The Hearts of the Children . . .

Several years ago I asked Douglas about his grandparents. I think I was trying to fill out a family tree for Addison's baby book. His response was something like, "umm. . . Grandma? I think she was married to Grandpa. " Needless to say, he wasn't very helpful. It was this moment that started me researching Douglas' family tree.

It is several years and a few hundred family names later and I am still working on his genealogy. And, I really love doing it too. It is really exciting for me to find a name or a family and fit them into our growing family tree.

So while I was in Utah, I decided to take a trip to the Church Family History Library. I wanted to try and begin tackling the lines from Germany. I've been putting this off because, well, all the documents are in German. And yes, I did take German in highschool. And yes, I can sing several wonderful beer drinking songs and probably ask you, Where is the train station? But reading census and church records - not so much.

The whole morning I was really reluctant and couldn't get my "genealogy psyche" on. Thank you to mom for getting me there because that trip ended up being a miracle. I have never had much luck in the German research, but this trip was so different. Everything fell into place as though it had just been waiting for me to walk in the door. My big find was a 500 page book about the town of Sulzfeld in Baden, Germany. Some poor sucker had compiled all of the town's records from 1750 to 1950 in one giant book. I'm talking birth dates, spouses, marriage dates, children and children's spouses. notes on people's occupations and when and where people died. And guess what, almost everyone in that town is related to Douglas' great-grandmother, Anna Hoffmann.

My first thought was that since I found this book at the church library, all the work will have been done for these people. Ah, not so. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of names in that book that need their temple work done. People, I am talking about an entire town here!

So, next time you are going to the temple - let me know. I can hook you up with names, some of which have been waiting over 200 years for someone to find them.