6 August 2017

On Monday the 31 of  July, Lynn Wilcox, TFHC Director, took us all out for a brunch at The Sugar Factory located between the 68th street and 69 street on Broadway. We all thought that it was a small store that made donuts and all kinds of goodies. When they took us back in the back in turned out to be quite a nice restaurant. We all had a lovely time relaxing and enjoying each others company.

  Left F to B: Golden Adams, NobukoTakabori, Stanton Biddle, Tom Hanson.  Right F to B: Diane Adams,  Linda Martinez, Lynn Wilcox and Liz Hanson

This week, the hours of the Family History Center were shortened due to the temple being closed, as well as the unavailability of our normal volunteers who were given August off for vacations and other excursions they had planned.  Between Liz and Tom Hanson and ourselves, we served to keep the Center open during those hours.

On Tuesday, we began the shifting of the microfilms from the metal cabinets to the wooden cabinets that were now installed so that a remodel of the microfilm room could continue by putting in counters and shelves. Then a microfilm reader, a scanner and two computers can be permanently housed there. For quite some time, equipment was moved from that room as storage to an adjoining room at the beginning of the week and returned at the end of the week so it could be used as the nursery during church meetings.

With the help of another volunteer, Christine, we identified all the films that had been ordered recently as part of the private collection (since FamilySearch is discontinuing film distribution August 31st) and put a card in place of where the film would go.  Temporarily, these films are located in the lobby near the Family History Center for easy access to patrons who are regularly using them.

Microfilm Transfer to new cabinets from metal cabinets for remodel

By Friday, all films had been transferred and equipment we would have removed (including the metal microfilm cabinets, a film reader and cart, chair, and other things that were no longer needing to be stored) had been identified.  When physical facilities removes theses items, the remodeling can be completed.  But August being what it is, things won't settle down until September as so much is going on and people are often out of the City.

On Friday and Saturday, Golden worked with Ruth Braithwaite, a delightful patron trying to gather some records of her Ward family from Florida and South Carlolina.  Since she was not computer literate, team effort produced some good results and she was able to solve some questions by finding a couple of records that help clarify why the family didn't have much information shared at a recent family reunion.  Other than that, things were very slow during the week as far as patrons were concerned.

For the month of August, the hours have been shortened by starting later during the week and closing earlier in the evenings so that Hanson's and Adams' can serve between doctor and physical therapy appointments that are taking up quite a bit of time and sporadic schedules of providers.