Week Number Three (man, time flies fast!)

Our Place of Service (where we film) The National Archives

Inside The National Archives - Post Box

Can't remember where we left off last week, but we'll start with Monday of this week.  We sent our first shuttle (that's the big hard drive that we put our images on).  We think that we'll soon hear from Salt Lake on how we did.  They check out all our work and tell us if we have our images in focus and report on how our filming is.  The problem with all this is that we have done a whole other weeks filming and may be doing it wrong, but we still don't know how we did with our first transmittal.

Monday night we went to family home evening with some single sisters in our ward.  They had a little lesson and some nice refreshments at the end of it.  We got there a little late so we don't really know how the lesson went.  Of course we have no car so we rode the bus.  We're getting pretty good at getting around using public transportation.  They have what is called an Oyster Card.  You pay for the first card and then you put an amount of money on it and you scan it each time you get on the bus or train.  When it gets down low you add more money to it.  They call that process "topping it off."  It's not just a way of paying your travel fees but it gives you about a 50% discount off the usual fare.



The Conference Center (Centre)

FamilySearch "Stand"  (notice helper at left of stand)

Most of the rest of the week was spent capturing digital images.  On Tuesday and Thursday The National Archives is open until 7 pm (otherwise it closes at 5 pm).  On those two nights we have been staying a little later trying to work a little on Annie's family history.  We keep trying to find the Ward family in the Kirkby Ravensworth records in northern Yorkshire.  Obviously on those days we get home fairly late at night. 

Starting Friday morning of the past week, we ventured into London.  They have a large meeting place, much like the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, where there was a huge genealogical conference.  Most of the major genealogical societies as well as the local county genealogical societies are in attendance.  There are several lectures and demonstrations as well as over a hundred booths (called stands in England).  Anyway we were recruited to help in the FamilySearch's booth.  Annie greeted visitors and helped with lots of general duties.  Paul was asked to help with the more difficult ancestral questions at the sit-down stations.

 

We spent all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday working at the stand.  Each day we would catch a bus into London (about a 35 minute trip each way).  We would spend from about 9 to 5:30 at the booth and then make our way back home.  It was particularly enjoyable for Paul since he was able to meet so many friends from the British family history scene.  He is really in his nitch when it comes to trying to help people with their genealogy, as well.  One of the high lights of the conference was when Paul helped a family with their Irish history on Friday and then ended up helping another family on Saturday that was working on the very same line.  When you take into consideration that there were between four and five thousand people a day that attended the conference and that there were 5 different people in the booth rotating every two or three hours that were assigned to help those attending, it is an absolute miracle that Paul ended up helping two totally different people working on the same lines.It was a thrill for Paul to be able to connect cousing together.  He had taken an email address from the first cousin to send them some further information.  He was able to give the email address to the second cousin.

Annie says that she really enjoyed her assignment to greet people.  She was really surprised at how much she has learned over the years and felt good about helping those she came in contact with.

We look forward this week to having a day off.  However we'll use most of it cleaning and getting ready for the week as well as an anticipated move.  We've been in our flat for most of February, but are supposed to be moving to a more permanent flat this coming Friday.

We want you all to know that we know this is Christ's church and we are happy to be able to serve the Lord in any capacity that we are asked.