A Family History Mission: More About Working at the Maryland State Archives

No. 23

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

There are six couples of Senior Missionaries working in the Maryland State Archives at the present time. There are also two Church Service missionaries and a number of volunteers. Some of the full-time missionaries will be finishing their missions and leaving so it is planned that there will be some overlap. This is wise because we need a lot of training.  It will take Ann and I some considerable time to learn what we need to know to be in a position to teach other new missionaries. We always need volunteers, so if you know anyone who would like to volunteer, please let me know.

The Archives is a very nice place to work. We have two rooms assigned to us. One has the cameras and the other is used to prepare the documents for digitizing. It is hard to see in the above photo, but the facility is called the "Hall of Records." It is quite a large building even though the photo does not seem to indicate that.

The full-time missionaries start work at 7:00 am when it is still dark and very cold. We are expected to work 40 hours a week. The Church Sevice missionaries should work about 8 or more hours per week. Volunteers can set their own times and hours.

The first thing we do upon arriving at work is to sign into the Archives. We work in the "Staff" areas not usually available to the public, but everyone who visits the Archives needs to sign in. Those doing research need to fill out an application for research also.

We need to turn on the lights, cameras, and computers and wait while they all warm up and boot up. Then we get back to work where we left off the day before. We work all morning, take a break for lunch and then work again in the afternoon. We are slowly getting into a routine and adjusting to being out and working all day again like we used to do.

The full-time missionaries get together from time to time to have dinner at a local restaurant or for other gatherings. It is interesting to get to know the people who come from all over the U.S. and have very different backgrounds. For some, this is their second mission.