Exciting News!

I must admit that the fifth Sunday of a month is not my favorite to be in attendance during the third hour at church. The reason for this is that on the fifth Sunday of a month instead of the women meeting in Relief Society as normal, we combine with the men's priesthood meeting. I don't care for these meetings because they normally consist of 10-15 minutes of everyone trying to figure out who, what, where and how to do annoucements, song, prayer, etc followed by another 40ish minutes of a very bland and boring "lesson," aka lecture. Not my idea of an exciting time at church.

As you can imagine as I walked into the chapel this afternoon for this very meeting I was not excited and was honestly thinking of any excuse to get out of the meeting. Seeing no easy way of escape I reluctantly went in and took a seat as far back and as close to the exit as possible in case I could get luck enough to have to "run" to the restroom. We went through the traditional 10-15 minutes of everyone trying to figure out who, what, where and how to do annoucements, song, prayer, etc. and then the time was turned over to Brother Miles Meyer who was to introduce us to the "new" familysearch.org changes that will be going into effect.

Being a lover of Family History I was slightly interested, but was still thinking of how to not have to get through the next 40 minutes. I was, I must say, presently surprised as Brother Meyer started talking about all the changes. As he continued to talk about the "new" look, features and options I started getting more excited. I was so interested about 8 minutes into it that I had to get up and walk to the front of the chapel closer to the screen so that I could get a good look and hear Brother Meyer clearly.

At the end of 40 minutes I found myself excited and looking forward to getting onto www.familysearch.org and start to upload my family information into the site. Why am I so excited? Well, the changes being introduced during the month of April are not only for members of the church, but will be available to non-members. Meaning that my family member's all over the world can log into the site through their own account, find out family tree and add to it. Unlike ancestry where each person makes their own family tree and then you have to hunt through multiple family trees to get information, this will be one tree with ALL the information.

It will also allow us to upload family photos, documents, link into websites such as find-a-grave, it will allow us to add stories and share family traditions, etc. I am so excited about this news that I cannot wait for my Aunts, uncles, sisters, brother, cousins, children, etc to start loading and gathering information! 


Please if you are family go out to www.familysearch.org and create an account so that we can start working and sharing information.

To create an account click on the "sign in" on the upper right above Help.

Then click on "Create New Account" below to create your personal account.

Once you are logged in you can click on Family Tree and start adding information! You can also find video tutorials on how to do things on the site, and if you click on Help you can chat live with someone who can help you if you need it. 

What exciting news this truly is to me and I hope to all of you as well!!

Dianna