By Gramma Dot

The Family History Center is becoming one of my favorite places. I’ve only been attending a couple of months, but I’m learning it is a pretty accepting place.  You don’t have to know much.  In fact, all you need is a desire to get to know “your people” a little better.  When I say “your people,” I’m referring to your ancestors.  Dave and Elaine Mills are in charge, and they are trying to help all of us learn more about “our people” in the hope we can figure ourselves out in the process.  They host a training once a month for those who work at the center.  

April’s training was on the 21st.  Wendy, Irene and I had spent some time with a new piece of equipment and its software, so Elaine asked us to introduce the group to the new book scanner.  It was a little intimidating because most of the Family History people have been there a lot longer than me, but I knew they were friendly, and I had the Alder Girls for backup.  

I walked into the room to find everything all set up.  Dave greeted me and asked if I wanted a wheelchair.  That got my attention.  I wondered if I was moving a little too slowly.  He was actually referring to a desk chair with wheels so I could navigate between the book scanner and the attached computer efficiently.  When I got over the shock, we settled in and started the demonstration.  It was more like a conversation between friends trying to learn how to use something new.  It reminded me of Christmas when I was a kid, and we spent the day trying to figure out how to use everything Santa had left. 

We started with a journal that was handwritten in ink.  That took us through the basics of using the software.  When I first started using the machine I had a diary of my great grandmother’s that was written in pencil.  It had faded and when scanned the copy was very hard to read.  Elaine had been wondering if we had figured out how to make the copy readable.  We had not.  We sort of felt like that was a topic for another day, but during our training everyone wanted to explore.  So, explore we did.  

We got grandma’s diary out, found a faded page and started the adventure.  Sure enough when scanned it was pretty impossible to read.  We all put our heads together and found an icon with contrast, brightness, etc.  We navigated through and made the copy a little better but not much.  Then, we happened upon “thickness.”  When I clicked the plus button for “thickness” it was like resurrection morning.  Suddenly, words appeared.  The group reacted with ooos and ahhhs.  It sounded like they were watching fireworks.  We were out of time, so I added the “thickened” page to my gallery in Family Search and we called it a day.

Fast forward to Tuesday when I had some time to go back into Family Search to check out my “thickened” entry.  It had not loaded in the Gallery.  Ouch.  More to figure out, before we can claim victory, but we are on to something!  Life is Good when you are on to something and know there are “people” in your corner ready to help.  We will get it figured out!  While we are working on that, you need to find all those old diaries and letters of “your people on the other side” and bring them in to be scanned and shared with all of “your people on this side.”  There’s plenty for “all people” to do!