Indexing Challenge

At the beginning of the year our church began a big push with the genealogical society to get all the worldwide microfiche records into digital/searchable form by indexing in hopes of making genealogical connections easier and faster to find.  Our stake president issued a challenge to our stake that over the next year he would like to see our stake index 6 million records.  To accomplish this goal would require the effort of every member.  They started by training and teaching the youth.  Sunday afternoons at our house we would boot up the computers, download a batch and start inputting data.  We wanted to do our part.  On Sunday afternoon Carson was entering ship records of passengers sailing from Australia to the United states when he ran across one of our family names – Ellsworth.  Immediately I recognized it and started doing some of my own research.  I pulled out our Ellsworth history book to see if I could find out more information on this relative. Come to find out Curtis Tempest Ellsworth had just finished serving as a missionary in Australia and was coming home.  We then were able to piece together the rest of his story, where he settled, the family he raised, his service in his community and in the church.  What a testament to the great work this indexing was and the service it would provide to those trying to find their family members through searching old records.