An Now for some Genealogy Research!

Manila, Utah to Salt Lake City (genealogy research of course!)

June 26 - July 17, 2016

From Manila we drove NW into the SW corner of Wyoming, catching interstate 80 which took us right into our next destination - Salt Lake City - the holy grail of genealogy research.

Only our genealogical friends will understand the allure of the Family History Library here - the rest of you probably think we're nuts to spend hours looking at films of records from the places where our ancestors lived.  I won't bore you with gory details.  Just a few pictures to give you some insight into the first rate facilities you find here.

The Family History Library - 5 floors of books, microfilm and microfiche records from all over the world.
One entire floor of microfilm/microfiche of U.S. and Canada records.
One entrire floor of books for the U.S.
One entire floor for microfilm/microfiche and books for the British Isles and Ireland.
One entire floor for microfilm/microfiche and books for the rest of the world.
One entire floor of computers for people who drop in hoping to find
their ancestors in the 30 minutes they've allotted while visiting SLC.

The main entrance to the library.

This is one of 6 aisles of microfilm cabinets on the U.S. and Canada floor.
Note the two dark vertical 'lines' in the picture.  That is the middle exit aisle you see below.

The middle exit aisle.  Without this you'd have to walk a very long way.

One drawer of microfilm.  The Family History Library has 2.5 million rolls of film.

Every floor has a large group of research computers available.
To the left of this area are the 6 rows of microfilm shown
above and about 6 long rows microfilm readers.

Each floor has a special area where you can either print a paper copy or save a digital copy
any document you find to a flash drive.  These fantastic microfilm/microfiche
readers were installed in 2009 and are a marvel of technology.
They can lighten/darken, zoom in or out, rotate the document, change the contrast, etc.
I think they can do just about anything but birth a baby.

The exodus at closing time.

So there's your tour of the Family History Library.  We spent 3 weeks in SLC - mostly doing research in this building and we were sad to see the time come to an end. The good thing is that we can always come back!

On the Friday before we left SLC, our friend Barbara from our genealogical society on Whidbey, happened to come to town. It was so nice to see her. We had lunch together and got caught up on the news from home. She and her husband will be serving a LDS mission in the Ukraine starting this fall. I think they will have some interesting stories to tell when they return home!  We'll be waiting to hear them Barbara!