Some Concepts Regarding Genealogy

It is my experience that many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints consider "us" as the genealogists of the world. As a church there might be some justification to this attitude, but in fact it's not true for the general church population.

Our family history and temple ordinances such as sealing families forever together are core to our doctrine. Exactly 2 1/2  years after the organization of the church, September 6, 1842 this message was conveyed to the members by the Prophet Joseph Smith, first as letters to the members, and later added to the Doctrine and Covenants of the church:

...shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.

He was speaking of these binding ordinances, that bind families together forever. We believe the Savior will return. Joseph Smith added these words which again speak to the seriousness in which we take this family history work: Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation.

Now to some important facts for all to know. As serious as we are, we are a minor part of this effort when it comes to two things. 1- The numbers who care and volunteer. There are three companies which I call giants that provide online records for us to research: Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com, and MyHeritage. The bulk of their customers are not members of the Mormon Church. FindMyPast and MyHeritage are very strong outside of the United States. They are important and committed. Genealogy Societies throughout the world, and especially in the non western part of the US are very serious about History. We are told that genealogy is now the nations number one hobby. Genealogy research is in the top 3 reasons people search online. It's for all. In countries like Ireland, and throughout all the world websites are popping up publishing records and gravesite info, governments are digitizing, and churches are opening up their records. There is a wave of people and institutions catching the spirit.

The church goes to great extent to photograph records from around the world and get these records indexed, to provide through over 4000 family history libraries access to help and records not yet indexed, and to further any one who wants help in getting that help.

One thing the Non Mormon population notice is that many of the Mormons are sloppy in what they believe to be true and what they then are willing to accept as fact. I saw one dispute where one person said, "I don't care what your document says, I know what my mother told me".

For over 100 years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been storing records. The Granite Mountain Vault was built to preserve records, billions of them. Microfilm has been the media used to save these records. This is an important collection, paid for out of the tithing church members. Through volunteers over 1 million of these records are indexed and placed on line on http://familysearch.org/ for anyone to discover. These are provided at no cost.

About a year ago a major initiative went live, called FamilySearch Family Tree. It too is free and is one tree for all mankind. I volunteer afternoons and evenings a week in the support zone that answers peoples questions on family tree. I notice a couple of great things in doing this service. First people of all faiths are embracing family tree. Second, people are serious about getting it right. The family tree is built around documenting and collaborating to get it right. It touches peoples hearts with the ability to add photos and stories to a person.

It's really a great thing.