Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Girls' Day in the Cemetery

view of the city from the cemetery
When the library is closed, there is nothing left to do but shop and then go to the cemetery. We restocked snacks, bought jewelry and office supplies. From the shopping center we drove north and east to the Salt Lake City Cemetery which overlooks the city. The views are spectacular!

YGGG #2 commented about so many people being in the cemetery on a Sunday. At that point I had to remind her that this is Memorial weekend. Oh yeah!! There are various parts and sections to the cemetery. We tried to drive around and through as much as possible.

Baby Zula Kimball
Thomas Tanner, blacksmith
Not far from where we entered the cemetery are the graves of Solomon Farnham Kimball and his wife, Zula Pomeroy. Solomon, the son of Heber Chase Kimball and his first wife, Vilate Murray. Lined up in a row are the stones for Solomon and Zula's infant and small children. It is sad to see graves of small children who did not survive the rigors of pioneer life.

Cunnabell Prentice Stevens
We quickly spotted the impressive stone of Thomas Tanner who was born in 1804 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England and died in Great Salt Lake City in 1855 while the foreman of the public blacksmith shop. The many sided, large stone of Dr. E.S. Barney contains extensive information on the lineages of the Stevens and Prentice families. On one side is carved, "Cunnabell Prentice Stevens Genealogical Books for reference can be found at the L.D.S. Historian office S.L. City."

Honoring military heroes
The day was well spent and now we are going through our notes and ideas for continuing research in the library tomorrow. Yes ... they are open on Memorial Day. We couldn't be at the cemeteries where our parents, grandparents and my husband are buried, but the next best thing was to visit the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

You Go Genealogy Girl #1 -- Ruby

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Saturday Update: Genealogy, Bulls... and Bad Dogs

Garden flowers....

and pretty pansies!
Today was the first day since we arrived that we saw the sun so we took a break from the research isles and walked around the temple grounds. The flowers, many of which are newly planted are maturing by the day and very beautiful. We are sharing several more photos with our friends and hope you enjoy the sights.

In other exciting news of the day:

1) We had a very nice lunch at the Lion House Pantry Restaurant which was very enjoyable and toured the building which was finished in 1856 as a residence of Brigham Young. It had beautiful original windows and rock walls with some historic items displayed within such as quilts and glassware. The meal was great too.


2) Touring the temple grounds we ended up among at least four brides and their parties who were all taking pictures today as part of their wedding day festivities. We were slightly under dressed for the happy occasions but they did not seem to notice the Genealogy Girls anyway! You will notice one of the pretty brides in a photo here in the blog.

3) As we returned to the library for more arduous work, Ruby got a call that her granddaughter was going to take part in a bull riding contest for young ladies in North Platte so we waited for news of that venture as her granddaughter was excited to let Grandma know all about it. She had fun, stayed on for a short ride and did not end up in the ER... so the bull ride was successful and Grandma finally quit worrying.

4) Go Hubby called to tell me that my loving and gorgeous border collie who is staying home with her "sister" had been a BAD DOG while he was out of town working for two days. Our Babe ate part of the sofa and part of Hubby's chair. Guess she is tired of being alone for almost a week and there is one more week to go. BAD DOG!!!  The price I pay for a trip to Salt Lake.

Temple Gardens

Brigham Young's Home ( Lion House Restaurant)

A bride among the flowers!
5) Last evening we were serenaded by a bagpiper down on the street below our hotel for a couple hours. He was quite good and it was fun to hear the "pipes" in the evening and view the mountains at dusk from our window.

6)  We both managed to find some good information today to add to our growing pile of ancestor research papers that will add to many more weeks of work once we get home. The days are long but with short walks, we get re-invigorated and go back for more! Sunday will be a day of rest and hopefully sleeping in a bit, and then off to scout out the local cemeteries.

Enjoy a few pics from today's walk, hopefully we will have some great cemetery photos to share after tomorrow.

Cheri and Ruby, The You Go Genealogy Girls

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Four "Belles" of GeneaBloggers...in Salt Lake City!

GeneaBloggers: Cheri Hopkins, Ruby Coleman, Carol Stevens and Becky Wiseman
Today was day four of our trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake and to our surprise we met two other gals in the library today who are also bloggers,"GeneaBloggers", to be exact! Becky Wiseman of Kinexxions and Carol Stevens of  Reflections From The Fence. The four of us took a short break to visit and compare finds and funny stories, it was fun to meet new friends who immediately seemed like "old friends". Carol and Becky were really nice and another researcher kindly took our photos for posterity. Surely everyone in the library must have thought we were all very special as we posed for the cameras. You never know who you might meet here, yesterday we ran into Michael John Neill of RootDig.com and today we made new genealogy friends.....this has been a good week so far! Who will we meet tomorrow?

The girls had a nice lunch out on the town and both did well with locating many great family records today, the sun even came out for awhile so we are making progress. We are still looking for warm weather here though, glad I brought along my Nebraska cold weather clothes. Even many of the flowers are late here in Salt Lake City this year but those that are out are bright and colorful as usual.

Enjoy one pretty picture of the beautiful white iris here and especially the one of the four gorgeous genealogy "Belles" above!

You Go Genealogy Girl #2, Cheri

white iris in Salt Lake City


Saturday, May 21, 2011

Where Did I Put It?



It's always so much fun packing for a trip. However, trying to find things after you have arrived can be a problem. I need a road map to my luggage.

Cheri #2 and I are in Cheyenne, Wyoming at her son's house. We have been here long enough to experience snow on Thursday morning and a couple days of overcast skies and rain. Snow in May happens in this country.

In the morning we will finish loading up Lil' Red and head for Salt Lake City. We were successful in our packing, except I can't find anything. I've juggled things around and that doesn't help. Cheri thinks she may have left her cell phone charger at home ... not good.

Once again Lil' Red has been packed with all our luggage and genealogy items, including computer bags, bags of computer cables and Cheri even decided to bring an extra table again this year. The photographs on this blog were taken before she finished loading the car. I am not exaggerating when I say that most of what you see is hers. Somehow we have to repack in two weeks and bring back more "stuff" from Salt Lake City. I'll worry about that when it happens and hopefully by then I'll know exactly where I put things.

Ruby .... YGGG #1

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Going Prepared to Learn a Lot


The time has almost arrived for our annual trip to Salt Lake City. The You Go Genealogy Girls have been preparing for the trip for months. This has entailed updating genealogy files, preparing a research notebook, aka "big to-do list in a binder." It would take me a year to get through my research notebook to-dos, but I am going prepared. We will be there two weeks. Even with pacing ourselves, there should be time to locate some ancestors.

I also have to-do lists all over the house. A friend recently told me to "get crackin'" so I would get everything done. I have been keeping pace all week. Here's my list of items to pack for trip:

2 pieces of medium sized luggage for clothing
1 bag for 7 pair of shoes
1 bag for cosmetics, hair supplies and good smelly stuff
1 bag for laundry detergent and miscellaneous items
1 bag for the over-sized research notebook, maps and reading material
1 carton-on-wheels for food supplies, such as snacks, cereal and cookies
1 bag on wheels for laptop computer and library supplies
1 fold up mini-bike for exercising in the room
3 pillows

With all these bags, I feel like a pioneer forging the trail. Nobody ... and I mean nobody ... will force me to throw items overboard.

The purpose of the trip is genealogy. How well are you prepared when you take a genealogy trip? That is where our over-siezed research notebooks come in handy. This is no spontaneous trip. It has required hours of reviewing and studying our lineages, looking for research problems and missing information. Notice I did NOT say brick walls! I can work around and through research problems. Identifying them, I analyze what information is need, the best sources and the information they possibly contain and then where they can be found. Will the information produce itself in a marriage record, a will, a land record or death certificate? What is available in the Family History Library? We use the Family History Library Catalog while working on our research notebooks and will continue to use it at the Family History Library.

Let's not get paranoid with "what ifs." Those are the culprits in research. You can talk yourself out of about any phase of research by telling yourself there may not be information in a certain record. Keep in mind your ancestor's records can be found in the most obvious as well as the most obscure of records. If one document does not produce the information, move on to something else. Keep trying. One of the most valuable documents I ever found was a court record for the contesting of a will about 1870 in New York state. The person I wanted and needed to find in the will was not named, but when it was contested, all of the heirs, including that person, were named along with their reasons for contesting the will.

Think while you are researching. What does the document tell you? Does the information pertain directly to your research problem? That doesn't mean it has to answer all of your questions, but perhaps contain substantial information, or information that may prove helpful at a later time. Does the information in the document pertain to your ancestor, but has no direct bearing on your research problem? There may be clues, so do not discount the document. It may be what you need to jump start your research. There is no perfect record and thus you will need to use more than one ... over and over and over. This is why the YGGGirls stay two weeks in Salt Lake City and wish for a year.

Almost forgot the documentation. Silly me. While you are doing all of this research on your dream trip to Salt Lake City, be sure to do it right and document what you copied or used. That includes things such as titles of books, copyright, author, where it is located, case numbers, file numbers, page numbers, column numbers, film numbers. Don't weep later. I told you to do it while you are there.

If you happen to be in Salt Lake City at the library while we are there, stop and say hello. We will be doing research on all five floors at various times. YGGG #2 has dark brown hair and I am the blonde. The color and style of my shoes will change every day. I anticipate that #2 will wear the same shoes each day. Why change a good thing is what she tells me. On the other hand, I only have to wear the same pair of shoes twice in the two weeks I am there. Regardless of how we look or what we wear, the ancestors are waiting for us. We'd better "get crackin'."

YGGG #1 -- Ruby (the one with all the shoes)

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Genealogy Overdrive


I never did understand the shifting of a car into overdrive. Google searching tells me that it is a term describing a mechanism that allows an automobile to cruise at sustained speed with reduced engine speed, leading to better fuel consumption. I can certainly relate to "better fuel consumption." Does that sustained speed have something to do with cruise control?

This can also apply to genealogy ... cruising right along at a sustained speed until you hit a bump or detour. Then you crash or make other plans. Maybe the reduced engine speed means knowledge being applied to allow the brain to rest between episodes of sustained speed. I think my brain is working overtime in overdrive which is known to happen during the month of May.

Girl #2, Cheri, is working her brain overtime in preparation for our trip to Salt Lake City. Daily I seem to find something or think of something to add to my suitcase or to my research notebook, which is already bulging. We each pack differently, with #2 taking many bags. I try to consolidate, but this year I'm taking one extra suitcase instead of a large one nobody can lift into the car. My middle bedroom has been turned into temporary storage for suitcases and piles of things to take on the trip. Hope I don't get unexpected company.

My nights are cruisin' with intermittent wake ups when the brain signals something needs to be done before I leave or I need to research a long forgotten ancestor. Get up, write it down, then try to go back to sleep, which often doesn't happen. Girl #2 stays up most of the night and is now trying to reduce the hours she is up past midnight. Eventually she'll return to something more normal so when the alarm sounds at 6 a.m. in Salt Lake City she will wake up without being a grump! We will soon acclimate to the dryness of Salt Lake City, the altitude and time change. After long days of research, our brains will hopefully not remain in overdrive or make a sudden detour.

In between adding items to the middle bedroom, I am finishing a very intense month of physical therapy in order to walk like a normal person. I have matching knee scars that most people don't want to see. No shorts for me! Rigidly sticking with my calendar and with lists all over the house, how can I not be ready for the trip to Utah? I have to pre-pay my bills for late May and early June, have to plant flowers, pay car taxes, write a column and preview my lectures for June and July. Help! I'm running out of days and hours. Where is that overdrive?

This is the price we pay for spending two wonderful weeks laboring in a library full of books, microfilm and microfiche. We won't know if it's raining or if the sun is shining until we poke our noses out the door. Nothing will stop us short of a detour in making our annual pilgrimage to Salt Lake City.

Ruby --- YGGG #1

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