Indexing and Inspiration

Indexing is right up my ally for stuff I like to do. After hearing that my sister Kellie is bored all day long (she's got a good excuse with having a lame foot, so not much to do but sit around), I challenged her to an indexing competition to see who can digitize the most names.

Kellie, if you're reading this, I'm about 30 away from 500 since Tuesday morning.  I expect lots of prizes when I win.

Anyways, I have really been enjoying myself.  I've seen lots of Dorothys, lots of Johns and Elizabeths, and loooots of names I've never heard before.  One whole record of about 30 people were all from Puerto Rico.  I guess in Spanish, it's OK to take any male name under the sun, add an a to the end, and make it female.  You go, Puerto Rican parents of the 18 and 1900's.

I was inspired when I saw the name Radcliff, to someday name a son that and call him Rad. How cool would that be- Rad Miller.

Anyways anyways, I've been doing a lot of boat passenger records, and as I write the names, I've started wondering things about these people.  With those who have the same last name, are they married, are they spinster sisters, are they a young family taking the kids on a trip? And maybe there are friends sailing away into the sunset together.  Maybe some people get on the boat as strangers and leave as friends.  Who am I to say?  And I wonder why they're on the boat?  Did they have a good trip?  Was the food all right?

So many fun questions swirling around in my head that I'll never know the answer to, but I can make believe my own answers, and I like that.

It makes me want to know more about my family history.  So many people who came before me lead full, exciting, productive, and very different lives.  I want to know them.  And if they need my help in getting their ordinances done (which I highly doubt, unless they're from the 1300's or something) then I want to do that for them.

Family History is a really neat thing.