It's spring so this means that Temple Square is filled with flowers! So many flowers that my girls run to each patch to smell them all. But it also means more trips to SLC.
Since Mike and I share a car once a week I will use the car to do the errands I need. So I wake up everyone really early so we can jam out those errands ASAP and get to SLC.
Everyone enjoys Temple Square so there's no complaints waking up early.
Everyone loves looks through all the clean windows and seeing all the beautiful sights.
Everyone joking that they are touching Dad's windows.
Besides the beautiful gardens we've been visiting the Family Search Center when we go. It's really amazing!
(Hailey seeing how tombstones hold information we living family can use)
As a family we're really into genealogy. Hailey and Mason enjoy indexing (Plus it help with the skill of reading cursive writing) . Mike and I go on FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com to search the records so we can connect those names to our family trees. Lily and Cati.... they leave us alone so we can work. This is as much help as they want to give right now. But we'll take it!
At the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building there are tons of computers for people to start their search. And if you don't know how to start your search there are missionaries everyone willing to help you.
Plus there's so much fun kid activities to do that logging onto a computer is much easier since my littles are preoccupied themselves.
And the activities are all based on family history. Like fun ways finding clues from photos on what era a photo is taken. Finding information on a tombstone. Family crest. (<--- Mike has several since he line goes back to European royalty) And the best part no one cares about kids playing around. These places are so kid friendly.
Anyways the newest addition to Family Search is Family Discovery. There's a room adjacent that makes me more excited to do family history.
While the kids play with these discovery toys and find clues all around the room Mike and I can play around with our family tree.
After logging into our familysearch accounts on an ipad theres several docking stations in the room,
This station shows all your recorded ancestors and their migrations. On each circle face is the person's information we've collected. Like name, birthdates, birth place, etc. On Mike's (pictured above) some circle faces have stories along with it. Like his ancestor Bennett was a cousin of George Washington (meaning Mike is related to George himself) who was also Washington's personal body guard. How awesome!
Another docking station is taking a photo in your native cultures clothing. So Mike is 50% American which is awesome. He bleeds Red, White, and Blue. Then he's Scandinavian, English, Irish, and a few smaller percentages.
Speaking of the importance of family communication. My father's side is a really tough group to gather any sort of information from. So much that I can't find anything past my father's generation. So when asked about dates, places, etc there's nothing coming back to me. So while at the Family Search center there's a website where you see who you're related too. Like any famous historical people. When Mike looked he had pages of people from Salem Witch Trials, Revolutionary War, LDS history, Mayflower, and Presidents of the USA (Obama too). But direct descendant from European Royalty.
As for me the website kept buffering trying to find something.... No luck!
Having this sense of not belonging anywhere I sent a very angry message to my father's family telling them to give a girl a break and give me the info. Whatever right! The info I do have has helped me find out this much at least.
Anyways back to lighter news before we left we had to take a photo of what settlers would have looked like exiting off their ship. Of course they had sunglasses and flip flops back in the day.
All in all this was an amazing day. I'm so thankful for resources like this where we can come, learn, and appreciate our family history.
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