MARCH FHE

Come join us a the home of Rob Griffin, Dallen Herzog, Scott Porter, Michael Taylor located at 3018 S. Glebe Rd. Arlington, Virginia 22206. The good times and spiritual upliftment starts at 7:30pm. Hope to see you there. Scott P. and I are making a "fantastic" St. Patrick's day treat not to be missed!!!!

Alicia

1 comments:

King Street Chapel Singles said...

Thanks to Alicia and Scott for enabling shameless promotion of family history and temple work! I was humbled by the interest at the packed parlor at 3018 as I stood between you and the main event -- makin' time and trying to look cool chewing treats.

In response to your leaders' request, here are the crib notes, absent my distracting sidebars:

Thrift Store Confessional

Despite my better judgment, I sprung this journal from a Goodwill for a few bits:

Thought this might be fun to take with you this fall. Posterity is waiting! Much love and happiness ahead.
Aunt Mary Carter
June 11, 1975
.

August 24
Well, I got here at Longwood yesterday. I'm pretty well settled. The guys from H.S. are _so_ good looking, it's unreal. Hunko's (sic), and w/mustaches (sic)! Robin's been so sweet to me showing me around, etc. I'm starting to miss home.

Aug 25
3:36pm
Well I've had a busy day. Went to President Willot's home. It's _beautiful_. My roommate, Anita & I are on diets. I haven't eaten yet. Just wait till dinner! Went around to all the local shops & got my freebies. Write later.

And the record ends there, never moving past page one. Do you really want this to be the mark you leave upon the world?

Contrast this with the small record of Amaleki, a bridge editor in the Book of Mormon, from whom we learn of the Mulekites, and are provided transition from the first 450 years (~ 150 pages) to the latter 550 (~ 350 pages). He was the seventh generation from Lehi to steward the records, and having no seed, delivers them to King Benjamin. Without his brief and humble contribution, the Book of Mormon would have come unhinged (see Omni 1:25).


Opportunities for Service

While the Crystal City Ward Temple and Family History Committee would be giddy to see you attend the temple regularly, submit family file or use cards from our stores, and write your autobiography, we also want to give you creative choices to keep you off the guilt train and sharing in the blessings of service.

Family Search Indexing (For instructions, see me or Kristin Eliason, or go to FSI and navigate the simple setup process. In this enormous project, volunteers take images census forms, birth/marriage/death records, and other historical data and transcribe them into searchable text. Every image is transcribed by two independent sets of eyes, and discrepancies are arbitrated before publishing. Use your FSI login to view the beta results here.

Gifting a Genealogy Of course your crazy aunt LaVearlene did your entire family back to Peleg. Why not help someone else do theirs? I displayed one of my projects which in six months' time was a ripping success as a surprise birthday present. Now is the time to start if you want to make a decent showing by Christmas.

Reverse Treasure Hunt When your grandparents have passed, what better to do with heirloom letters and photos than find the families of those old friends and return the mementos to the people who would cherish them the most? I cold called the only surviving son of Katy, my Grandmother Fern's schoolmate, and he was prostrate with gratitude for the package I sent him. I hope they find something Katy kept from Fern!

Tech Support Unfortunately, LaVerlene left yellowing notebooks and photos tainted with rubber cement which went from adhesive to scrapbook dandruff while you were still in Garanimals. Why not digitize her work or convert outdated data storage to usable electronic media?

Birthday Flashback For a creative birthday present, look up microfilm of newspaper images of your loved one's birth announcement, or interesting features and articles from the day they were born. The television listings, comics pages, and classified ads can be a hoot.

Antique Postcards Develop the habit of scouting thrift stores and used bookstores for old picture postcards which commemorate a special time or place. A reasonable price range to expect will run from a few cents to about $5.00 apiece. You may not score what you need in the near term, but hold onto the good stuff and you'll find an opportunity to share your finds. I have a skyline of St. Louis from about the time I was born, and lucked out on coastal shots of Malaga in the early 1900's, only a few decades after my ancestors left for Mexico.

Precious Strangers There was roughly a 10-year window of time, when, if I pulled my head out of my life long enough, could have cornered informants to write on the back of old photographs. While I could corroborate a few known family profiles with some ensemble shots, I mostly have stacks of exquisite photographs of complete strangers, all related to me.


As always, please contact the Family History Consultants in your ward to follow up on these or any other inspired ideas you have.