User:Baerbel

The Beginning
Baerbel Johnson was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and grew up in the neighboring city of Offenbach. She came to the United States by herself in August 1974. Soon after getting settled in beautiful Provo, Utah, she decided to get busy researching her family history. Armed with photocopies of pages from her grandparents' family book she made her first visit to the Family History LIbrary in Salt Lake City, which was then housed in the West Wing of the LDS Church Office Building. With lots of help she finally found the baptismal entry of her great-greatgrandfather Nikolaus Markert, born in 1809 in Boeddiger, Hessen-Nassau, Prussia. However, she couldn't read even one word of the old Gothic handwriting! Eventually she took the record to the reference counter for interpretation. The consultant's reply to Baerbel's statement that she couldn't read the record was "Then you'll learn, won't you?"'

Learning the Trade
So Baerbel began to learn by studying photocopies from the Boeddiger parish register until she was able to read most standard birth, marriage, and death entries. This process took about a year of Sunday afternoons, even with fluent German readng skills! It shows the truth of the old adage "If I can, you can too...". Bitten by the genealogy bug, Baerbel took every genealogy class she could at BYU and learned practical research skills by working for a professional research service housed on campus at the time. After a mission to Western Pennsylvania and two more years of college she finally graduated from BYU in April 1982 with degrees in sociology and family and local history studies.

Finding her place
For several years Baerbel continued to research her own family history as a hobby and help others with their research while raising her children, until the time came to secure gainful employment once again. After several years as a professional researcher she accepted a position as reference consultant on the International floor of the Family History Library. She has a passion for solving research problems and tries to encourage patrons to learn all they can about their ancestral families. In her spare time, Baerbel sings with the German Chorus Harmonie, crochets pot holders, and enjoys Sunday afternoon dinners with her three children.