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Alicia Carrillo wrote: Alicia, wow what a question. . .for me it took months of effort. I rolled through many many films frame by frame. At first when I had more time than I have now I would go in to my FHC everyday for about 5 hours. That period lasted probably 6-8 months (I'm currently a 2-3 times a month volunteer which gives me a key to the place and freedom to go in and study 24/7 If I want other than Sunday morning during their services). Now I go in on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th thursdays of every month and get there at 5 am and have 4 hours of research time before the center opens when I need to start my volunteer duties. Usually I can keep working to some degree. Estoy solito aqui en NC. . .but I do have cousins in CA that are interested in genealogy and we have discussed the family over the phone. I even got them to add searching the films at their local FHC in Fresno. I was talking with my Aunt Julia for two years every other week collecting oral history before she recently passed. I just loved being able to report to her what I had found and have her respond that she remembered her parents talking about this or that person and give added details and clues for my continued search. almost 100% 1 roll of film ='s $3.25 + .25 notification fee then $3.25 first renewal then $3.25 second renewal or $10 per film to get them on "permanent hold" at my family history center [prices may vary from FHC to FHC even though I don't think they do. . .i think that is the national set price, but I might be wrong on this]. Consider your cost of going to SLC for a few hours [lets say 4 days at 10 hours or 40 possible research hours] and consider that to put all 47 films on permanent hold at you FHC would cost $470. Almost all of the films I order go on permanent. I've discovered that people you don't recognize suddenly turn out to be relatives a few months later as your research advances. I'd recommend that you use your time in SLC as an in-depth "scouting" trip. Go and search out the "gold" mines of your research area. When you find an area that your relatives lived in for a couple of generations then consider not spending a tremendous amount of time on these films but rather put them on permanent at the most convenient FHC close to you in San Jose. Use your time in SLC looking for clues as to which films or film groups (locations close to your particular epicenter of research) are the ones you really want to zero in on. One of the main things I look for in collecting oral history is Location, Location, Location. I'm constantly looking for areas of Mejico that the family might have moved to or come from with regards to the main location I am researching. Once you find that you find a whole new set of films you need to painstakingly [it hurts so good] research frame by frame. I've never been to SLC but when I go I'm going to save the in-depth research for my FHC and do a lot of "shotgun" type of research where I look at a lot of films where I suspect that the family went as they made their journey north to the US. I want to go and really hunt through the films of Durango for the presence of my Diaz relatives where oral history tells me some were born. Heck I could have many lost branches of my Diaz family currently living in Durango now if I could just find out more info. I also have oral history that tells me Coahuila is a key state. So I guess you see I'm reluctant to order a lot of films from areas that I'm just not sure of but if the films were there in SLC then I'd surely go and roll some films to see if I could get a clue to the la Familia's presence. hard question to answer. I'd say it all depends on the quality of the penmanship of the scribe who recorded the records. If they had that rare very good handwriting I might be able to roll through a roll in 10-12 hours (guess) if the handwriting is more typical bad or they used heavy ink and it bled through the page and or back to the page before by closing the book before it dried then those records can be especially time consuming and easily take up 2-4 times as long. I've had some records that still need time deciphering because I can see that they are related but the smudges and such make the info hard to see or they are very faded (the worst kind in my opinion). just some of my personal thoughts. there is no right and wrong. you are doing right by asking your questions and getting input from different ones. I'd also add a digital camera to your equipment. I save a lot more records now than when I used to make hard copies off the films because it is so much faster to digitally click a frame than transfer the film from a reader to a copier/reader [then again maybe SLC's readers are "ALL" copiers as well I wouldn't know about that]. Keep asking questions. I think its helping others in the group make plans for a future trip to our Mecca. joseph
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