Billions of Thanks

Thanks A Billion!

Those of you who have been actively indexing this month have already seen the badge and message sent from FamilySearch announcing the three people who helped index the 1 billionth record. But I think a special thank-you should go out to all of the 689 indexers and arbitrators in the Oklahoma City Stake who have helped to make that possible. 

Thank you for indexing and as Sister Dalton, the Young Women general president, told the 2000 youth at the RootsTech Conference in March, "you are Saviors on Mount Zion" (see Obadiah 1:21 and D&C 103: 9-10). You are creating a way to make records available so that they can easily be found and  the temple work can be provided for those who have died without the opportunity to receive them. So a mere 'Thank-you" barely seems adequate to express the gratefulness that must be felt by  those who can now enjoy the blessings of eternal life.

Let's keep up the good work and do our part in helping to index the next billionth record.

Indexing and Arbitration Alert

This week I received a message from FamilySearch stating that they were doing an Arbitration Audit and that all arbitrators need to be indexing too. The ratio is 1 batch indexed to 10 batches arbitrated. This helps you to make less mistakes with arbitration.

Also in checking our Stake Statistics today I saw that we are having an unusually high number of re-do batches. 

The following Wards seem to be having the most problems: 

• Edmond First
• Edmond Second
• Okc First
• Quail Creek
• Village

Please check the tab "My Arbitration" to see if your records are being sent back to be redone. If you have any that were returned, please contact your Ward Group Administrator for help, or call me or contact the Help at FamilySearch @ 1-866-406-1830. I can't stress enough that it also helps to read all of the project instructions and field helps . 
Group Administrators please check the Statistics to see who may need your help and ask them to share a batch with you.

Changes in FamilySearch

In case you haven't been on the FamilySearch Tree lately, there have been some major changes and upgrades to the site. The look on the home page has changed but the same wonderful features are still there.You can now add photos and stories. You can scan in documents and attach them to an individual for source documentation. These records will be preserved forever by the Church, no need to worry about saving all those paper files. Go to this link to see for yourself'

https://familysearch.org

If you need help the Family History Consultants at the Stake Family Search Center would love for you to stop by to learn how easy it is to use these new features in Family Search  for generating your own family tree and obtaining names for temple work. They are eagerly waiting for members to come and visit the Center. Did you know that about 75% of those who use our Center are non-members. Some shifts in the Center have no patrons!  How sad is that?


My Tree

gnarled with deep roots

MOTIVATION

What keeps you motivated to work on your family tree? For me it is a sense of urgency that the records will not be preserved and alll of my research will be lost. Also something that Dennis Brimhall, President and CEO of FamilySearch said at the RootsTech Conference. He said we needed to move the vision of Family History to 20 or 30 years from now.  He asked us to think about our answer to this question: "What will your great-grandchildren wish you had done?"

Did you know these facts as stated by Dennis Brimhall:

• 50% of the people in the US Can't name all four of their grandparents
• Many of the youth can not read cursive hand writing.
• We are running out of people to read the old records
• The days of being the only researcher are over
• Collaboration is the key to success in genealogy today
• "It's" about stories not collecting names

Start writing your stories today.