to place a link. In my case I am posting documents on this blog. We could use Flickr as does my sister. In both cases there is a unique Internet address for the document which can link to FamilyTree.

I want to interject here my trainee is excited to learn. She is absorbing because of this. You too can go from Rookie to success with an attitude like this. Do it!

I introduced her to SharingTime. The reasons are on this blog in another article. You only use it in New Family Search or will in FamilyTree. If you aren't in these yet, take a note, you will want to have it in FamilyTree. The search bar will pull the article up if you want to find the old article.

We spent some time in Ancestry.com. I think you will want to either pay the price for it, 25.00 per month and more or go to a library or LDS Family History Library to use their licensed copies. The two main reasons I like Ancestry is to see other subscribers trees and what they have on our lines and to get to some census's Family Search doesn't have on line yet. There are other good features.

Tomorrow is day 3, I;ll be back.

A Sincere Desire To Help

Joseph Smith Memorial Building Lobby

Our mission has over 1000 missionaries that serve the family history effort. Kathleen and I are assigned to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Our zone is the world wide patron support zone. It consists of professional staff, full time missionaries like Kathleen and I, part time church service missionaries that serve a couple of days a week, and hundreds that serve at home 15 or more hours per week. We answer questions difficult or easy. They may be on research, PAF software, or other facets of family history and genealogy.

It doesn't matter if the question comes from a church member or not. We strive to answer every question completely and accurately.

Each morning our zone starts the day with a brief devotional which consists of announcements, a hymn, a spiritual thought, and a prayer. I was touched this morning by the spiritual thought. The Elder that was speaking was being transferred from our zone to the family history library zone. He humbly shared that he loved being here. It is important that we answer even the very simplest of questions. He pointed out that many of those who call or contact us are frustrated and full of desire to search out their answers.

Even what may seem simple to us is of great importance to the patron.

It is a marvelous thing to witness how the spirit of family history and genealogy grabs the hearts of people from all walks of life. At the recent RootsTech conference we had the opportunity to converse with people attending. Many were serious genealogists. I am thinking of one lady from Arkansas. I asked her if she had signed up to index the 1940 Census. She not only had done that, but had enlisted her entire genealogy society to help and was now going to other societies recruiting their help. A comment she made that stood out was, "You know it's funny, when it comes to genealogy, when someone asks for help I just go and do it."

Surely, the church is a leader in providing resources and support - but we are not alone in this effort and attitude. There is an amazing spirit to it. We know it as the Spirit of Elijah. Have you caught it yet?