Day 26: May 7, 2017
Challenge: do some family history work
Family history work has always been a challenge for me: it's hard, it's boring, and it's hard. A lot of work on both sides of my family has already been done by over-zealous relatives through the years. There are duplicate records, and false records, and missing records, it's a big, ugly mess that doesn't make any sense to me, no matter how hard I try to figure it out. I've been to the Family History Library down town Salt Lake City, I've talked to family history experts, I've scoured over microfilm and microfiche, I've really tried. However, as I was preparing to embark on this crazy 40 days to 40 challenge, I read through my patriarchal blessing and was reminded of the admonition to seek out my kindred dead. So, naturally, I set one of my forty tasks as doing some family history work.
After about two minutes, I realized/remembered that my family lines are screwy and hard to work with, and someone else is always doing work on them. This means that whenever I log in, all I have to do is click on the temple link, and like magic there are names I can take to the temple. Two minutes for a challenge that's supposed to improve my life is kind of cheaty, though, so I looked for something else to do. I decided to do a batch of indexing. Indexing is also kind of hard, but it's really interesting work. I read through and transcribed some Revolutionary War muster rolls. It felt good to be doing my little part to preserve records for not only my church, but my country. It reminded me of all the men and women who've sacrificed to protect my freedoms. And, most importantly, it inspired me to continue to serve in this manner. I don't do it often, under the premise that I keep myself fairly busy, but I try to do at least one batch of indexing every month. If you're reading this, I highly recommend to you that you take advantage of this service opportunity.
