Why I Work on My Family History

I have been working on my family history since January of 2011. I had retired from the military in the previous September, and finally got to the point that I had the energy to start working on it. Backing up a bit, I had an interview with Veterans Affairs Canada in late 2010 and the interviewer asked me some questions, then insisted that I stay home on a back to work program to recover from stress. It took me to the end of January to start.

When I first started, I didn’t know very much about how to research my family. I knew that I needed help learning what to do, so I joined a couple of family history groups, the Upper Ottawa Valley Genealogy Group in Pembroke, the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa, and the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. I joined the group in Pembroke so that I could develop contacts in the local area so that I could get next to immediate assistance with how to research. The BIFHSGO was an idea to join regarding British research, and the OGS, regarding Canadian research. I have learned a great deal from all three groups and am maintaining my membership as, eventually, I will be back in Ontario.

Another thing that I like to do to increase my knowledge about the researching end of things is that I love to go to family history conferences. For the first couple of years, I was able to go to one almost every month from late March/early April until September. I hope to, someday, go to one in England called “Who do you think you are? Live.” It is a huge conference that is now held in Birmingham. I use all types of conferences as education to develop the knowledge for my own family history and to help others.

You can learn a lot about your family if you can find the records. Sometimes the Spirit will influence you to do something that you don’t normally do. I have been influenced by the Spirit to google names of some of my ancestors. It is amazing what can be found this way. 

Because I did the research of many of my ancestors, I have been able to submit their names for temple work. I was able to be present when John’s baptism and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost was done. I had a chance to talk with the young man who stood as proxy for my grandfather's brother, John, for the laying on of hands and I told him a little about John. I didn’t know at the time, but that same young man is my eighth cousin.

When a Ron who was involved with family history moved away, he told Joyce to ask me to help her with her family history. When I was starting to resolve a problem that he should have looked after, I discovered that Joyce is related to me albeit very distantly. It made a huge difference for me as I thought that I did not have any family in the upper Ottawa Valley area. I had already learned about the family connections not far from Ottawa. 

Heavenly Father blessed me for my diligence in family history and helping others with it.

I can promise you that if you work on your family history, you will receive blessings. You will be led to the information that you need to complete temple work for these people. I have prayed to Heavenly Father to help me find certain information and, I have found that, if the time is right, you will find it.

I have also learned that these are not just names and place-names. The people whose names you find were living people. Without them, you would not be here. They made it possible for you to have a life here in Newfoundland. Yes, you may have problems of your own, but the problems may be there to help you to develop into the person that Heavenly Father wants you to be. Your ancestors were chosen by Heavenly Father with extreme care. He knows you better than you know yourself. Your ancestors have given you the physical traits that you need for your life. They did their best for you and all of their descendants. They may have slipped up, but we all know that no one in this life is perfect.

About a month and a half ago, there was a trip to the Halifax Temple. My husband and I did not go on that particular trip as we had a wedding in Ontario to go to and went to the Toronto Temple while we were there. During our visit to the Temple, we were able to seal fourteen couples for time and all eternity, ten sons and eighteen daughters to their parents. This was the first time that we have been able to do sealings as we had to wait for some of the ordinances to be completed. This does not entail just my side of the family. It was almost equally divided between Gordon’s and my families.

I came to the realization a couple of years ago that these people are waiting for us to do the temple work for them. We cannot do the work for our family unless we know who our family members are. And, when we do the work, they are very excited about it. Some of them have been waiting for hundreds of years. When I did the work for my grandfather’s sister, she was so excited that her emotions almost overcame me and I almost could not finish what I needed to do. I had to ask her to back off a bit so that I could complete it. She did and I finished it.

I do not have things like this happen all the time when I go to the Temple. However, I can say that I am happy for my ancestors whose work that I completed and know that I will see them on the other side when I get there. Because there is so much work to be done in my family and because I and my son, Stephen, are the only active members of the Church in at least one of my lines, I cannot do all the work myself. I came to the realization that I will always have more work to accomplish than I am capable of doing. So, the next best thing is to reserve the temple work and choose what I can get done, then share the rest with the Temple. This way, the work shared should be completed within two years.

So, you may possibly be thinking, “How can I have experiences like this?” I can give you an answer that you may not like. It is not called family history work and temple work for a reason. You will have to make a sacrifice if you are not interested in doing these things. You will have to sacrifice time and make the effort to work on your family history. For those of you in or close to a chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there are people working in family history as consultants. 

One thing that you will find is that researching for ancestors may not be anywhere near as hard as it used to be. You will find that you may be able to do most of your research online. However, there will be times, when you will have to use the older methods such as sending to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City for microfilms and waiting for them to come in. You may find that you will still have to send letters but most of them can be sent by email. The recipients usually respond quickly. There are also paid websites that you can get free access to in your own homes. These include Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, and one or two more. There are paid websites that you can access free of charge through the Family History Center which has a portal to about twelve or thirteen family history sites.

When you travel, you can visit places such as archives who have genealogical consultants who can give you personalized direction. They won’t do the research for you but they will suggest what you should do. I actually think that even though you can gather a lot from online websites, you should go to visit the places that your ancestors lived in, even if you don’t know the exact location. I went to Ireland in April on a family history trip that included some things for family members to do while we were researching. We only did research for four days, but we came away with information about how to continue our work. The rest of the time, we saw the land that our ancestors came from. We learned about the Great Famine and we saw some of the conditions of that time and of the time of troubles in Northern Ireland and saw some of the progression that our “cousins” across the water made over time. Every one of the researchers were of Irish descent along with some of the family members.

When I retired from the military, I did something that I had waited for over thirty years to do. I went and visited England. While I was there, I visited the farm that my fourth-great-grandparents, Joseph Armstrong and Mary Scott, owned in northern England. I felt so happy that I found it, I was crying. I almost felt like I had returned home, but this was only partly returned home as the other part was Ireland. I knew that I had to visit Ireland, too. Well, I did that with my brother in April. Two places that we visited was Galway City, which I strongly believe that our ancestors, John Robert Sanderson and Margaret Nesbitt, with their little family came through in 1830, and the other place was the harbour for Wexford City, which I believe our ancestor, John Jackman, came through in 1820. Nothing beats walking the land that your ancestors walked.

You can also involve your family with your research. I did a talk in Petawawa shortly before coming to Newfoundland about putting the fun into family history. I am going to give some of that now:

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.

Family history is not about just collection the names and the facts. It’s about identifying your ancestors, praying about them, getting to know who they were, doing their Temple work for them and teaching your descendants about them.

I personally have found over 7,000 people. I can’t wait to meet them and the rest that I find while here in this world. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and wants to bless us. We will have rich blessings if we help our ancestors by finding who they were and taking their names to the Temple. We will be blessed to be able to find the information necessary for this work if we will just try. Heavenly Father is waiting for us to do this sacred work. Our ancestors are waiting for us to do this sacred work. We have already been commanded to do this sacred work. I cannot force you to do it. All I can do is to try to encourage you to do it.

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.

The Righteous Need Not Fear

The topic that I have for today is “The Righteous need not fear”.  I wrote this a few years ago to give as a talk in Church. I was told that there had been a Conference talk that was based on this topic.  However, I did not find that particular talk.  Instead, I found 5 conference talks on this subject, A Silver Lining by Marion G. Romney in April 1977, May the Kingdom of God Go Forth by Ezra Taft Benson in April 1978, For I Will Lead You Along by Neal A. Maxwell in April 1988, Bible Stories and Personal Protection by Dallin H. Oaks in October 1992, and Preparation for the Second Coming in April 2004 by Dallin H. Oaks.

In reading these conferences talks, I found that 4 out of the 5 were about the signs and the preparations for the Second Coming.  The 5^th talk was about using that preparation in daily living.

President Romney pointed out in his talk that the warnings that are causing many people to just start to recognize that the world is heading for disaster have been known to members of the Church since the beginning of this dispensation.  In 1974, Kurt Waldheim, the Secretary-General of the United Nations at that time, said,

“I do not wish to conceal my profound concern about the situation which now prevails in the world, a concern which I know to be shared by responsible people everywhere.  There is an almost universal sense of apprehension about where the tumultuous developments of our time may take us, a sense of deep anxiety at phenomena which we do not fully understand, let alone control.  In all the speculation, much of it depressing about the shape of the future, there recurs a note of helplessness and fatalism which I find deeply disturbing.  This is not a new phenomenon.  Dire prophecies have often before been the symptoms of periods of transition and change in human society.  What is new is the scope and scale of the problems which give rise to these apprehensions….

Today the civilization which is facing such a challenge is not just one small part of mankind – it is mankind as a whole.”

President Romney went on to say that the Lord had already told us the cause of the disaster and also had given us the information needed to avoid the consequences.  This was given to us in Doctrine and Covenants section 1 verses 15 to 18.

President Romney also said that Heavenly Father knew all of this prior to the creation.  He gave instruction to every generation and told them that they would receive blessings for obedience, but would suffer the consequences if they disregarded His teachings.

President Romney went on to talk about the example of Enoch and the City of Zion.  They listened to the Lord and they obeyed His commandments.  They were blessed and consequently were taken away from this corrupted world.

President Ezra Taft Benson taught about the Gospel being spread in the latter days, our period of time.  When President Benson was first ordained an Apostle, average attendance was about 20 per cent of Church members.  In April 1978, average world wide attendance was 41 per cent.  He emphasized that the work of the Church would not be stopped.  It would continue until it filled the earth as prophesied by Daniel and in the Doctrine and Covenants section 65.  Righteousness will grow, must grow, but at the same time, evil will also grow.  The Saints will not be able to avoid being affected by the events.  In Doctrine and Covenants 63, we read:

“I, the Lord, am angry with the wicked.  …

I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man;

And the saints also shall hardly escape; nevertheless, I, the Lord, am with them, and will come down in heaven from the presence of my Father and consume the wicked with unquenchable fire.”

But we can have comfort because the Lord has said, “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” in Doctrine and Covenants section 38 verse 30. 

Elder Neal A. Maxwell talked to us about expecting the Second Coming prematurely.  He said that some of the conditions of the world will be the same as it was in the days of Noah, wickness and disobedience.  However, back then, there was not the global outlook on the world that we have today.  Elder Maxwell says in his talk that:

“Before modern times, global perplexity simply was not possible.  Now, there is a quick transmission of some crises and problems from one nation to others – the consequences of debt-ridden economies, the spreading of diseases, the abuse of narcotics, and, perhaps most of all, a shared sense of near-helplessness in the face of such perplexities.  Today, the assembled agonies of the world pass in reminding review on the nightly news.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke in Conference of April 2004 and reiterated what the members of the Church have been told for 150 years.  We need to be prepared to withstand the calamities of the signs of the Second Coming and for the Second Coming itself.  We have no idea when it will come, but we have been told it will be soon.  The church members  in 1830 were given the same information.  The leaders of the Church have tried time and again to prepare us.  The Second Coming will happen when Heavenly Father allows it to happen.  In the mean time, we have work to do.

As you have heard, the term “The Righteous Need Not Fear” usually applies to the Second Coming in conversation.  However, at this point, I would like to take a different route.  We know that the Second Coming is on the way.  We know that it will happen in the near future.  We also know that we need to prepare for it.  My question for you is, how do we prepare for the Second Coming?  The answer is to become more righteous, as righteous as we can possibly become.  We won’t be perfect but the Lord knows that we are incapable of becoming perfect in this life.  So we do the best we can.  That is what The Lord wants.  He will help us do this if we ask Him.  He even provides us with this help through examples of both modern day and ancient records of what others have gone through.

We don’t know what the trials are that we will be asked to go through.  However, we can take comfort that Heavenly Father will not ask us to go through anything that we cannot succeed at.  We will be able to make it through anything if we just follow righteous principles.  However, we need to know what those principles are. 

Some of the comments that I am about to make are based on an article in September’s Ensign, Valiant in the Testimony of Jesus Christ by Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge of the Seventy.  Elder Corbridge used the Apostle Paul as an example.  Paul did everything that was asked of him by the Spirit.  He did not hesitate in doing the missionary work or go where the Spirit led.  He taught the people in many places and set one of the best examples that the world has seen.  Paul said: 

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses 6 and 7.

Paul had such faith that he was and is seen as being valiant, both within the Church and within the Christian community as a whole.

What does this mean to us?  Can we be as valiant as Paul was?  How can we be valiant in our busy lives? 

To answer the first question, we can follow Paul’s example and the example of our modern-day leaders.  We can be as valiant as Paul.  We have a tendency to believe that being valiant is hard.  It doesn’t need to be.

Elder Corbridge lists a number of examples of being valiant:

1.       Keep on going when you think you can’t go anymore.

2.      Admit your mistakes and strive to be better.

3.      Pick up the scriptures and put down the TV remote.

4.      Tell the truth when a lie would be easier.

5.      Refuse to do wrong even when everyone else is doing wrong.

6.      Set aside personal interests and postpone education to serve a mission.

7.      Speak no ill of another.

8.      Be honest even when it seems that no one else is.

9.      Choose not to click on a pornographic site.

10.   Smile and help another even when you yourself need help.

11.   Exercise self-control.

12.   Pray with all your heart.

13.   Forgive.

14.   Strive to raise your children in light and truth.

15.   Share the gospel without regard to consequences.

16.   Remember the Lord and keep His commandments.

17.   Don’t count the cost.

Maybe it’s time for all of us to take the time to examine our lives to see how many of these suggestions that we are already following.  Hopefully, we are following more of them than not.  Perhaps we can increase the quality of the effort that we are putting into doing what’s right. 

Most of these suggestions will be part of a change in lifestyle.  Don’t be disappointed that you don’t succeed immediately when you try to change your daily habits.  It will take time to do the necessary changes.  I know that I will have difficulties with some of the changes that I need to make in my life, but I also know that it has to be done.  One of my biggest problems is that I have a tendency to procrastinate.  I will have to ask Heavenly Father for help and I know that He will give me the help that I need.  I cannot do it by myself.

Once we start making the necessary changes in our lives, we can be assured that the Spirit will help us with the trials that we have waiting for us.  We need to be valiant like Paul, like Joseph and Hyrum Smith, like Peter of old, like the Saints who were persecuted in New York state, Missouri, and Illinois and then travelled to the base of the Rocky Mountains, not knowing exactly where they were going until they arrived.  How can we face these precious souls who went before us trusting in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ if we do not develop the same trust and commitment that they had?  The Lord has said that He will have a tried people.  The early members of the Church went through a lot of physical and emotional trauma that we are not presently exposed to.  Our trials may be different from theirs, but, be assured, we will have our trials.  We will come through those trials without any fear if we learn to depend on the Lord and be valiant by following what the Spirit tells us.

I have tried to find the advice from our leaders that applies to life as we know it.  I have also tried to substantiate why we need to follow this advice.  I have tried to show how to become more righteous so that we can have no fear as we face the future.  In a nutshell, the principles that all of these suggestions refer to are:  Choose the right regardless of the consequences and don’t count the cost.  As Elder Corbridge says:

“Whatever the Lord asks is little in comparison with what He has given and in light of what we receive through our small sacrifices.”

I pray that I have written the words that the Lord would have me write and that this topic touches each one of us, including me, in the manner in which the Lord would have it touch us.

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