First, there was the ever-present pull of the Family History Center and RootsTech itself. Then, there were the informal meet-ups where new research strategies were brought out for consideration. Finally, it was COLD for a Californian to be out there walking away from the hub of activity.

I was running out of time by the time I headed toward the glowing railroad depot sign at the end of the street. I only glanced at the Archive address, noting “Located within the historic Denver & Rio Grande Depot.”

Anyone who attended RootsTech or has walked up and down West South Temple Street (in front of the Radisson) has surely noticed the glowing Union Pacific sign that anchors the end of the street. I incorrectly assumed train = train and headed toward the giant logo. It was a nice walk, although I did end up at the Gateway Mall and the only Depot I found was a nightclub.

Nice Sign, Wrong Place

The historic Union Pacific Depot has been renovated and is now a center for shopping, dining, and entertainment.  I needed to be at the Denver & Rio Grande Depot, about a half mile south of the UP Depot.

If you’d like to visit the Utah State Archives and are staying near the Family History Center, I suggest you take the Trax light rail which stops not far from the Archives on West 200 South.

The historic Denver & Rio Grande Depot is home to the Utah State Archives and a local favorite, the Rio Grande Café. I savored both.

Home of the Utah State Archives and Research Center

Depot interior hosts photo and art exhibits.

My goal at the Research Center was to examine directories for the years my grandmother lived in Salt Lake City and to see if I could find any other records for her during that time. I may have been hasty with the Archives address, but I did spend some time with the website searching the online databases.

The Research Center holds records in two distinct divisions:

Utah State History – manuscripts, photographs, books, and maps about Utah and the West

Utah State Archives – historic state and local government records in Utah, from 1850 to today (including vital records, divorces, naturalizations, and more)

The online collection also includes an extensive photograph collection that I plan to look at more carefully from home.

I was able to search online and find several records I wanted to personally examine: the divorce case between Arline and Albert Edwards, and an unexpected file for Albert Edwards for housebreaking in 1898.

The Archives staff was extremely helpful in locating the records, especially when it became obvious that the divorce papers didn’t seem to be on the indexed microfilm roll. Instead, my record was one of several that were poorly filmed. The archivist recalled that someone had been in last week also looking for files on that roll; they were located in the original hardcopy form in one of six boxes retained by the Archives and still available from the previous researcher. What luck! He brought me the box in a few minutes and I was soon photocopying the original court filing.

The Archives will allow photocopying, but not photography.  They also offer research services if you are unable to come to the center in person.

The Research Center is open Monday through Friday, 9am to 4pm, and located in the historic Denver and Rio Grande Depot at 300 S. Rio Grande Street. It ‘s a lovely walk from the Family History Center.

View walking out of the Research Center toward
the snowy mountains, probably hasn't changed much 
since my grandmother's time in 1917. 

RootsTech is billed as a "cutting edge conference" with "something for everyone," and the scope of classes attempted to take in all skill levels of genealogists and tech users. At my house, I am the IT Department. I install and upgrade software, try to fix network glitches, provide instruction, and generally stand between frustrated users and our tech equipment. But, alas, I am not a programmer. I don't speak C+, don't know NoSQL, Neo4J or Graph API. Those words kinda scare me. This made selecting sessions a bit difficult. I figured right off, that if the session title was in a foreign language, I probably should avoid it. Later, I discovered I had missed some good topics that I might have understood. Ratz.

I had also hoped to find someone at RootsTech working on a solution to crowdsource personal transcription projects. Last year I stumbled on an entire movement working to develop software for projects like Transcribe Bentham and Papers of the War Department. I didn't realize that I had been employing crowdsourcing four years ago when I enlisted my high school english students to help transcribe Arline's letters. . . but that is exactly what it was. Each person who indexes items at FamilySearch, annotates a document at Fold3, or adds information at FindAGrave is participating in a crowdsourcing project.

Ben Brumfield is a genealogist who has developed an open-source program that will allow individuals to collaborate on personal transcription projects. It's called From the Page and has tremendous potential for family historians looking to advance a personal archive project. Other crowdsourcing programs like Scripto and T-Pen seem targeted for specific projects such as medieval manuscripts or academic archive transcriptions. Ben has plans to release a version of From the Page tailor-made for projects like mine, and I can't wait to see it live.

Meanwhile, I checked out the RootsTech exhibitors looking for anyone who might have a similar feature to offer, and discovered the new Discovery Stream at Mocavo.com that might work for this use. This is an innovative idea that allows users to easily upload material. What do you say, Developers?

When I wasn't sleuthing in the Exhibit Hall or attending sessions, I was working on a few of my own research problems, namely The Case of the Disappearing Husband and Finding Fanny. I made a bit of progress on both tangles, stay tuned.

Ever-amusing Mr. GeneaMusings, Randy Seaver sporting his blogger beads in the media center island in the exhibit hall.

Blogger ladies Caroline Pointer, footnoteMaven, and Kerry Scott also caught in the media center.

Blue skies and spires above Temple Square across from the Family History Library.

Last night's late night event at the FHL was played to a packed audience. I didn't make it til the closing bell at midnight, but the tables and film readers were still humming with activity when I left about 10 pm. That's dedication! And I heard rumors of follow-up visits today.

I really really really wanted to LOVE the FlipPal Mobile Scanner I purchased last year, but was a bit disillusioned with our relationship after a first date with some old photos from Arline's Archive. The FlipPal seemed like the perfect genealogy partner -- not tied down to anything, always ready to go... The downside was the extra time required to correct the purplish color cast of the aged photos.

Lately I've been working with my aunt's old photographs and albums, and thought it might be time to give the FlipPal another chance. Aunt Frances' photos are more recent then Arline's, dating mostly from the 1930's to 1950's. Some, however, are the same era, and even from the same events.

The color can be corrected with the Auto Correct feature of my photo editing software, or during scanning by my Epson V500 Photo Scanner.

I looked at the photo again and noticed that the scan doesn't add or change the original; it just doesn't correct the color cast during the scanning process. The scanned image is actually a good representation of the original photo's damaged color. I was looking for short-cuts, so I opted to use my Epson flatbed scanner and correct the color during scanning.

My Aunt's photos are in better condition, crisp black and white with little fading. I tried scanning these images with the FlipPal and was very pleased with the result. The mobile scanner closely replicates the original images, including the scrapbook page from Auntie's album.

I can scan the images at the higher 600 dpi resolution and then convert the JPG files to TIFF images for archiving. The resulting files will be larger but more stable than JPGs that lose quality when editing and saving.

Now that I've figured out how my FlipPal fits in my scanning workflow I'll be using it more often. Time to charge my extra batteries and clear off the chip.

Disclosure: I bought my own FlipPal Mobile Scanner, tested it, and reviewed it without input or direction from the company. I like it so well that I am now a FlipPal Affiliate which means -- if you click on a banner or link on my site and decide to purchase the item, I receive a small commission. It helps keep the power running and doesn't cost you anything extra. Win-Win. Thanks for reading.

Fortunately, one of my last tasks was to organize the letters by date, more or less. This mixes up authors, but does make it easier to locate a particular letter if you have some idea of the year or date it may have been written. I don't recall any other letters from Edwards, but this one reveals quite a bit about the mysterious man --

U.S.S. Kilty
June 9, 1919

My Dear Wife
I will drop off
a few lines to let you
no that I still love
you and I am well and
happy but very lonsome
for a letter from you
I have bin to france
a cuple of times and 
I am leaving a gin
soon for how long I 
due not no I will give
any thing if I had a 
small picture of you or
any kind just to look
at when I am lonsom
for you I will never
for get you Dear
I made out an allotment
to you when I first
came in if you have
not received it yet let 
me no they take it out 
of my pay every month
so you can have it
I will forget the past
Dear and start all over
a gain Arline for no
I love you with all
of my hart and wont
you be the same I will
when we was taking
those walk in helper 
and the Parks in
Salt Lake I will
send you lots of 
Presents if you will
write to me Dear for
I am always think
of you 
I will Close with
lots of love as of
old  You Loving
Husband

Albert Edwards
U.S.S. Kilty
c/o P.M. New York

I'm afraid this doesn't paint a very good portrait of Arline. She sounds like a heartless new bride ignoring her soldier-husband. One can only wonder about the "other side of the story."

In 1919, Arline was 29 years old. She had a ten-year old daughter, Lucile, by her first husband LeRoy Paulen, and another daughter Bernadean. The envelope is addressed to Mrs. A.F. Edwards in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but forwarded twice, first to Pueblo, Colorado where Arline's mother lived, and then to the Page Hotel in Denver, Colorado, where Arline supposedly received the letter.

Edwards letter points to a man without much education, or at least with poor spelling and grammar skills. He mentions the walks in Helper and Salt Lake. I think the photo of Arline and Albert posted yesterday may have been taken in Helper or Beulah, at Arline's mother's ranch.

Next questions: Why was Arline in Minnesota, and then Denver?

Source:  Albert Edwards (USS Kilty, New York) to “My Dear Wife” [Arline Kinsel Edwards], letter, 9 June 1919; Arline Allen Kinsel Papers, 1890-, privately held by Denise Levenick, [address for private use,] Pasadena, California. 2012.

Note: USS Kilty (DD-137), U.S. Navy destroyer launched 25 April 1918 by Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, commissioned 17 December 1918. Sailed to Europe Summer 1919 and returned to San Diego. Decommissioned 5 June 1922.

Source: Wikipedia contributors, "USS Kilty (DD-137)," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Kilty_(DD-137)&oldid=443425306 (accessed January 26, 2012).

The Case of the Disappearing Husband

. . . in a previous episode of The Family Curator we posed several questions about our heroine, Arline Kinsel Paulen, and her life in Salt Lake City.

Albert Edwards and Arline Paulen
Armed and Ready 

The facts, as we knew them were few --

In 1914 Arline was living in Salt Lake City at 144 S. 5th West with her young daughter Lucile. She received frequent letters from her ex-husband Roy Paulen who worked as a business secretary at the Bingham Mine Company about 28 miles outside the City. Arline and little Lucy occasionally visited Roy in Bingham, but Roy's letters show that he longed to see them more often.

Then, in August of 1917, Arline Paulen (age 26) and Albert Edwards (age 36), both of Salt Lake City, traveled to Evanston, Wyoming where they were married by a Justice of the Peace before two local witnesses.

Within a few months, Arline moved back to her mother's ranch in Colorado and in September 1919 was served with divorce papers by Edwards.

"I'm sure he pushed it through in a hurry as I think he was just as anxious to get rid of me as me him," she wrote in a letter to her mother.

Inquiring minds want to know --

1. What was Arline doing in SLC?

2. Who was Albert Edwards?

3. Why did the couple leave SLC to be married? (Heck, why did they get married at all?)

4. Why Evanston, Wyoming? (Was it the Gretna Green of the time?)

5. What happened to Edwards?

Like any good detective, I have my casebook in hand and a list of witnesses to question. I want to check the Salt Lake City directories to see if Arline and Edwards are listed, and also try to figure out where she might have worked. I'm sure there are more clues in her letters from those years, but they haven't all been transcribed... yet.

I also have a nagging memory that Edwards might have been in the service. It certainly would have been the right decade. I'll have to check into that.

The Wyoming wedding mystifies me; I'd like to find out more about Utah marriage laws in 1917. Maybe there was a restriction on divorced persons remarrying? or maybe they weren't really divorced? 

Lots of questions... any more ideas?

Expert Webinars

The January podcast kicks off the year with a focus on "Making Over Your Research in 2012" with all kinds of information on new products, organizational ideas, and research techniques --

• Diane Haddad reveals news from Ancestry.com and WDYTYA
• Lisa and Kerry Scott discuss using Evernote for genealogy
• I share some tips from the Organize Your Family Archive Webinar
• Allison Dolan describes the new Get Organized Collection

You can also find more organizing ideas in the February 2012 issue of Family Tree Magazine including my article, "Computer Cleanup."

With the help of a bit of book tape and a dime-store notebook, Pastor Benny C. Turner made some very creative DIY enhancements to his teaching Bible. He expanded the Bible by six pages in the front and and another six in the back by adding an entire signature from another notebook; this gave him an additional 24 pages to fill with notes, photos, and pull-out charts.

The Santa Ana Bible Church at 1103 West Third Street, Santa Ana, California was only one of hundreds of small evangelical Christian congregations dotting the Orange County landscape in the 1950s and '60s. Pastor Benny led the members in worship services every Sunday morning and evening with the support of his wife Frances, my aunt.

I'm learning more about this little church group all the time as I work my way through the bits and pieces in my aunt's estate. I had forgotten much about the church until we came across Benny's Bibles -- not one or two, or even a few more, but dozens and dozens of Bibles. The first two dozen or so we put in a box and a lady from the church took them with her when she saw them in the house. The remaining ten or twelve were books with personal notes, photos, and extensive annotations. Pastor Benny clearly "worked" his Bible.

This particular Bible was special to Benny and he notes on the first page "This is my first Bible teaching Bible -- purchased in either 1952 or 1953?" The next eleven DIY-added pages are filled with quotations, notes, Bible verses, and personal mottos. He has typed some passages and glued them onto the paper. Others are handwritten in ink or pencil. The flyleaf showed a careful scrapbook-style layout featuring photos of Benny and his wife, an advertisement for his little church, an interesting bookplate, and a typed Bible verse.

The back section shows more notes and verses and pull-out diagrams that could be used as a reminder for his sermons or when talking with a church member. One of these is a miniature colored panorama Jamison's New Chronological Panorama of the Bible Abridged. Somewhere in my aunt's estate we found this same graphic image in two other versions -- a poster size print and a huge oilcloth rendition suitable for hanging on a church wall.

Uncle Benny's Bibles are adding to the story of this little church. A few years ago I found a group photo and my aunt identified many of the people who were pictured. We've also found the church membership book, guest book, account book, and even an embossing seal.

Benny's Teaching Bible isn't the only book to be personalized. In the box I brought home, I found at least two other Bibles with photos, stories, and captions. Together they are helping to build the story of this little church that no longer exists. I'm so glad we looked inside the book.

I'm just taking to heart an old lesson from my Retired Army Colonel father-in-law: everything ship-shape and in it's place.

Last month I nearly missed two priceless cabinet card photogaphs of my grandmother while sorting bits of trash and debris from my aunt's estate. I realized just in time, that it is wise to Examine Everything. Today I was reminded about another wise piece of advice: Maintain Order.

The Backstory: Our basement office is the world-wide headquarters for a million-schemes and plans. It holds the archive files for fifty years of family businesses; craft supplies, yarn, and sporting goods from a past lives, and now, boxes and boxes from my aunt's estate. As well as boxes from Uncle Herman's estate. And my in-laws estate. And Mom's estate. You get the picture.

Today I looked at one small shoebox. It seemed to hold mostly letters and cards that I had written to my aunt since college days. We brought it home from her house in Orange County as we cleaned out her desk. At the back of the box was a few odd items: a cookbook, an unframed picture, an envelope with my uncles' sermon notes, and a construction paper covered typed booklet. They were headed for the miscellaneous pile when I took another look.

The manuscript begins:

Forward

The following copy has been carefully taken from a little black diary formerly the property of Mrs. Laura Woodman Mills, who wrote the diary as she crossed the plains from Illinois to Stockton, California in 1861, and is now in the hands of her daughter Mrs. W. B. Harper of Garden Grove.

Mrs. Mills, at one time a school teacher in Illinois, made this trip at the age of twenty seven, in company with her husband and small son Frank.

No doubt, my aunt (who taught school in Garden Grove for many years) must have come into contact with someone who knew Mrs. Mills or her daughter Mrs. Harper. Perhaps the women were even members of the little church where Uncle Benny was a pastor.

The typed transcription includes notes and a few census references. I wonder who prepared this? I wonder if the diary still exists? I wonder where it is today? Hopefully, the family has a copy. . . What a sad story if it had been lost . . . Or mixed in with Uncle Herman's submarine mementos, or even Mom's Orange County bits and pieces. As it is, we only have the Garden Grove / teacher connection; but, maybe it's enough. . .

This journal is the kind that's tough to put down once you start reading. Laura writes about the people and things she sees along the route; about men who die; about her own little boy celebrating his first birthday.

Saturday, August 3

Remained in camp today until 2 o'clock. A boy twenty years old belonging to the train that is traveling with us went out last evening to look for a cow and did not return. Was found this morning shot and scalped by the Indians. The sick man dies today at noon and so they were buried side by side. It seems hard to see anyone buried here among the Indians without coffin or prayer, but it matters not to them. Moved on.

It's a compelling story. I surely hope the family has managed to hold on to the original diary.  

Becky Jamison will be organizing her "small family archive."

My Idaho pal Milda Simaitis is organizing photos, CDs, slides, and movies. (I wonder if I'm in any of them?)

Donna Pointkowski and Lisa Alzo are staking their claim to a buddy project, but I wish SCGS was on Donna's 2012 list too! They each list an ambitious 12 goals for the year

• Donna's 12 Genealogy Goals for 2012
• Lisa's 12 for 12

Gayle Wolcott is joining in with New Year Goals.

Terri O'Connell and Steph are teaming up for 2012

• Terri's Motivation Monday: January Goals
• and Steph at Motivation Monday: January 2012 Goals 

I know there are more buddy-teams out there and hope we'll be hearing from you once in a while.

Good luck and Happy 2012!