Genealogy Research is Hard Work...Need Chocolate?

Need Chocolate?

Two things have come to mind over and over this week as I have been working diligently on my Family History Notebook in anticipation of our upcoming annual trip to Salt Lake City and the Family History Library.


One is that I always seem to crave something good to eat late at night when I am working away, not just anything... but, chocolate! Chocolate anything is great; candy, hot cocoa, chocolate cold ovaltine, chocolate milkshakes, dark Dove chocolate and Brownies. Those late night hours of 1 am to 3 am just keep on demanding chocolate.


Hunting the frig or the cupboard for something tasty to  replenish the lost brain power of organizing all those ancestors sometimes is so challenging. It even adds to the drained brain power when I have to look so hard for that chocolate around here. (Reminder to me: next year to stock up on chocolate Easter bunnies! No children around here any more so no Easter baskets to raid either.) Too bad they don't make chocolate flavored doggie treats or Babe and Misty would be looking the house over for their devoured treats too. 


The second thing which has been around this week and showing up repeatedly was the advertising which shows chocolate "stuff". Was that also due to Easter or did they all just know that I am easily drawn in by them? Everybody has been in the act. Yesterday I received my newsletter from the Custer County Historical Society in Broken Bow, Nebraska. They have a really nice little newsletter which includes the happenings with the society and the museum there. The editor included the minutes from the last meeting which were interesting on their own but at the end of nearly every paragraph of the minutes were these words: passed around a heaping plateful of homemade chocolate chip cookies, started the chocolate chip cookies around again, cookies were passed around again.  Well, OK, not all the way around this time, cleaned up the last of the cookie crumbs and we adjourned at 9:07. I must ask you all, how does one concentrate on the finer points of the newsletter when they are passing the plate of cookies around all the time and you are not there to get one? I must confess that their newsletter is a joy to read and a welcome break from the usual mundane society meeting minutes. Maybe all societies could operate more efficiently and with less conflicts within if they all served cookies or candy at their monthly meetings!


Genealogy research is hard work most of the time and taxes the brain so give yourself a break occasionally. Even if you only indulge by eating just one chocolate chip. You will get your "chocolate fix" and probably will have had to get up and move around just to find the little treasures. The energy exerted to walk into the kitchen will more than make up for that one little chip and your bones and joints will be stretched, ready for more work time. Don't mess up the plan by stashing a bowl of chips or M&M's near the computer.  Remember too that your ancestors aren't there to see you and everyone else in the house is probably sleeping in the early am hours so you can even have two chocolate chips if you want to!


One of my favorite scrap booking sites, Scrap Girls, has even been in the act this week of luring me in with chocolate. Their daily newsletter has been featuring very cute and free brownie recipe cards all week. If you love to scrapbook your family and ancestors, check out the Scrap Girls newsletter here and you can sign up. They also have cute FREE daily digital scrapbook items if you get the newsletter.


When the You Go Genealogy Girls head out for Salt Lake in May, my bag will also include this little recipe for an easy nightly chocolate fix while in the room. Fresh and hot! It is so nice that we have a small frig and microwave at the Plaza Hotel. ( Note to girl #1--bring your own treats, I don't share brownies!!!) 


This is taken from the Scrap Girls site this week with a little tweek from me. These are like those expensive little designer microwave brownies in the grocery store but cost much less.

Hot Brownie in a Mug

Microwavable ceramic coffee mug or ramekin

2 T. vegetable oil

2 T. water

1/4 tsp. vanilla

dash of salt (optional)

2 T. cocoa powder

4 T. granulated sugar

4 T. flour

Whisk water, oil and vanilla. Add cocoa and whisk. Add sugar and then flour mixing well each time. Microwave for approx. 90 seconds for a 1000 watt microwave. Center should be slightly molten , just to set. Remember it will continue to "cook" slightly when removed from microwave oven so do not overcook. (I use my overcooked first one as a paperweight on my desk so maybe that is why I crave chocolate all the time).

For fun if you are near the regular oven, plop a few mini marshmallows on under the broiler for a few seconds after you microwave or add a dollop of ice cream and caramel with pecans on top. Three white chocolate chips will melt nicely on top after you microwave the treat, just in case you want more calories.

Next time you crave a late night chocolate treat, try one! Just be sure to lay in a supply of ingredients ahead of time. Two o'clock in the morning is only for you and your ancestors, a time to reflect and yes, even to indulge a little. Happy researching!


You Go Genealogy Girl #2- Cheri

Our Brand New Year ... 2011

Happy New Year Everybody!

The YGGGs have twelve months of research, traveling and fun ahead of us. With several inches of snow on the ground, we are communicating by e-mail and telephone. Eventually we will be able to get together and plan our research. January will be eventful for me. I am having the scope on my left knee in a few days. I'm trying to be optimistic that it will work and I'll be able to spend quality travel time in 2011. This month I will also become a great grandmother to a baby boy. I have been researching his mother's genealogy and discovered that his parents share 11th great grandparents.

We are planning our annual trip to Salt Lake City, arriving there on May 22nd and staying for two weeks. That means we have approximately four months to get our research notebooks prepared, update our files and decide how to best spend our time in the library. We feel that we get the best bang for our bucks by going there to do research, instead of ordering microfilm at a Family History Center. Of course, we no more get back home and want to go again.

In 1999 the FamilySearch.org web site was introduced. I can remember that it was continually busy. Logging in at times was next to impossible. Through the years it has become an old friend. In case you haven't noticed, when you type in http://www.familysearch.org in your web browser, things look different. You go directly to the new FamilySearch web site. It has a different look than the old one, but you can still get to the old one by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking on "Go to the previous site." A good way to learn about the new web site is to watch the FamilySearch Bloginar Presentation of December 2010. It is about an hour long, but you can pause and take a break.

YGGG#2 and I don't particularly care for the library catalog on the new web site. It will take some time to adapt to it. However, when previewing books on it, you can immediately see what has been digitized. In the meantime, I go back and forth between the new and old. There are tutorials and links for questions and answers. I have plenty of questions.

We spend a good deal of time printing out items from the Family History Library Catalog and placing them in a research notebook. They are categorized by floors in the library and families. As my notebook is huge, I normally take out what I want each day and put it in a smaller notebook.

In early May we will seriously be thinking about packing clothes, computer items and food. YGGG #2 has informed me I need to take two smaller suitcases instead of the one big suitcase. Better add that to my list right away!

We both wish you all great expectations, great research moments and whole lot of genealogy fun in 2011.

YGGG #1 -- Ruby

The "i-Touch and Go" Genealogy Girls

Rain nor snow, broken knees nor dark of night will keep the You Go Genealogy Girls down for long. The cold and snowy winter set in to keep us couped up but it hasn't dampened the girls' love for shopping.

The YGGG have both purchased great little new toys just to lift our spirits and get us through the "cabin fever" days. The mighty little Apple iPod Touch has come to our rescue.

What an awesome little genealogy research tool the iTouch is. If you can imagine a use for this small handheld computer,there is probably an application for it. The iTouch works with both a Mac and a PC so anybody can use it. Genealogy software like Reunion and Family Viewer make it the ultimate portable research tool. In my case, I am a PC user so I will transfer all my family files from Legacy into Family Viewer but I also have installed Reunion so that I can now have the Reunion family files from Girl #1 who uses a Mac. When I visit her next week she will sync her files to my iTouch and for the first time I will have full access to all her files and especially the sources and pictures! For me it is a great and inexpensive way to access Mac/Reunion only files which do not fully transfer via the Gedcom. The You Go Genealogy Girls have been like kids in a candy store. Hours of shopping in the iTunes application store has been almost as fun as picking out all those tasty flavored jelly beans that we love so much. News, music, genealogy software, reference apps, book readers, Google Earth and many hundreds of other neat tools and apps are available to download. The genealogy apps cost a small fee but hundreds of others are totally free to download. Would you like a LED alarm clock, a flashlight, solitare game, soduku games? They offer that and much more. My personal favorite: a level. It is great, don't have clue what I will ever use it for but surely it will come in handy-sooner or later. Maybe we'll try it out on our Lit'l Red traveling car before we leave for Salt lake. After all, we wouldn't want her nose snooty and held too high in the air while dragging her rear due to all the books and "stuff" stored in her trunk. That handy little level might help to smooth out the load!

Even though we aren't ready to completely give up our travel laptops-just imagine the even greater possibilities that this little iTouch beauty offers. Quick pocket portability with full function internet. Best of all, it takes very little room in our research bag, thus it is worth it's weight in gold. Gold in the form of space so we can buy more genealogy and history books, souvenir t-shirts and pins, tree charts and jelly beans. Did I mention room for MORE books?

The girls are anxious to be on the road, now energized with our iTouch brain power. Life was already great but we can use all the help we can get!

Be on the lookout for our Lit'l Red car and us of course. We'll be the dangerous ones on the inside of Lit'l Red. A cell phone in one hand, the iTouch in the other, the seat filled with our laptops and visiting wildly with a mouthful of those sugary jelly beans. That just about leaves "one eye on the road", a spare finger for the wheel, and a foot for the gas pedal. Zoooooom and compute, that is us!

We invite you to join us for our ongoing saga....

Well Planned Gone Wrong

What You Go Girl #2 didn't tell you about the Nebraska State Historical Society visit in May of 2008 was that we had to abort our original plans of doing research all day. We lasted until noon. The library-research room was unbearably hot. There is nothing worse that two energetic genealogists falling asleep on the job! In the transition between winter and spring, their AC was apparently not working.

This happens and then you have to punt or have a back-up plan in place. Fortunately we had other things to do, but it did cut our time short at the Nebraska State Historical Society building.

These things happen. I have gone to a courthouse that was unexpectedly closed because everybody employed there was attending a famous local's funeral service. Of course, these instances usually involve the small town courthouses. Even so, these instances change the schedule completely. In this case I read the sign on the door and waited it out at the town clerk's office until they opened after the services. Apparently the town clerk decided not to attend the services! Some small courthouses close all offices over lunch break. If you are there, you leave also ... or if you arrive shortly before lunch, your research just begins when you have to leave.

While it pays to have that back up plan in mind, it also pays to laugh and chalk it up to a great learning experience. The two of us laugh at a lot of things ... we'll tell you more about those instances as we go along. You Go Girl #2 snapped this picture of me last May hugging a tree ... perhaps a family tree!

You Go Girl #1, Ruby