No Myth: A Phenomenon Occurs 15 Minutes Before Leaving the Family History Library

Looking back at my research trip of the past 11 days to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I have to laugh at what can now be documented as a true phenomenon. It is no longer a myth.

Every year our group from the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society emphasizes a saying: 15 minutes before you have to leave the library, you will find something great!

This phenomenon couldn't be more true for me this year. For about eight days I was on the British which is the second floor of the basement. I was doing a lot of grunt work i.e. verifying, filling in, and taking digital images of my Lincolnshire, England finds. Nothing exciting was happening, especially doing that type of research work.

Yesterday, I saw my last few hours at the library. I decided instead of cranking away at microfilm for the five plus hours, I would look through some books and do a little background research on the history of Lincolnshire, England. That all went well and I got the information I wanted from one large book with much to much history to take on in a couple hours. So I just took digital images of the pages! Something more to do when I get home.

Being done with the books and with about 30 minutes left before I had to pack up to leave, I started poking around in FamilySearch.org. Since I was in the family history library, I figured there might be a few things available on the website we can't get at home; ProQuest Obituaries is one.

Over the past few years, I haven't been able to find my great grandfather August F. Buschick's obituary or death notice. I was sure there was one of them but I've tried many times searching in various obituary indexes and came up empty. Not this time! Literally, with a little over 15 minutes before I had to pack up to catch the van for the airport, I typed into the search field just BUSCHICK... first person on the list was an Agnes F. Buschick. Who? That's a new name I thought. Then I noticed the date -- 16 Dec 1883. Hmmm, that's the same day as my great grandfather's burial... On closer look at the death notice once I had downloaded it to my laptop, Agnes' name was hard to read, but on second closer look, it actually turned out to be August F. Buschick! No wonder I couldn't find it! It was transcribed wrong...who would have thunk?

BUSCHICK – Saturday morning. Dec. 15, August F. Buschick, in his 58th year, from pleura-pneumonia. Funeral Sunday, Dec. 16, at 1:40 o'clock, from the residence 34 Orchard-st. Carriages to Rosehill. [Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Dec 16, 1883]

August Ferdinand Buschick as identified in the family album.

With a few moments remaining of my time in the family history library, I did manage to find and download several other Buschick's death notices. There are several more I didn't harvest from the site, but I'll do that some other time. Maybe my city library has an account, too.

So you see -- the phenomenon of 15-minutes isn't a myth!