Fun with Family Search

I'll admit, I am not usually one for genealogy.  Gil has a calling at the moment as a Family History Consultant and spends Sunday School in the Family History Center helping other members of the ward look up their ancestors.  I will go with him sometimes, but honestly, it's not to do family history work but because I'm not ready for Young Womens and use the time to prepare.  Perhaps it's pretty much the same as sitting in the foyer, but if I get a document indexed, I don't feel too bad.

I heard today that Family Search has a facial recognition program.  If you have pictures of your ancestors attached to their names in your family tree, Family Search will run a facial recognition program to tell you who you get your looks from.  I spent all of Sunday School on this today (instead of prepping for YW, which I desperately needed to do) and loved it.  Here's what I found.  The percentage is how much you look like the person pictured.

Of course, I look most like my parents.  Smidge more from my mom than my dad.

When I first ran the comparison, I hadn't uploaded the pictures of my parents yet and my highest rated was with my maternal grandmother.  She passed away when I was in kindergarten and I don't remember her that well and what I do remember is her being old and sick.  Seeing that I look like her made me feel a little bit closer to her in a small way.

Next, my 3rd great grandmother on my mother's side.

I've always been very proud of my Stander roots.  Glad to see I've got a little bit of John Henry in me.

A nice list of those I got my looks from.  I must admit, we're a good looking group!

Finally, the Family Search app for your phone has a "Find Relatives Around Me" option.  Kind of fun.  The other person needs to have his/her Family Search app open so the app can access his/her tree.  Gil and I found out we are 11th cousins once removed.  Can't wait to do this with other friends.  Very cool.

Have I caught the bug?  I would have to say no.  Is there a little more interest.  Yes.  

Independence Day 2018

We went exploring.  It was wonderful.  I hadn't ventured much out of my district and decided it was high time to explore other areas outside of my boundaries.  We decided on hiking to Twin Lakes in Desolation Wilderness for Independence Day.

Here is our path.  Our day was a smidge less than 9 miles.  Nine beautiful miles.

Gil was very patriotic.  I'm surprised he still has these socks.  

We started at Wright's Lake.  The mosquitoes were thick and aggressive and we didn't stick around long.

 The wildflowers were going crazy!  So much color everywhere.  Where we live in the foothills has been brown for about two months now so the green and the color were wonderful to look at.

Columbines, my favorite!

Entering Desolation Wilderness! (we did have a permit)

 Granite, water, conifers.  I love, love, love, the high Sierra!! 
(I love Gil, too!)

 One of the twins of Twin Lakes.

 The other twin.

One of my coworkers gave us a "super secret pirate map" to a place off the trail and locally known as the Enchanted Pools.  We were able to find it and spent a good hour here.  Only one other hiker the whole time we were there.

 I had visions the night before of diving in and swimming around and cooling off.  This is about as far as I got as the water was freezing!  Well, snow melt, so not still frozen, but recently so.  

 It was a wonderful day and we arrived home a good kind of tired.  Gil had put a brisket in the crock pot and it was some of the best brisket I have ever tasted.  We had our traditional root beer floats and didn't make it to fireworks.  Thankfully, our community shot them off on Saturday.  Second favorite holiday and first favorite way to observe it!

For Work, Finally

The Forest Service is not the Park Service.  My job with the Forest Service is nothing like any of my positions with the Park Service.  This summer especially has been quite different.  This summer I'm supervising three seasonals.  Suddenly there seems like a lot of office work.  I'm not getting out in the field as much as I would like.

Remember my posts during NPS days... work photos, weekend hikes... life has gotten a lot more complicated and busy with a husband and 20 active young women.  

However, I did get out, for work.  Our district is assigned two trails that had to be hike and conditions recorded this summer.  My supervisor said maybe I should hand it off to one of the seasonals.  Nope.  Mine!

And so, I hiked about 9 miles yesterday.  It was wonderful.  I also, thanks to my smart phone, have a wonderful program that helps me know where I am in the spiderweb of forest roads and lets me record my hike and put pins in places where the trail needs attention.

Bring on more field days!