Update from Salt Lake City :: Nearing the End

Two more days... then the Research Marathon will be over. It has been an incredible seven weeks (and a few days) and I feel so fortunate to have been able to spend so much time here. Now all I have to do is find (or take) the time to go through all of the stuff that I've gathered.

The majority of my time was spent on the second floor using the microfilms – nearly 500 rolls have been pulled and reviewed. Of course, some of them were used only for a few minutes but others yielded numerous documents. Everything was scanned – microfilm to jpg files and books to pdfs, which resulted in nearly 2,000 new files. Several estate packets yielded 40 to 90+ documents and confirmed relationships previously found in undocumented publications!

Midst all the wonderful documents collected there was some degree of frustration now and then. Microfilm images were not always of the greatest quality. Some were downright awful - faded or extremely dark or handwriting that was totally illegible. And then there were the record groups you wanted to view but were not available at the library. Yes, believe it or not The Library does not have everything! LOL.

This is one of the better quality images – clear and sharp. But the handwriting leaves a little to be desired. The sixth entry from the top is my guy – Christian Schuder/Shuder in the 1842 tax list for Jefferson Township, Montgomery County, Ohio. The only way I knew for sure it was him is the first name is legible as is the description of the land '5 3 25 26' (R5 T3 S25 & S26) that he owned.

But just being here and having the opportunity to access so many records in one location was absolutely marvelous. All in all, I've tremendously enjoyed my stay here in Salt Lake City and have gotten a lot accomplished - almost everything that I had hoped to get and so much more. Of course, there is always more research that could be done but I think I need to spend some time to review and absorb all that was gotten – and get the information entered into my Legacy database!

I'll be leaving Monday morning – heading south, hopefully toward warmer weather in southern Arizona or perhaps southern California. I haven't decided on a specific destination yet but do know that I'll be returning to Salt Lake City in February - for the RootsTech conference! I'm excited about that. I was really disappointed to miss it last year. It couldn't be helped and hopefully nothing will come up that will keep me away this year! I'm looking forward to the conference, attending the sessions, and seeing some of my genea-blogging friends again!

Speaking of genea-blogging friends, I'd like to thank A. C. Ivory for stopping by to say “Hello” whenever he was at the library (did you hear about his sky-diving escapades?). Also, thanks to Ruby Coleman for spending time with me when she was here in October working on her new book. It was great to see you both again!