Troy Johnson posted a message to the message board of the Genealogy Forum about a recent trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The message contained lots of useful information, so it has been converted to a text file and uploaded to the Libraries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I visited the Salt Lake City Family History Library in November of last year. I arrived on Wednesday evening and left on Sunday afternoon. I spent all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Library. It was an unusual experience! I hope to be able to make that trip again soon. Before going I heard about a book specifically written as a guide to the library. I contacted the author in California and had a copy of the book Fedex'ed'd to me. I studied it and read it as thoroughly as I could - having only a few short days to follow its suggestions. The book is designed to help genealogists prepare based on the amount of time one has to prepare - a week, a month, or months. The author is a genealogist who know his way around genealogy and has extensive experience running a FHC Library as well as much experience with the FHL in SLC. I would strongly recommend the book to you. Check with your local FHC and see if they can provide the author and title. I can't find anything there - we just moved and everything is still in boxes. Now one of the suggestions in this book was to make index cards for the names that you want to search. I use PAF for my records and I printed out my lists of all the people and places I was going to research. I've got quite a few and I am primarily working in the mid 1800's at the present time with some research back into the 1600's in England and Europe. With these lists in hand, I went to my local FHC and using the CD-ROMs, I accessed the FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG. This, I found, was a God-send for my research. When you visit the FHL you will be awed by the resources available! If you go prepared, you can accomplish something. If you don't prepare yourself for the visit, it could be close to worthless. I printed the information I searched in the FH Library Catalog to the printer in the FHC. I had a lot of pages, but boy oh boy, did I find that those pages were helpful when it came time to actually doing the research. I organized these pages in a 3-ring binder using "family groups", "family names", and "geographical locations" as sort-basis. Then, I went through my data from my genealogy program (PAF) and I hand-wrote on each of the pages the information for which I was looking. I found that I used the Family History Books on the Main Floor far more than I did the microfiche and microfilm readers. The reason for this is that I found so much supporting documentation in the hardbound volumes which I could never access from my home in Tucson. I was surprised that I often found more information in SLC FHL than I had found when I had visited the State Historical Society Libraries in the various states I have been researching! My eyes got very tired from all of the reading, but I only had the three days and I didn't know when I would be able to get back. I wanted to find as much as I could during those days. The advantage I found to using the printouts from the Family History Library Catalog is these printouts include the book call number or the microfilm or microfiche call numbers. You don't have to spend hours pouring through the resources indices at the Library -- you can just walk right in, find a place to sit, and begin to research. Suggestion: Plan to be at the Library each morning when it opens. It is a VERY busy place. It was mid-November when I went and the outside temperatures in the early morning were about 15 degrees. Each morning, by the time the doors opened, there were about 100 of us lined up waiting to get in. I was rewarded by the fact that when I was there was the least busy week of the entire year! It was just dumb luck on my part because I didn't know anything about it. The Library staff recommends that you check to see if there are tours scheduled at the time you plan to visit. There is a hotel adjacent to the FHL (Radisson, I believe) and they often have several bus loads of genealogy tours a week. There are numerous accommodations in the immediate area of the FHL and good restaurants as well. The blocks are very long so be prepared to walk some distance. Parking is good. The FHL is across the street from Temple Square. Don't miss hearing the Tabernacle Choir and the organ during your stay. Across the street from Temple Square is a large multifloor shopping center with all kinds of shops and restaurants. A lovely experience for any non-genealogists going along. The Library is open from early morning (7:00 or 7:30, I believe) until 10:00 p.m. These are long days of researching. Take time for a good breakfast. Stop and eat lunch. Take time again for a dinner break. As the Library staff say, you need the nutrition to do the research. It is a lot more wearing than one realizes. There is a nice snack bar off the main floor research room -- the staff post the daily newspapers on the walls so you can stand up, eat and read at the same time. It is nice to stand for a while after sitting for hours and hours researching. I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. If you have particular questions which I have not answer, please let me know. I will continue to locate the book and provide you with the author and title. Good luck on your research! Troy Johnson, Tucson, Arizona