The Reality of Life in Victorian Times

I want you to close your eyes, or, better still, open your internal mind’s eye, the one that allows you to see what your imagination paints for you. I want to take you to a time when personal affairs were much simpler, but could be more dangerous. I want to imagine your ancestors of approximately 150 years ago. The year is 1849. The location is Carrickfergus, Ireland. The Great Famine is over, but the effects are still evident. You can walk down the road towards town, and while doing so, you pass a number of houses, some of which the former inhabitants have left to go to either America or Canada. Other empty houses belonged to those who didn’t have the money to buy food to replace the potato crops that failed over the previous few years. Many of these people lost energy and, eventually, the will to live. These are the people who starved to death in their homes on the estates that were supposed to look after the people that lived there. It seems that those that emigrated were the lucky ones.

Now, I want you to imagine a man, one who is shabbily dressed and looking around to see if anyone is looking. This man is in the process of going into a root cellar of a house that looks well kept. He makes it into the cellar and, after about ten minutes, emerges, with his arms full of vegetables. He looks around before coming out of the cellar to make sure that there is no one around. He can’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean that the way is clear. He tries to stay in the shadows and tries to work his way over to the gap in the hedge. He sees no one on the grounds. He makes it to the hedge and starts to crawl through, pushing his load of vegetables ahead of him. He has left a family member on the other side to help him carry the vegetables to his home. As he crawls through, he softly calls his companion. He doesn’t hear any answer, but doesn’t think anything of it, assuming that his companion had moved down the road. As he stands up near the road and picks up his load of vegetables, he thinks that he will have to go looking for his partner. Looking up, he sees his partner, who is being held by the servant of the house. Standing beside the servant is the owner of the house that he had just visited, who is waiting with other servants and a few members of the local police. At this point, both of these men are arrested and taken to the County Gaol in Belfast.

The crime that these men would be charged with is theft. It doesn’t matter that it was food that they stole. It doesn’t matter that, without this food, they would starve to death. It doesn’t matter that they cannot earn the money to feed themselves and their families. They took something that didn’t belong to them. End of story.

Actually, that was not the end of story for many people. These people were lumped in with people who instigated rebellion, stole for other reasons, committed murder, and so forth. The innocent, who were just looking to survive, were children, men, women, and they did not do so lightly. It was against their principles to do so, but it became a choice of life and death.

Carrickfergus was the location of the county gaol prior to 1845. It was also the county seat, looking after the affairs of two counties, County Carrickfergus, which was a county in its own right, and County Antrim. Eventually, County Carrickfergus ended up as part of County Antrim. The gaol was large enough to hold 250 prisoners, of both sexes and all ages. I haven’t been able to find why a new gaol was built in Belfast, but, in 1841, Charles Lanyon designed a new gaol to be built. The actual building was not started until 1843 and was finished in 1845. Prisoners were to be transferred from Carrickfergus to Belfast and the gaol in Carrickfergus was to be closed. One hundred and six prisoners were transferred in 1846. They had to walk the entire way from Carrickfergus to Belfast, a distance of over 40 miles.

Once the prisoners arrived in Belfast, they were taken to the Crumlin Road Gaol and put into individual cells. This prison was built in such a way that prisoners could be isolated when necessary. The cells were mostly used as individual cells, but they occasionally held as many as three prisoners each. The Crumlin Road Gaol was designed with five wings, a hospital building and a small graveyard with additions added later including cottages for prison staff. Four of the five wings housed the prisoners on three levels with Block A being the largest wing. I believe that Block C was the wing that held the female prisoners and maybe also the children. Children were sent to gaol just for stealing a loaf of bread or an article of clothing. History tells us that one such child, Patrick Magee, was sentenced to three months in the Crumlin Road Gaol. He was so desperate that he hung himself in 1858. After this time, children were not allowed to housed in the same facilities as adults.

The Crumlin Road Gaol was across the road from the courthouse. There are passages underground that lead towards the former location of the courthouse. That courthouse had been bombed during the troubled time and was torn down. The passages are now blocked off for public safety.

The gaol also carried out death sentences. Originally, the hangings were done in public where all could see that the sentence was carried out. In 1901, there was a modification done in Block C. One cell was enlarged to more than twice the size of a normal cell. This cell was used for the last days of a condemned prisoner. When the appropriate time approached, the prisoner would be taken through to the execution chamber through a passage that no other prisoner could see. The prisoner was hung and, when dead, was buried. There were a total of seventeen executions held at the Crumlin Road Gaol with the last one being in 1961.

One of the things that prisoners look forward to is to be free. The prison had a number of prison breaks, but it still was still known as Europe’s Alcatraz.

It was decided that the Crumlin Road Gaol would be closed. This happened in 1996. It stood empty until 2010 when it was announced that it would be renovated. In 2012, it opened as a tourist attraction and conference center.

On our tour of Ireland, one of the places that we visited was the Crumlin Road Gaol. We arrived after dark fell, and it has an imposing feeling when you can’t see the facility in daylight. We were taken into the facility through the same door that prisoners would have been taken in. We had a tour of the facility, visiting the administration wing and only one wing of the prison cells, Block C. We had the opportunity of viewing the execution chamber, going in the same way that a condemned prisoner went in. In all, the visit to Crumlin Road Gaol was an eye opener to some of the things that were experienced by some of our ancestors.

Our ancestors had hard lives. Even the poorest in Canada have a better life than most of our ancestors. We need to celebrate their lives, that they had the stamina and determination to live and to improve life for their children and painted the dream of a good life for their children for inspiration to continue down the same road.

The Ulster Historic Foundation

There is an organization that is devoted to the preservation of the documents for the Province of Ulster in Ireland. Many people outside of Ireland have a misconception of Ulster. The Province of Ulster has nine counties, six of which are in Northern Ireland. The other three are part of the Republic of Ireland. The six counties that are part of Northern Ireland are: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Cavan, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry, and County Tyrone. Counties Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan are in the Republic. Even though the headquarters for the Ulster Historic Foundation is in Belfast, they do search out the records for the three counties that are in the south.

When an appointment for a tour group is booked, it usually begins with a slide presentation explaining the history of some of the history of Ulster. The presentation that I was at included information on the Ulster Plantations. This was information that I had never heard before. I do have an understanding of European history but I do admit that I have never really taken the opportunity to study Irish history. This would be an interesting topic to study.

After the presentation, a break for refreshments will take place. During this time, you will have a chance to look at some of their literature that will give you an idea whether or not you will need to look at their holdings, browse through their bookstore, and just chat, asking questions about their organization.

Some of the members of our group were able to have some time to discuss their brick walls and how to solve them with members of the Foundation. At this time, the only thing that I could do any research on was the origins of the surnames that I am researching. I found that three out of my major four Irish surnames that I am researching have roots in England.

We spent about three to four hours at their facilities and, I believe that each one of us walked out of there with a bit more information than before we went in.

The Foundation has a website at:

http://www.ancestryireland.com/

They have a number of categories that you can look at, and under each category there are a number of pages that have different topics. Most of these pages you can see without being a member, but if you want to look at any of their databases, you need to be a member. Membership costs in the neighbourhood of £38 a year, £99 for five years, or £230 for a lifetime membership. They also have a Family Research Starter Kit for £47.99 which includes a year’s membership, 24 credits, Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors, and more. There is also a pay-as-you-go option but it won’t get you into their databases.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and you have research to do in Northern Ireland, you might be best to take out a membership and have a good look at their databases. I have looked at the list of databases and have seen that there is at least one of them that I would like to look at. By looking at their databases, you should be able to find something to help you along your way.

Currently, I am not a member of the Guild but I am not ruling out the possibility that, in the future, I may find that their holdings may help my search.

The Foundation does send some of their members on tour in North America, and, (now this is according to me), Europe or other places where Irish ancestors migrated to when they had to leave the Emerald Isle. Part of the reason why the Foundation does this is to make people aware that they exist and that they do have these holdings. Another reason why this is done is for fundraising. This organization does not receive any money from government sources and depends on sales, research fees, memberships, and donations.

The Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland

If you plan to do any family history research in Northern Ireland and you have ancestors that emigrated to Northern Ireland from Scotland, this is a good place to do some research. Before we left for Ireland, I planned on visiting their facilities. However, when I was at PRONI, I decided to spend my time there rather than go to a facility that may not have anything that I am interested in as some of my Irish ancestors were Methodists and the records that I needed to access if I had enough time would be in PRONI. Afterwards, I was assured that there may have been some records that may have helped me in my search.

Most of the information that I present here was gleaned from the website. Their website looks like it’s fairly easy to use. They seem to have it well organized and they have a slide show explaining some of the history of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

If you are working on your family history, they do state that they do not have a comprehensive collection, but they will do the best that they can in order to help you. If you are interested in hiring a researcher, they direct you to go to the PRONI website and choose from the list of researchers there.

The website lists what is held in their library, in their archives, and how donations and indefinite loans can be made.

There are a number of documents that have been digitized and can be accessed online. The only problem is that you need to have a paid subscription or membership in order to access the information available. It currently costs £16 per year. When you look at the cost and compare it to some of the fees for other websites, £16 really is not very much money. Unless you are going to Ireland to visit other places as well, you may just find what you are looking for on your computer in the comfort of your own home.

If I find that the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland is one of the places where I can find records of my ancestors, yes, I would use the website and pay the fee so that I can access the information. You never know just where you may find something about that elusive ancestor who doesn’t seem to want to be found.

Family

Today, I had the opportunity of working on my family history. I had sent an email last night to a cousin in Vancouver asking about some information that he might have. Well, Jim answered the email and sent me information as well as an obituary about the person that I was asking about.

I sorted through the information and was able to make sense of most of it. After I had entered it into my tree, some more information came to the surface. I use websites that have an automatic search function. This function does about 80% of the work when the information is on their website. This function can only sort through the information and records that the website has available. Not all information that is needed is on websites or is not yet digitized. It costs money to digitize records, but, fortunately, there are people that do the work needed.

Anyway, there was a bit of the information that he sent that did not fit easily into place. As it turned out, this information was on the tree of another cousin. This cousin lives in Rainy River, and we have been in touch previously. It just didn’t sink in which part of the tree was the one that she belonged to. I found out today.

We have just spent about an hour and a half, getting to know each other. I also took the time to sort out those hard-to-fit pieces of the puzzle and can now put it to bed (so to speak). I also asked for more information concerning the family and she was quite happy to give me the information. I found out that she is about a year and a half older than me and that her brother is about three quarters of a year older than me as well.

We plan to stay in touch as we are family, albeit distant family. My husband has been told that if we were to travel west in Canada, we will be stopping to visit.

I have found that when you research your family history, you have a marvelous opportunity to meet family members that have drifted away. This drift is not always intended and, sometimes, you think that there are not many members of the family.

Family history will help you to discover your living family as well as those who have gone on before you. It helps you to rebuild the ties that should never have been severed. It can make your family stronger. Once you discover how large your family actually is, and you may never know the full extent of the family, it’s up to you what you do with the information. It can be a very joyous trip.

On the other hand, you might dig up some information that some members of the family do not appreciate. Just remember, your ancestors were people too. They made their mistakes just as we make our mistakes. Life can be very rewarding even with the mistakes that are made. After enough time, we should be able to look back and say, “Yes, I made a mistake, and it was a bad one. But I learned from it.” Or “Yes, I made a mistake, and I thought that it was a bad one, but I survived and am trying to do better.”

Live life. Love your family. Look for the missing members of the family that should be there. Work together. Have fun. Support one another. If you don’t have your family, you don’t have one of the most important things in life.

Family History Can Be Fun!

I wrote the following in March of 2015.

I was approached and asked to speak on the topic of “Family History Can Be Fun.”

Many of you may already be thinking, “Oh, no, I don’t really want to hear about this right now,” or something similar. I have learned over time that everything happens for a reason. The reason can be as simple as you made a mistake, or as complex as benefitting future generations. Interest in family history leads to benefitting past generations. Our ancestors did not have access to the necessary ordinances for salvation that we do through the restored Gospel. In order to be able to obtain the highest kingdom, we need to have our ancestors there and they cannot be there without the necessary ordinances.

The scriptures references are:
Moses 5:10:
And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer then firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord.

Moses 7:45:
 And it came to pass that Enoch looked; and from Noah, he beheld all the families of the earth; and he cried unto the Lord, saying: When shall the day of the Lord come? When shall the blood of the Righteous be shed, that all they that mourn may be sanctified and have eternal life?
We can be sure that Adam had the necessary ordinances. However, many of his children did not and do not. We cannot impose Heavenly Father’s will on anyone. Some of those that are living have the opportunity to accept the Gospel, but there are many more who still don’t have that opportunity. Our ancestors who have passed on have learned the Gospel in the spirit world. Many, if not most, have accepted it. However, they cannot progress without our help. Some of our ancestors may not accept it. There is nothing that we can do about that.

In the Church handbook, we read:
As part of our Heavenly Father’s plan, we were born into families. He established families to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare us for eternal life.

Now, because we are born into families, that does not allow us to escape responsibilities. As children, we grow and learn; we become adults. As adults, we expect to marry and raise a family. As we grow older, our responsibilities seem to lessen. We usually help our children with their families.

Does this mean that we have no responsibilities to those who came before us? While they are still living, our parents still help us, sometimes to the point of sacrificing all that they have. As they grow older, the tables begin to turn. Often, adult children begin look after the needs of their parents.
In the October 2014 Ensign, Elder Bednar wrote an article titled “Missionary, Family History, and Temple Work”. He starts the article by saying:

At a solemn assembly held in the Kirtland Temple on April 6, 1837, the Prophet Joseph Smith said, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel.”1

Almost precisely seven years later, on April 7, 1844, he declared: “The greatest responsibility in this world that
God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead. The apostle says, ‘They without us cannot be made perfect’ [see Hebrews 11:40]; for it is necessary that the sealing power should be in our hands to seal our children and our dead for the fulness of the dispensation of times—a dispensation to meet the promises made by Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world for the salvation of man.”2
 
Many of us have been to the Temple to receive our own endowments. Our youth go on Temple trips to perform baptisms and confirmations for the dead. A few of the youth have had opportunities to perform these ordinances for their families and also for the families of other branch members. In order to have family names for temple work, the names need to be cleared through FamilySearch. It is not a difficult process once you know what to do. It can be confusing when you first start, but with guidance, you can become proficient.

When I first retired from the military, the first thing that I did was take a trip to England to visit where some of my father’s ancestors lived. I first spent a few days in London to visit The National Archives, the Maritime Museum, and a couple of churches. One church that I visited was Marylebone Parish Church in London. This was the church that my great-great-grandmother, Catherine Davis Bone, married her first husband, Edward Fielder in 1838. Edward was much older than Catherine died in 1843. They were married only 5 years. Catherine remarried in 1850 to Henry Fielder in St Clements-Danes Church. This church is on Fleet Street and was quite interesting to get to. It was heavily damage during World War II, quite like most of the buildings in the area. After the war, the Royal Air Force requested and received permission to rebuild this church and it became the official church of the RAF. I also included visits to historic sites that I found interesting. One of them was the church built by the Templars in the late medieval times.

During that trip, I then travelled to Cumbria, and visited the church where my great-great-great-great-grandparents were married. This is in Bewcastle parish. Their 12 children were christened there. It’s a small church but this is an important family site for my family. (The rest of my family may not know, but I do.) In its churchyard, my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Robert and Mary Armstrong, were buried there as well as my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas, and some of his other children.

You may ask how did I know who to look for and how did I know where these events took place. I can tell you in a nutshell. I wanted to work on my family history ever since I joined the Church in 1976 and, off and on through the years, worked to find facts, clues, and information. I can say for certainty that I did not do this alone. The Spirit and my ancestors guided me.

It was when the internet was established and available for people like you and me to use. The information from the 1861 English census was posted online by The National Archives. I had had information from my family regarding this line since the 70s; however, I did not have my great-great-great-grandmother’s name. I was able to find the family as I knew where they lived and the name of my great-great-great-grandfather. In this census, the place of birth and the wives’ maiden names were requested. I found my family! I had a place name! I was then able to start researching my Armstrong ancestors! I began by working through the Church family history website. By this time, the IGI was online and I found the family that I was working on.

It would still be over 10 years before I could spend the time that I wanted to spend on family history. During that time, tremendous strides were made in technology affecting many aspects of our lives. One area greatly affected was family history work.

Working on your family history is in no way as difficult as it used to be. With the current technology and the speed of the internet, family history has become easier, more inexpensive, and more fun to do. The records that are currently online number in the billions. The records that are currently being released for online access count in the millions. Every week, I get a least one notice from FamilySearch about records being released.

Enough about the dry statistics. How can you make your family history research fun? There are a number of ways, but first, there is some work that you have to do.

·      Step number 1. You should choose a website to assist you with your search. There are a number of them that allow you to put your tree online and help it to grow. The major sites are: Ancestry, FamilySearch, Find My A Past, and My Heritage amongst others. These sites will allow you to have your tree either public or private. You may not want access to all of these, but I strongly recommend that you should have access to Ancestry at the very least.

·      Step number 2 is to start inputting information into the site of your choice and start growing your family tree. (My experience has been that Ancestry had the online records that I needed, so that is the website that I personally prefer.) You don’t have to start a tree; you can just use the search function to find the records that you are looking for. It has been my experience that it is easier to start a tree and to let the program assist you even when you are not there. If you are worried about privacy issues, you can set the privacy settings so that no one can see your tree.

·      Step number 3 can be fun. There are a number of ways to become educated for this great work. I find that by belonging to a family history or genealogy organization can be fun and very rewarding. I belong to a number of them. If you can get out to their monthly meetings and yearly conferences, you can learn a great deal. You can also network with other family historians and learn some of the methods that they use. Some of these people put on great presentations. When I hear that certain people are speaking, I try to attend that particular meeting. One lady that gave a presentation about a few years ago in Ottawa had us laughing at her comments. When you present in this way, the speaker and usually the subject matter are enjoyable and memorable. When you attend a conference, you have a choice of topics to choose from.

·      Step number 4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. When I was a family history center director, I was there to make sure that there were resources to assist you with your family history. I am still willing to help you get started with your family history by teaching you the basic tools and then watch your progression, helping you when you are stumped.

·      Step number 5. If you receive information from someone else, you should always check the sources yourself. First, ask them where they found the information. Then look for the information in the same source. I have listened to a number of family historians that complain because they come across too many online trees with incorrect information. This is because the people owning those trees have not checked their sources. I had a very interesting thing happen to me some time ago. I received an Ancestry message from John Cook, a researcher working on his English ancestry. This is what he said:

 Hi,
I am just writing to say thanks for inputting all of the details of the fairbrass family history. I am a descendent of William Fairbrass 1795-1895.

His daughter Caroline Angelina fairbrass was miss transcribed as Caroline Ann Juliana facerbrass! So I had a bit of a journey getting to fairbrass.

many thanks again as this is the furthest back of any family I have researched.

best regards John Cook

John may very well be related to my husband.

If you are having problems finding the information about your ancestor, put their name along with the year of the event and a place where you know they were located and click on search. You may not find anything, but there will be times when you will be surprised at what you find. This is how I found out an interesting fact about my grandfather’s brother who was killed in WWI.

Sometimes I find something that I feel to be interesting. When I started helping a friend, I saw a surname that I recognized. I traced it back, found incorrect information, but I had seen the same surname a generation down. I traced that one back, found that the information was correct and discovered that I am related to her and her family. When we first moved here, I felt that I had moved into an area where I had no family. The relief that I felt when I discovered this relationship was tremendous. It has made a huge difference in my life to know that I have family here.

Now, you may think that I haven’t said anything about making family history fun. You need to know the basics; otherwise, it won’t be fun.
In the September 2014 issue of the Ensign, there is an article “Put the Family into Family History”. In this article, Sally Johnson Odekirk describes a number of ways to help your family become interested in family history. She had some of the same ideas that I would like to suggest.
You can have a competition with other families to see how many names that you can have prepared for temple work by the time the next temple trip happens.

You can have a competition with family members by giving each member that is old enough a different branch to work on to see how many names you can have prepared for the temple within a certain period of time.

You can assign each family member the name of an ancestor to see how much information that they can find within a certain period of time and have them introduce that ancestor at a family home evening.

Along with finding the information about the ancestor, find out what was happening in the world at that time. Was it during war time? If so, which war and what part did your ancestor play?

Along with the younger children, try doing some role playing about parts of the lives of some of your ancestors.

Take a family trip to a place where some of your ancestors lived. Walk around the community; take a tour of the local church that your ancestors would have attended; visit the cemetery that your ancestors are buried in. If you visit a cemetery, call ahead to find out what section, row and plot that your ancestors now reside in. It will make it easier to find them.

During family home evenings, tell the stories about your ancestors that you know. Your children want to know about them.

Plan or attend family reunions and find out what other members of the family know. They may not have all the correct facts, but they can give you some good leads.

If your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents are still living, have them write their life histories. Have them write about the family members that they knew. Also, have them write out the stories that they were told about the family. If they are not willing to write them out, ask if you can record them telling you these things. If they don’t agree to the recordings, ask if you can write them down so that when they are gone, you can still tell the stories for them. Then when you get home, digitize these things and keep them for you and future generations.

Sort out your family pictures, get them digitized, and share them with your family and extended family. You will be astounded at the value that family members put on things like this. My sister had the family pictures after my father had passed on, but did not want to share them. Both my younger brother and I wanted to have copies. I finally managed to convince her that I could do a better job if I could bring them home and scan them using equipment that I have. She finally relented and I produced a digital copy of the pictures that she had. Both my brothers and my sister received a CD with these pictures. I was able to make a label and put a picture of my younger brother on it. It was a picture of him when he was about 12 to 15 months old. My sister and I were to be watching him while we played with the girl from next door. At that time, my brother was the same size as one of our dolls. We dressed him up in one of the doll’s dresses, a warm hat and a muff. We then took him for a short walk in his carriage. When my mother saw him, she ran for the camera and took his picture. It was this picture that I used for the label. When I gave him the CD, I showed his children the picture and asked them if they knew who it was. When I told them that it was their father, they were surprised. I loved the look that I saw on their faces.

In the October 2014 Ensign, there is an article entitled “Family History For the Rising Generation” by Carol Brennan Moss. I am going to quote a portion of that article:

While growing up, Brian Boice of Illinois, USA, never knew he had a half brother. Although as a teenager he learned of his older brother, he didn’t develop a real desire to learn more about him until he attended a family history class in his ward.

“By searching through records on FamilySearch, I was able to get in touch with my half brother,” says Brian. “I believe the spirit that accompanies this work can mendhearts and heal old wounds.”
 
While working on your family history, you can sometimes find that other people are working on the same line. To my surprise, I received an ancestry message about 2 months before our trip to England in 2011. Basically, the message read: What’s my grandfather doing on your tree? My answer was: Your grandfather’s grandmother is my great-great-great-grandmother’s sister. This was my 4^th cousin. She told me that she knew nothing about the family past her grandfather. We made arrangements to meet at her house in Wales when my husband and I were in the Liverpool area. We were fed a beautiful Sunday dinner, then Anne and I sat down and I taught her about her family while my husband and her husband, Steve, cleaned up. Since then, we have kept in touch through Facebook.

When we moved to Petawawa in 2008, I thought that I did not have French Canadian ancestry and that I did not have any relatives in the area. Then, after I started working on my mother’s ancestry in Lanark County, I found that her family extended further back there than what she knew. I also found that her family married into a large number of Irish families in Lanark. Then, I found something that I did not expect. I nearly fell over when I found it. I found that I do have a French Canadian heritage and I was told by a fourth cousin in Toronto whom I never knew existed that the history of this line was the history of Quebec and Canada.

I have learned a great deal on this trip into the past and I know that I have a great deal more to learn. A couple of years ago, Gordon and I went to Education Week at BYU. I took 40 classes in Family History. One of the most important things that I learned was that our direct line does not just consist of our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents and so forth. I also learned that the brothers and the sisters of these ancestors are also our responsibility for temple work. We want our “direct” line to be happy in the Celestial kingdom. In order for that to happen, they want their children to be there. The children won’t be happy without their spouses and children, and the spouses will not be happy without their parents and siblings. This part of your family are called the collateral lines. It is our responsibility that we include the collateral lines in our family tree and make sure that, if you are the only member of the Church in the family, their temple work is also completed.

I have also learned that family history does not end if you cannot find the records. Sometimes the records are not yet available. So, you need to periodically check the work that you have done to see if any more records have surfaced. This will not be finished until sometime towards the end of the Millennium. If there are errors made inadvertently, they will all be corrected during the Millennium.

I find family history fascinating as it is a history of my family. It is part of my life’s work that I am tasked to do by Heavenly Father. I have been blessed doing this work and have learned that I am not just searching out names and dates and places. These are people, my family, and they will be waiting for me to complete their work. They will be waiting for me when I arrive in the spirit world. I want to be able to tell them that I did everything that I could for them. I want to be able to meet Mary Scott and Joseph Armstrong, Matthew Fielder, Bernard Farrell and Mary Todd, John Jackman and Eliza Fournier, John Robert Sanderson and Margaret Nesbitt, Minnie Farrell who was very excited to have her temple work done, Jane Fielder who wanted her children found, and the many ancestors I have yet to meet on this incredible journey.

I want to close with the following quote from Elder Bednar’s article:
The Lord declared, “I am able to do mine own work” (2 Nephi 27:21), and “I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73). We are witnesses of His hastening of His work.
 
We live and serve in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Recognizing the eternal importance of the distinctive dispensation in which we live should influence all that we do and strive to become. The work of salvation to be accomplished in these last days is grand, vast, essential, and urgent. How grateful each of us should be for the blessings and responsibilities of living in this specific season of the final dispensation. How humble we should be knowing that “unto whom much is given much is required” (D&C 82:3).
 
Preaching the gospel and seeking after our dead are complementary parts of one great work—a labor of love intended to change, turn, and purify the hearts of honest seekers of truth. The artificial boundary line we so often place between missionary work and temple and family history work is being erased; this is one great work of salvation.6