Interesting

Found here.

For My Entire Life

Yesterday Megan is in tears because she wants the new Barbie in the Mermaid Tail doll so bad.

Today as I was cleaning Megan's room I find Barbies everywhere. I said to her, "Wow! You have a lot of Barbies". She told me, "Yeah, but I don't ever play with them anymore". I asked why she would want a new doll if she didn't play with her old ones. She said, "It's because I have wanted the new one for my entire life ever since I found out there was one".

Very dramatic statement, don't you think? It's actually true though. Ever since she saw Noelle's doll two days ago, she has wanted one. Fortunately for her, she gets one tonight. Her dad is bringing her back one as a souvenir from California. She's going to be thrilled. I will be able to sleep well knowing I am teaching her that crying never works. Sigh.

Stonehenge

Photo by Linda Cronin (click here to see her photos on Flickr)

Stonehenge has been on my list of places I want to go since I was a teenager. In my first scrapbook I have a picture of Stonehenge and wrote to the side, "My Dream Vacation". I haven't been quite as excited about it since my parents went there though. They said it was a disappointment because it is right off the freeway, but I would still love to go there. It seems like such an amazing place to be. My sister Angie served a LDS mission near here a few years back. One of her flats had a view of a castle. I have always wanted to see where she lived. Seems like such a beautiful place to visit.

As I have been looking up information on my ancestors I see (thanks to Google Earth) they lived within 5 miles of Stonehenge in Netheravon, Wiltshire, England. Do you think they ever played at Stonehenge? Wouldn't that be fun?

What parts of the world do you want to visit one day?

Romanitic Proposal

I just read a beautiful marriage proposal between my third great grandparents on my Great Grandma Payne's (Elva Peck's) side of the family.

My third great-grandmother Charlotte Russon was born into a poor family in Worcestershire, England. When she was 17 a wealthy sheep owner, Peter Nebeker, offered to send Charlotte to live with his family in Utah. After a lot of consideration her parents consented to let her go and the Nebekers welcomed her and did all they could to make her happy.

Charlotte had only been at the Nebekers a short time when a young man from Lehi, Elisha Peck, came to see her - walking all 30 miles of the way. He had met her in England when he was a missionary there and saw her name in the Deseret News on a list of immigrants arriving from England. They had a happy reunion and corresponded with each other for the next year. Elisha came to see her in Salt Lake as often as possible. He was afraid to tell her he loved her, but he made up his mind to ask her to be his bride. He began by saying, "Lottie, I have been out here from England and you can't imagine how lonesome it is for me. My dear mother died when I was three and my father died when I was five. I have no one to care for me, only both of my sisters and they are both married. I love you with all of my heart, but I am only a poor boy. I have nothing on earth to offer you, only myself. It is sure hard for me to ask you to leave this beautiful home and plant, but it seems impossible for me to live without you. Dear Lottie, under these circumstances will you consent to be my wife?" When he had finished there were tears in both their eyes and she said, "Elder Peck, I have loved you from the first time we met at your home. I am also poor. I have nothing to give you, only myself. Do you think we can make a go of it with both of us having nothing?" He answered, "We are not afraid to try, are we?" Both of them laughed and he took her into his arms for the first time and kissed her.

Awww... what a legacy.

If anyone happens to Google my grandparent's names and finds this post, I'm trying to find information on Elisha's grandparents. Elisha's parents are Elisha Peck and Phebe Turner. Phebe's parents (who I am specifically looking for information on) are Thomas Turner and Ruth Rowles (although I've seen it listed on new.familysearch as Ruth Rowler).

Connected

In my opinion, one of the most incredible stories from my church's history is the one of the Willie Handcart Company. The pioneers traveling in this company sufferered worse than anything I could ever possbily imagine being able to handle myself. They had to move to Utah because our church members were being persecuted back east. Church members were mobbed and murdered for their beliefs. On the journey to Utah, this company had problems and had to leave later than expected. Unfortunately, winter came earlier and much more severely than usual as they were crossing Wyoming. So many people died and they ran out of food. During coldest blizzards their food ration was reduced to an average of only 10 oz of flour a person. Can you imagine only eating a handful of flour each day as you are nearly freezing to death and watching your loved ones die around you?

I was able to visit some of the places where these pioneers suffered about 10 years ago. The first time was with a youth group I was partially in charge of and the second time was for a family reunion. Being there and hearing the stories of these people was absolutely an incredible spiritual experience. These people suffered so much, but had so much faith and love for God.

I just realized today how closely connected I am to a few of the people that traveled in that company. Since my early twenties, I knew my forth great grandparents brought their children across the plains in this handcart company. Their names were James and Mary Laird. I also knew my third great grandfather, Edward was one of those children. What I didn't realize until today, is that I have touched a hand, that touched a hand, that came across the country in the Willie Handcart Company. I knew my Great Grandma Park, whose grandfather was Edward Laird. Looking at the information I have on Edward, I can see that my great grandma grew up by him and knew him until he died when she was about 19. That's really neat to me. These ancestors seemed so old and so distant until I realized that today. I have loved someone, who has loved someone, who was in the Willie Handcart Company. Wow. I feel very connected.

Genealogy Week

This isn't my picture. I just thought it was interesting. I got it off Flickr here. Wouldn't this be a fun picture to discover of your own ancestors?

I declare this week to be Genealogy Week. At least for me. If you read my last post you know I'm excited about tracing my roots. Seriously excited. As A.C. said on his blog, I have caught the genealogy bug. Oh how I hope it lasts. It is fun to be this excited about something.

Looking back to August 2008, I have some neat blog posts on genealogy. Back then the genealogy bug hadn't bit me and my enthusiasm died quickly. However, I'm really excited about the posts I posted back then. I posted some pretty pictures and collages of my ancestors. My favorite post is on August 29, 2008 where I discuss my deep Utah roots. It's pretty fascinating to me. If you are a blood relative, you should really read it. If you aren't a blood relative, it still might give you some great ideas on what to learn about your ancestors, and how to display the information gather.

In perfect timing for my self declared Genealogy Week, there is a show starting on NBC called Who Do You Think You Are. It premieres on March 5th. The show follows various stars as they learn about their roots. Sarah Jessica Parker, Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee, Brooke Shields, Lisa Kudrow and others all have episodes where they are featured. Watch the previews here.

Exciting!

If you know me, you know I LOVE everything to do with personal and family history. Personal history is super easy for me to keep up but a lot of details with family history are overwhelming to me. I'm interested in it, but in the past 10 years I haven't been able to motivate myself to research my roots. Part of the problem is I want to do things as quick as I can and the older people that are into doing family history don't have quick enough answers for me... until now.

My Grandpa Park is teaching a family history class at my church and the things he is teaching us about the New Family Search program are exciting. The New Family Search program is so much better than anything I have seen before. Still, even with how cool the program is, I was feeling overwhelmed with where to start until I met a really cool guy in St. George.

Last weekend I went to a family history expo in St. George to sell the Digital Scrapbook Memories CDs. I couldn't really leave my booth so I would occasionally ask people what they were learning at the conference. One guy (A.C. Ivory) stopped to buy some CDs for his mom and we ended up talking for a while. I was so impressed with him I can't even begin to explain. He is only 22 and knows tons about genealogy. He was asked to do a five generations chart before he left on his LDS mission and became hooked on genealogy. I was so excited to talk to him because I knew he would be the perfect resource for me. Because he is so young he is tech savvy and really understands the power of the internet and all of the computer programs out there. In the past years I have been taught by people that are much older than me and they teach me so slow I can't hardly stand it. If you are interested in tracing your roots you should follow A.C.'s blog. He is so cool and definitely the one for anyone tech savvy to go to for advice on genealogy.

Also at the expo, I talked to the guy next to me who has this really cool website (treeseek.com) that allows you to link your New Family Search info with his maps. My favorite was the fan chart shown above. Although it's much too small for you to see, I hope it gives you an idea of what it is. They print beautifully at large sizes. It was incredibly easy to create this chart using his website and I love the way it looks. As a matter of fact, I love it so much I spent half of the day making, printing, picking up, mailing and delivering fan charts to all of Keith and my grandparents and parents. The fan charts are incredible because they make it so easy to see where the holes in your family history are. Because of these fan charts I know where to start doing my family history. So cool!!! If you are an LDS youth leader you should have an activity for everyone to make these charts. I think it would be a great way for the youth to be able to visually see where they come from.