I was sitting in the choir seats, minding my own business, waiting for a Sunday meeting to start. At about ten minutes until the scheduled commencement of the meeting, I saw my husband standing in a nearby doorway beside one of the church leaders. They both motioned in my direction. Looking around quickly, there was no one else in the vicinity...at least no one else who was paying attention to them. So I did the usual “You mean me?” gesture and received a confirming nod.
Quickly reviewing my recent actions, I determined that I hadn’t done anything so egregious that I would be being brought in for disciplinary reasons. And I already had my full quota of callings, volunteering in the Family History Center once a week and teaching a Sunday School class every other week. Therefore, it was with some puzzlement that I entered the office.
A few minutes later, I left feeling like a significant portion of the world had fallen on my head. I had been asked to administer the annual family history conference for next year. Needless to say, it was a struggle to pay total attention to the proceedings of the meeting that followed!
A little history
The Charlottesville Family History Conference has become more and more of an event every year since its official inception. In 2006, Bob Roberts had determined that it was time that Charlottesville host such an event. He dutifully and passionately carried out that dream, beginning with the first of these annual conferences in 2007. Those of you who have attended in past years know about the quality of his work, especially while overcoming significant personal challenges.
Well, that was all well and good. And, in fairness, I have to say that I do remember Bob’s having warned me that this might devolve upon others—possibly even me—in coming years. But looking around I could see a number of others who were very qualified to undertake such a responsibility. Considering the threat a funny joke, I wasn’t particularly worried.
Throughout the ensuing meeting, the task ahead seemed pretty daunting. Bob has set a very high standard. But the journey has begun in a spirit of maintaining the quality he provided and hopefully meeting the needs of the surrounding community in the way he has for four years. I'm excited to travel this road with all of you!
A little more history
My own involvement with family history began shortly after I became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 18. Someone handed me a bunch of legal-sized papers and said that, now that I was a member, I needed to become involved in this. Little did I realize that the pursuit to which they had introduced me would become the consuming force in my life.
Disclaimer: I love my husband, I love my children, I love my friends, I love my life. But sometimes I’m guilty of living more in the presence of my ancestors than in the “real” world. In fact, I’ve been married for 31 years now but have lived with the subject of my research (my third-great-grandfather, David SCOTT) for six years longer than that!
I took a genealogy class at Brigham Young University my sophomore year. Sitting in one of those amphitheater-style classrooms, I remember feeling almost tangibly the weight of all my ancestors resting on my shoulders, almost to the point of finding it difficult to breathe. I have had amazing experiences in my research. And it’s a good thing, because they compensate for the long hours of looking at records where no apparent results are gained.
A little more historical history
My husband and I were fortunate enough to have had five children, all arriving within an eight-year-eight-month span of time. But even during those busy years, I tried to maintain some degree of effort in family history. A year before our last baby was born, I had a strong impression that I was supposed to do something “official” in family history. So, although this is not a typical thing to do in our church, I approached the person in charge of family history locally and indicated that I felt I needed to get involved. The actual calling arrived a month after the baby did!
But I was so excited. I told my husband I was going to get everyone in our ward involved in family history. My wise, rational, experienced husband listened and then expressed some doubt as to my ability to bring about those universal results. Nevertheless, I made orange folders for every member of the ward and encouraged them to start keeping a minimal journal for at least a month. There are still some of those leftover orange folders floating around my office.
However, a few people did respond. And some expressed appreciation for the challenge. Then in February of the next year (1990), we held an open house for the Family History Center. My husband told me after the evening was over that the parking lot at the Hydraulic Road building (where the Family History Center was then housed) was filled to capacity. We held a few additional open houses in subsequent years before realizing that something else was needed.
Enter our highly qualified friend and leader, Bob Roberts!
Getting started
The impressions started flowing that Sunday afternoon but reached a real surge early the next morning. I knew immediately the people I needed for the committee, and they were gracious enough to respond to the request. Subjects for classes presented themselves, like eager schoolchildren wanting to be called upon. Beginning phrases of a poem even began to circulate through my brain, so I got up and wrote them down along with the other lines that followed.
The committee has functioned wonderfully! They have taken my original ideas and molded and shaped them and sometimes pruned them. They have contributed significant new ideas of their own. It has been a wonderful experience to see the pieces of the conference materialize as we've worked so hard together (and also laughed a lot along the way).
Soon after beginning, I realized that we were attempting something in which the Father of us all has an interest. So we began having a prayer to open our meetings, asking for additional guidance beyond our own. That has worked very well except when one of the members assigned to contact a proposed presenter for one of the classes got the impression that I should teach the class instead. I have to say that was one of the most personally ambivalent moments of the process so far. That really hadn't been part of my plan (though I'm excited to do it)!
A standing joke has evolved as we've discussed the preparations for the conference. My goal is to have to set up a thousand chairs for the conference. This time it was one of the committee members who got that old look on his face, the one I had seen on my husband’s face all those years ago. And so we have introduced the “R” word into our discussions as they remind me to be realistic. However, I can dream, can’t I?
Mr. Bernie
And speaking of dreams, this seems like an appropriate place to relate the story of our featured speaker. I had seen Bernie Gracy present keynote addresses at a couple of the national events sponsored by a friend for whom I had worked part time. I’d always wanted to hear him again, partially because my responsibilities at the Expos meant that I never got to hear the presentation uninterrupted.
So I mentioned this to the church leader to whom I report, and he indicated that there were some church restrictions on remuneration. My husband got a copy of the handbook and we looked it up. Sure enough, there was the rule in black and white—no payment for guest speakers!
But as you may recall, I believe in dreaming big dreams. So on Thursday morning, December 9, I put fingers to keyboard and started the e-mail message. After explaining the conference and its attendant fiscal regulations, the ridiculousness of the proposal I was presenting to him suddenly hit in full force. After all, this is a man who lives in Connecticut, is a vice president of a huge Fortune 500 company, a husband and father, one who is actively involved in Scouting.
The doubts finally ate through my audacity. I confessed as follows: “And as I write this, I find myself thinking, ‘Who in their right mind would want to do this???’ Maybe you’re thinking the same thing. If so, sorry for the long message. If not, read on...” After finishing the other half of the message, I closed my eyes and hit the send key. It was about noon...high noon!
And then there was silence...for a long, long, long time. My imagination provided all sorts of possible scenarios, ranging from a quick check mark on an unrecognized name followed by hitting of the delete key all the way down to “What??? You’ve got to be kidding!!! Who in their right mind, indeed....” Well, you get the picture.
Looking back, the wait seemed like a lot longer than the four days, ten hours and twenty minutes it actually was before he sent his reply. Perhaps the fact that I didn’t open it until the following morning adds another seven hours and makes my anxiety more justified. But the words I read were, “I have a personal saying. If it’s the wild thing to do - it’s the right thing to do.” He then explained that he and his wife passed through Charlottesville on their honeymoon, so he has fond remembrances of the area. He said to count him in!!! Had you viewed the happy dance that went on at 5:30 that morning, both you and I would probably have been embarrassed!
But then, again, there was silence. We went ahead and designed the flyers, spotlighting him as the featured guest speaker. We started telling everyone what a privilege it was going to be to have him join the conference. I had counted my blessings numerous time. And then, as the weeks passed, I began to think that maybe someone had hacked into Mr. Gracy’s e-mail and was playing a cruel joke.
So on the evening of January 24, realizing that we needed to confirm before we started the advertising in earnest, I located a phone number for him. His wife answered and listened to my rather emotionally pitched explanation of why I was bothering her. She graciously explained that Bernie (he doesn’t like Mr. Gracy) was at a Scout meeting but would be home later. She would give him the message.
The telephone call came in about half an hour. He was on his way home from the meeting. Having conjured up the possible responses and having determined that an “Oh yeah, I
did say I’d do something for you, didn’t I?” was what I could most likely expect to hear, I was relieved to hear instead, “No, I said you should count me in, and I’m looking forward to it!”
His description of the workload he'd recently carried and was imminently facing because of the creation and launch of a major new business application made me tired just listening! So, in hindsight, his delay in responding was completely understandable. And I am totally looking forward to a front-row seat for his presentation.
The inside scoop
If you’ve plowed through this message to this point, you deserve an additional reward. We are excited to announce that this year’s conference has been designed especially with the beginners in mind! Because of the popularity of the "Who Do You Think You Are" television series, we felt that there might be a lot of people out there who were interested in undertaking their own search but had no idea how to begin.
So those of you who have ever been curious about digging out those family roots, this is your special conference! We're simplifying the structure, reducing it to five main presentations. Those who go through all of the sessions will leave in the afternoon with a comprehensive view of the process and a pretty good idea about how to get started.
However, please note each class is helpful on its own. If you can only come for part of the conference or even just one presentation, we encourage you to do that!
A role for our past attenders
If we are successful in our efforts to reach those who are beginning, we will have a critical need for the assistance of past attenders and experienced researchers. There will undoubtedly be a lot of questions from those who are confronting some of these ideas for the first time. And especially in this larger group setting, some of those questions may be difficult to answer individually. We'd still like to be able to meet those needs on a personal basis.
Therefore, we are especially encouraging those of you who have been through this same introductory experience to come this year. Your insights and observations may be the key to unlocking this exciting world of genealogy for someone else. We will give you a specially marked name tag identifying you as a valuable resource, someone who can answer some of the beginners' questions. We'd love to have a whole army of enthusiastic "veterans" to help make the new "recruits" feel at home! (Remember, that's not an age-based ranking!)
At the same time, we feel like the presentations will be helpful for researchers at all levels. Each of the sessions will provide those little nuggets of information that will help all of us in our pursuit of those elusive ancestors.
So please start spreading the word. If you have acquaintances who have expressed interest in getting started, please tell them about the conference. If you have a child or grandchild who you think might enjoy this introduction, bring them along. If you meet total strangers on the street, ask them if they've ever thought about searching their family roots... Well, now, I guess I am getting carried away!
One last enticement
Perhaps one final teaser to leave you with today. Do you remember my having mentioned the poem that started unspooling itself in my head early one morning early in the preparations? I presented that to a friend who knows music and asked if she might be able to compose some music around those words. She agreed to try, but suggested that that wasn’t really her forte. So she said that I should keep listening in case a melody came to me.
After I quit laughing, I agreed to follow her counsel. Then early one morning, a brief melody line of a few bars
did float through the minutes sandwiched between sleep and full awakening. I went out to the organ in our living room and quietly plunked out the rest of it, transferring what I understood of the notes to scratch paper.
I sent my friend the letter names of the notes and how long they were supposed to be. That didn’t help too much, so I wrote it out on my hand-drawn manuscript paper, scanned it, and sent it to her. (We won’t mention the fact that she was still a bit puzzled, probably because I’d forgotten that there are five lines in the staff, not four! Remember, I never claimed to be a musician!!!) We still had to have a rather lengthy telephone conversation to clarify some of the finer points. But at the conclusion of that, she at least recognized the key signature and felt that she had something to work with.
Then last Sunday, I approached her at the end of the meetings to check on her progress. Her adolescent son (one of my former Primary students) was sitting at the piano plunking out his own tunes while he waited for his mother. However, when he realized what we were talking about, his face kind of lit up and he volunteered, “Yeah, it’s really cool!” Now, ladies and gentlemen, that’s pretty high praise coming from an boy of that age, even one who has been musically encouraged! So I’m getting excited to hear the final product.
We’re planning to debut this piece during the closing session of the conference. I hope you’re able to stick around long enough to hear it, too.
OK, well, now I have to return to work in the “real world.” Please check back. We’ll keep you updated as things progress. We're hoping that this view behind the curtain will nourish your enthusiasm about participating in this year’s Charlottesville Family History Conference.
Please come join us. Be one of the thousand. Bring a friend. Bring four!
