Genealogy: A Personal Responsibility

Of the commandments of the Lord to the children of men, redeeming the dead is one that can *only* be done by the members of this church.  Note, I did not say "it can only be done by the church" but that it can only be done by the members.  That's.....you.  You're a member.  You have ancestors.  They brought you to life over centuries and millenia.  Have you done their work?  Have you thanked them for bringing you to this state of your eternal progression?

Well, here you go, this is one of your personal responsibilities.

How to Complete Your Entire Family Tree Fast and Easy!

(Notice I didn't say it would be accurate). 

I don't know if the stuff you'd get from "plying" a family member with liquor is anything you'd want to put in your tree, there's skeletons enough without that kind of info....but I've seen a bit of work that looks like this is how it was done....and then done some myself that probably left questions as to my own sobriety when I was tired or rushing.  

Slow down! And have fun.  Speed is impressive, accuracy is useful.

Salvation For the Dead: A Missionary Activity

This is a great talk from General Conference in 1975 on temple work.  The brother speaking was the then-driving force behind the church's family history program, Brother Theodore M. Burton, Assistant to the Twelve.

Back then, very little of what we have now was available, and the availability and access we have to our records is unbelievable.  Brother Burton would have thought he went to heaven to see what we have now, and yet...more needs to be done and we don't do nearly what we should!

Some things have changed between then and now in terms of focus and expectations, but the one part that stuck out to me was that the dead have no other way but through us doing this work to receive the salvation that is available to them.  Anyways, here's the video with a link to the conference talk afterwards.




And here's the link to read the talk:

Unexpected Discovery

Along with "Prayer" I guess we can add "The Force" or for some people even "The Internet" to our toolkit I suppose. Just make sure you use genealogy for good, not evil, okay?

Genealogy Made Simple

Well, they say we all go back to Noah.....

Cousins!

In case you've ever wondered about cousins, here's a simple flowchart mapping out who is who.  Simply put a cousin is someone who has the same grandparents as you, so a second cousin wold have the same great grandparents, and on and on.  

Genealogy Checklist For Beginners!

So you want to work on your family history and you're looking for a  checklist of what exactly to do to find someone - including where to  search and what to look for, step by step by step - check check check.   Right?

Well, truth be told genealogy isn't an exact science.  There  are different documents in different places, some have been lost, some deliberately destroyed, others accidentally destroyed, others  haven't bee made public, names changed, nicknames got used instead of real names, people lied on documents, places changed, governments  changed, languages changed....you get the picture.

Every family tree is different and every genealogist has a different focus and a different set of problems because you're searching for INDIVIDUALS.  And there have been about 107,000,000,000 (One hundred seven trillion) individuals with different life stories and migrations and countries and parents and histories and careers and documentations lifespans across the planet.

So your checklist?

Other than some general research guidelines...it doesn't really exist.

HOWEVER - I could break Genealogy down into three areas of knowledge:

• Sources of info
• Organization & Documentation
• How to interpret info

Once you get organization down you'll have that forever, don't need to keep learning it.  That's pretty simple.
How to interpret info is fairly standard with variations depending on areas and time periods and once you got that down you're pretty on top of things.
The last is sources of info.  That's ongoing depending on who you're researching when and where (i.e. you aren't going to look in the Beverly Massachusetts courthouse for records for Multnomah County Oregon) and you'll have the help of the Holy Ghost in many instances on this one.  But there are some pretty standard sources that don't require extensive information down once you got the basics down.   This doesn't have to be overwhelming!  

If I was going to write a genealogy checklist for a beginner it would be this:
1) Learn the basics (This website is a good place to start)
2) Start with yourself
3) Focus on one family or individual at a time (Take your time!)

All in a days work....or millenia

4) Go after the low hanging fruit
5) Keep learning
6) Take your time and HAVE FUN!

If you're not having fun you're doing it wrong. You will be much more successful if you have the spirit and that's much easier if you're having fun. A little bit here, a little bit there.  Rome wasn't built in a day. Trees don't grow over-night.

My advice though? Pray for help from the Lord and seek His guidance in doing this work and I testify you will be blessed and find the help you need through Him and will come to understand this work much faster.