February, The Month of Love and a Milestone

We are having another 'snow day' today.  We got 3 to 4 inches!  That  is a big deal here apparently because they sent out a weather warning and closed the schools.  When the schools close, the library  closes.  This is only the 2nd real snow storm we have had (we got 2 inches then), so we can't complain about the weather, at least not yet.  It's been pretty mild for February.  Maybe it's being saved up for March.

We have a shuttle service where we live which is a great convenience.  It takes us to about a block from the library.  But they have had mechanical problems lately, so we had to find another way to get to work for a while.  That means the bus.

We are seniors, so we are eligible for a free pass.  We had to go to the SEPTA office to get them which is in the middle of town.  Actually it is about half way between  home and the library, so we walked the 1/2 mile (resting often for my hips and knees to recoup), got our passes, ate brunch, then walked the other 1/2 mile to the library.  It was good weather and nice to see some different streets in the city.  I was impressed with a couple of buildings.

This church reminds me a lot of the churches in England.

I like the style of this building.

Especially the fire escape.  

Now that's fancy!

Riding the bus is not as convenient as the shuttle.  Coming home we walk 3 blocks to the bus stop, then after riding it. we have 3 more blocks to walk home.  But it is nice to have an alternative.  It's better than walking a mile each way.

Now a little more fun stuff from the library.

We see all kinds of images on coats of arms, etc.  But this is the one that most matches the name.

I didn't write down the name of the book this came from, but this is some impressive hair!

THE BEAST

Of all the books we have done, this one was the most challenging.  When we started, I thought, "Oh this is just a few hundred pages and won't take too long."  Was I wrong!
This is The English Emersons  printed in 1889

  It had multiple fold outs (seemed like every 4th page) of fragile tissue like pages.  

Some fold out pedigree charts were two pages wide, most were 3 or 4 which makes them tricky to scan.  They have to be done in sections and some were torn and had to be matched and held together with little pieces of a sticky note. (It takes creativity to come with ideas to make things work sometimes.) It was a little tedious with some of the torn ones. It was hard to get them matched and  keep them straight. This was the longest chart in the book.

As it turned out, with all the extras, there were 346 pages and took us almost 2 1/2 hours to scan.

And when I did the audit, I found 2 pages I had missed and had to add them in. I was glad to be done with the BEAST!  

But is really is a great book with wonderful information in it and I'm excited that 

someone will love getting access to it!

There was a longer fold-out waiting for us in
The Evengers 1967

Keep going . . .

 And that wasn't the only challenge waiting in this one.  It was printed on 'see through' paper and I had to put a piece of paper behind each page to make it more readable when scanned.

Did you notice that it was mimeographed?

There were no page numbers.  I like page numbers so I can make sure I don't miss pages.  (I count in my sleep now.)  But having to put a paper under each, I was pretty sure I didn't miss any.  It was a pretty long book for doing that, but it went smoothly.

We scanned a book written in 1862 with some unusual information in it. We read about 3 murders!  The first was drunken man who shot his wife. The second was a young boy who was killed around the time of the Civil War. The third was a man who was working in a store and was shot by a robber.  We didn't read the whole book, so don't know if that was all, they just caught our eye.

Milestone book

This is the book that contains the 100,000th page that we have scanned for Family Search!

There it is, page 117

There it is on the computer! (You can see how we scan two pages at a time.)

We celebrated by going out for lunch instead of our usual lunch from home.

We have scanned more pages than that.  We scanned 4 books of cemetery records for the library as a courtesy.  We didn't count those, only the ones that are sent to Orem.

In some ways the count isn't really representative of our work.   Many books we do are like the mimeographed one above that are printed on just one side.  We are turning and scanning as much as with a regular two sided book, but only get half the number.  We 'disable' one side on the scanner. (We joke about not getting full credit, but we know that it isn't really about the numbers.) We have a quota from Family History that they would like us to do each week, and when we mentioned this to them, they were a little surprised and understanding.  They are taking it into consideration.  We do keep up and are ahead in our numbers though.

Once a month we get together with the other senior missionaries.  This being February, we had a Valentines Party.  

There is always good food (yummy soups this time) and good company.

We played a game where we had to put a paper plate on our head and draw a picture as instructed.  The one most accurate won the prize.

And the winner was . . . Sister Anderson, the mission president's wife!

There are two couples going home soon before our next get-together.  They bore their testimonies and said their good-byes.   The Jones' live in St. George and so we are planning on seeing them when we get home.  It is amazing how much you can love people even though you only have known them a short time.

Our next activity is the 6th and 7th of March. We are going to Gettysburg and the Hershey factory.

We are so blessed.  We enjoy our work, we enjoy are association with the missionaries and we belong to a ward with wonderful people we are growing to love more and more. 

My testimony is growing and my love for the Savior is deepening.  

I am so thankful for His spirit and support and the love I feel from Him every day.

The Joy of Scanning

We have had a very productive and interesting January.  I think we are more productive because we are getting more efficient at what we are doing.  We better be, after 6 months.  It's been interesting because we have scanned some unique books.

Elder Syme is logging in, getting ready to scan the oldest book we have scanned so far.  It was published in 1812.

 It wasn't on the regular shelves, it was in the 'closed stack' which meant we had to fill out a request and have it brought to us.

 It was in very good shape.  Much better than some that we have done that are not as old.

This book takes the Barclay line back into Scotland.  Barclays in Scotland are related to the Syme family.  We may be related to those in this book.  Who wants to do the research to find out? 

 The paper was rather thin but sturdy.  You can see through to the printing on the other side.

 That should make the process of putting it in PDF interesting.

 Some books are falling apart that we get off the regular shelves.  Many of them are tied together.  This one wasn't too bad.  Just the cover was not attached on part of the book.

 This one was tied for a good reason.

 The cover was almost completely detached, along with many of the first pages.

 I'm always glad to get passed the first parts of the books when the pages are more even and easier to keep straight.

 This book needed some added information apparently.

 But there wasn't enough to fill it all in.  Actually this is not uncommon.  We often scan books that we think are 50 to 100 pages, only to find out after the first 10 or 20 the rest of the book is blank.  Weird.

 This one is the most fragile and difficult one we have done so far.

The first 15 pages were not attached at all. 

Someone did a not-so-efficient repair job by taping the pages and binding the tape together.  They were just too fragile to hold on.  

“No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.”  Matt 9:16          

 We won't be putting this one and the other books in poor shape back on the shelf.  We will take them up to the 4th floor to restoration.

Another book is Records of the Dyer Family (1884).  It tells of Mary Dyre who was sentenced to death in Massachusetts in 1660 by the Puritans because she was a Quaker.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Dyer 

It's another one that needs the 4th floor.

 This one was Our Duryea and Turner Lines, by Rhea Johnson.

I learned that Charles E. Duryea made the first gas automobile.  The test pull was in April 19, 1892. 

The Dunaway-Alder-Pyle Family had some interesting records that I hadn’t seen before.  In the latter part of the book they recorded names, dates and details of surgeries, broken bones, accidents to teeth (age, which ones, how many, and how), cancers, pregnancies and miscarriages.  I suppose that information will be useful to someone.

We often scan books that have pictures with blank pages on the back side that have to be deleted.  It is a little tedious and time consuming when you have a lot of them.  We did a book this week that went one further.  There was a light purple page inserted between each of the pages in the over 150 page book, The Dutton Family.  I think they did this for note taking, as a few of the pages had handwritten notes on them.  But the majority of the pages had to be deleted.  It wasn’t like the books with print on one side of the page only, like so many that we do, where you can disable one side of the scanner.  The blank pages were on alternate sides, so they had to be deleted individually.  

There have been a few books that the pages had to be cut apart because they were still connected (folded) from the printing process.  There was one, Lawrence Dowse, printed in 1926 that had 3 pages in various places in the book that I had to cut apart.  That means that I was the first to see those pages in 88 years!  This week we scanned the Dupuy Family, printed in 1910.  It had 7 pages out of 231 in various places in the book that needed cutting apart.  I was the first to see those pages in 105 years!  It’s amazing that there are very old books here that have never been opened and read.  

I am still finding names that interest me:

Whig  (written after his name: ‘shortest of 4  brothers’)

Herrick

Hulburd (male 1854)

Platoff Zane (first and middle names, male)

Lubelia

Linard

Asphelia

I have 462 names on my list.  So if you are looking for names for your kids or names for characters in the novel you are writing, let me know.  

My favorite name so far is Waitawhile Makepeace.

It takes a month or so for them to be on-line.  There are some books that are just so full of information and I hope someone finds them and makes good use of them.  Knowing that we are helping get these books to those who are looking or will be looking for them is very satisfying.

Here are the statistics since we have been here so far:

                Month                  Books              Images

                August                     25                   3,604

                September             111                15,063

                October                 118                 16,548

                November             105                  14,682

                December              105                 17,387

                January                  156                  21,341

                Total                       620                 88,625

I like these quotes from a couple of books we scanned this week.

There is much to learn and joy to experience in doing our family history.

HAPPY FAMILY SEARCHING!