Extraction

I haven't been getting much done as far as projects go lately. Lily is a good girl and she likes to sleep, but she likes to sleep best when I am holding her. She likes John too but apparantly John exceeds her heat threshold so when she wakes up from sleeping on his chest, she sometimes gets mad.

Anyway, I haven't been doing much but one of my New Year's goals was to do a little bit of name extraction every day. I've tried to do 15 minutes a day. Now for you who don't know what extraction is, it is when you take the names off records and record them for the church databases. I've been doing it off and on since Kate was a baby. When I first started it was all on the computer but you had to have someone in your ward come over and download the record onto the computer and then you would extract the names and give them a disk with what you had done, then take it back to your ward extractionist or trade with someone else to verify the other person's work, etc. It was kind of involved (though not as involved as working with microfiche machines or actually going to the places to find the records--I know I'm a technology age whiner). But now it is super easy and awesome because now it is all on the internet. Your stake extraction person sets you up with an account(or if you can't find one of those, you can just go to familysearchindexing.org) and you just log in whenever you want to and they download a record onto your computer and you're off to the races. Then when you're done, you just upload it and you're ready for the next one.

Anyway it is so fun. In fact it is so easy that it is kind of addicting. I sit down to just do a few names and end up doing a whole sheet (they are broken into groups of 50 names). I really have to force myself to stop.

Right now they are extracting the 1900 census. I've done names from New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and Illinois. I even did a sheet from John's hometown, Tonawanda NY.

In the past I've also done extraction from 1600 English parrish records and Ohio and Washington death certificates from the 1940's. They were all very interesting. One time I did a death certificate for someone who had been mauled to death by a bear and you wouldn't believe how many people die in house fires.

Anyway it is super fun and interesting. I've really come to appreciate people who write clearly, but I've also come to appreciate the Spirit that helps you read some of the names (because some are near impossible). It really makes me feel linked to the past.

Anyway if you're looking for a hobby, I would highly recommend it.