#101 - in my blood

Finally I'm allowed through the gates. It's the same kind of feeling when you are late to Sacrament Meeting and they already have the doors closed to keep the reverence. You just peek in the window, wishing you could participate. Peter Pan, starring longingly in from the cold at Wendy and what a loving family is like. Being on the outside, looking in, is never a fun feeling. I've been outside looking in to new.familysearch.org for sometime now, and as of yesterday, I was allowed to log in. The servers weren't prepared for the rush of users, so they postponed Idaho, Utah and I think, Arizona for last. With Sami by my side and my mom, readily available for chat help, I was excited to get started.

The first step is to link your name and account to your line already in the system. I began searching for my grandpa. I got too excited and selected the first Donald Grant that was married to Anne Grant. Wrong Grandpa. Now this stranger-man was unintentionally invited to my awesome family! I'm sure he's a very nice man, but not the one I want in my family forever and ever. I had a hard time deleting him, even with the assistance of my mom because, "[she] had never had that problem before, of adding the wrong person"... Course corrected, I found all the work my family has done already in our family tree.

I am excited to start finding new names and cleaning up our records. Only problem is, my exuberant family (mostly mom) has already found records back to the late 1600's. I was hoping I could easily discover a great great grandparent or something. Not so much - - now all that's left is adventure things, like flying to Ireland, finding a fossil with a finger print engrained from 1613, matching it to a sketch of an ancient ancestor found in a time capsule buried in a basement of a old cottage. Oi.

At least I'm starting and can hopefully make some sort of difference in the lives and memories of my ancestors and future generations. I've already had a few miraculous family searching experiences, thanks to my mom taking me along on her family-finding sessions, to get my momentum going. The only discouraging part was its cheeky comment right before I logged off. Next to my name, like all the others in the program, it gives the choice of adding or finding a person.

"Vanessa - Add or Find a Husband!" ... thank you.