Family Search for Family History

Family Search is a LDS Church owned web site. Family Search has made leaps and bounds recently to create a better webpage and collection of data. Everyday they are progressing to create tools to help with your family history search. Here is the link, take a look and see all the new stuff. It's open to everyone throughout the world.

Familysearch.org

It was just announced that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will have free access in the near future to some paid websites like Ancestry.com and Myheritage.com. This is awesome. Family Search has also made deals with many places to give us access to important documents and even obituaries. That's even more awesome.

I can see God's hand in this work because of technology is rapidly changing for good, and it is making the search for ancestors more possible and easier. I love that and it should inspire many to want to seek for those who has gone before us.

With all this new research processes in place, we first need to turn our heart to our families.

The prophet Joesph Smith said,"The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead..." HC 6:312

Wow, that made an impact on me. I have thought a lot about this and found that he was talking to me. This is my greatest responsibility. When I started looking for names and putting together my family history, they were just names but when I started studying more about them and the times that they lived in, they started becoming more than just names. AND...when I took those names to the temple the true meaning of it all...God's purpose...began to unfold before me. My heart was turning to my fathers and I couldn't get enough of it.

Family History work is now my passion. I love this work and joy that comes with finding family and developing my tree. One thing that was an eye opener was when I started tracing the female side of the tree. It was easier to find the stuff on the male line but when I started working on the female lines I realized that there were so many more people to see.

I truly can see now how we are all related, as you do one line then the next and on and on.. your story never ends. And we are all connected, Family Search is trying to show us just that, we are all one big family.

I hope you will look in your hearts to see and understand this great work that God has entrusted to us. The work that brings us all together as God's family. Our ancestors need us to do this for them, the work that they can no longer do. And we need them to help us grow in understanding God's plan for us. I love my Heavenly Father for this great plan of happiness because I know the joy I get from doing this work.

High Cost of Milk

Good Grief!!! Milk costs what now!!!

I cannot believe I am paying over $4 for a gallon of milk. I think it's time to buy a cow. Or...maybe there are other solutions. I have been able to find it under $4 by going to places like Dollar General and Family Dollar, you have to shop around to find the best prices but if everyone goes to the same place does the demand for more milk increase the price (economics 101)?

With cost aside, milk is a necessity in life. Milk gives us certain vitamins for healthy bones and teeth. I read an article recently that list 3 reasons all people, of any age, need to drink milk.
3 Benefits to Drinking Milk Daily

1) It reduces risk of some diseases like colon cancer, osteoporosis, as well as hypertension.
2) It builds strong bones and teeth.
3) Milk helps you sleep.

The article says even when you are lactose intolerant you can find milk product that helps you to still have the milk you need daily in your life, but I think that costs even more. :(

Now that we know some of the benefits to drinking milk, how do we get past the cost of milk? As I said earlier, shopping around is helpful, I shop around my area for the best prices for everything. Another option is one my mother did when I was a kid while living in a high inflation period. She used to buy powdered milk.

She would take a gallon of whole milk and she would pour half, or sometimes thirds, into other containers. Then she would make a few quarts of powdered milk and add to the whole milk. This gave us a 2% or 1% taste of milk. We never knew the difference but it always helped her to stretch her budget money. She was a single mom working long hours to make ends meet and this was a solution to her problem. I thought it was a brilliant idea to saving dollars and still getting the vitamins you need.

I just recently read an article that asked the question about powdered milk being bad for you. I've attached it here for you to read for yourself.
Is Powdered Milk Bad for You?

Lets look at the cost of Instant Non-fat dried milk:

Walmart Brand $7.78 for 25.6 oz
Shelf Reliance $21.19 for 3.38 lbs
Ebay (variety of product) $47.50 for 10lbs

There are a variety of places you can find the product, you have to shop for what is best for you and your family. Here are some tips that can be helpful.

Powdered Milk Storage Tips

Saving Money with Powdered Milk

The shelf life of the dry milk product varies but average is about 8-10 years.
Shelf Life of Dry Milk

If you are someone like me then you want to be prepared for times of high cost in foods, or disaster; having an option for milk on hand is comforting. We use milk in preparation of many foods daily, using powdered milk as a substitute can also save money. So drink the regular stuff and use dry milk for cooking.

I hope this information is helpful, I know it was for me in my research process. I would love to hear more about your use of powdered milk or creative ways you saved money using powdered milk.

Hasten the Work of Salvation

We have been commanded to hasten the work. What is the work; to progress the cause of God. Moses 1:39 says that His work and His glory is us! So how do we help in that? We build the Kingdom, which is to strengthen one another and to help people find Christ.

When we think about that we pretty much think of missionary work and helping in that area but it also means to help those who have passed on. We do this through family history work. We are running out of time and now is the time to get this work done.

I have just recently been called by our Stake at church to be a Family History Director, there are two of us. The other one focuses on the Family History Center, and I focus on getting people into the Family History Center to do their work.

I love this calling because I love this work. But I have come to realize that with that love and helping other to get busy in it, I have not done as much in mine as I should have by now. Genealogy has been a part of life for over 30 years. But I am still just barely getting it organized.And that is the key, getting organized. There are many ways to keep your records but you have to choose one or it can be time consuming just trying to...well organize.

Some ways to organize your records are by keeping a hard copy in binders, or filing cabinets. But what if you have a fire, flood, or storm that destroys those records? Keeping a soft copy is good, too.
You can store it on a SD card, a CD, or just on the computer in organized files, and even on an external hard drive.

But what if your computer gets fried or stolen? What if you lose those SD cards or CD's? The way modern technology keeps changing, those SD cards might not be able to be used in the near future.

Hmmm, what else can you do to save your records? I think one of the safest ways is to record this information on websites that specialize in family trees. This is one way people learn about their ancestors is by sharing information on the websites. Ancestry.com would be a great place a to share that info but it has a price attached. It's worth it if you use it a lot, but if you do it only once in a while, well it may not be advised.

Ancestry.com

Familysearch.org is an excellent place to store your information, its free!!!

Familysearch.org

They believe that we are all one big family and if we all submit our trees then we can see how we are related to one another. I thought that was pretty cool. There was a team of 150 people who submitted as many names in their tree as possible and they found that 148 of them were related within 9 generation, that is way cool.

Your ancestors are calling you, it's time to answer and find them. Time is short and technology has made easier than ever. Hasten the Work now!!!