Maris and I have been taking the Family History Sunday School class this year. I have always felt a draw to my ancestors, but doing Family History always seemed so daunting and difficult. I can remember as a young teen going to the Family History Library with the Young Women and walking in and being OVERWHELMED by the microfisch and old documents and everything. I never thought that it would be something that I would have the patience for. But the internet is making everything so much easier. Soon, the church will have a new website (www.new.familysearch.org, I think) that will be available in selected areas for a while and then open up for everyone. But it is important to submit your info so that you are then connected to those in your tree. Eveyone shoud have a Family Sheet done and try to put together at least 4 generations in a pedigree.

Another thing that you can do from your home computer is indexing. The church has copies of census records and death records and birth records that are handwritten and need to be computerized. You can sign up to do indexing by going on to http://www.familysearchindexing.org/ and getting an account and then you download a batch (20 records) and transcribe it. Each batch only takes 15-30 minutes to do and it is amazing to see these old records. I have been working on a South Dakota Census and it has been so interesting to see the information. They list occupations and states/countries they were born in and you can just imagine these immigrants coming to America for the opportunities that were here. Even if that opportunity was owning some land to farm on. It makes me wonder what it must have been like to leave everything for an unknown place and a chance to grow.

For a project in Tyler's reading class, they have to bring in a pedigree chart with at least 4 generations on it. We were looking at ours, and I was showing them my great-great grandma Ann Maria Briscoe Hulme, and how she left England to join the saints in Idaho. She came alone at age 16 with her little sister. We were looking at the dates and talking about how her family had joined the church because of some missionaries. Parker asked a question about it and then said, "So, if they didn't join the church, we might have never been members of the church?" It made me think of how truly connected we are to our ancestors and how their decisions affected us and how our decisions are going to affect our posterity.

The work on geneology is speeding up...technology has made it easier and easier to be a part of it.

I feel fortunate to come from a long line of strong women...what great examples! Here is a picture journey through my 5 generations: Ann Maria Briscoe Hulme
Her daughter, Charlotte Pearl Hulme Matthews.
Her daughter, Ella Matthews Wheeler
Her daughter and my mother, Carol Wheeler Barkdull

And me and my beautiful daughter Aliza.

I am so grateful to each of these women for the things they have done that has brought me to where I am now...I hope that one day my posterity will say the same of me.