We are all well aware of the charge we have all been given to spread the gospel across the earthly world, as well as the spirit world. But do we know why? Why is family history work so important? Maybe a better question is what is my personal experience in understanding the importance of Family History?
You may be familiar with this statement by Joseph Smith:
“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” (History of the Church 6:313).
So, clearly, this final dispensation has one main responsibility: Gathering Israel and taking them to the temple.
Understanding that statement still won’t make it personal until we do something about it though.
As my ward’s Family History Consultant, I am trying to get a handle on how the church wants me to promote this sacred work. To be honest, I keep getting caught up in the technical side of the work. I’ve looked at some family trees where the only “green temples” are from duplicate records. This is not only deflating but nerve-wracking as well. I have to teach how to check records, double check the information, and merge by completely eliminating a record. That can be scary stuff to the novice!
The last thing I want to do is get so technical that the family–I’m trying to encourage– feels too paralyzed to do the work on their own.
While praying to figure out my best approach, a recent experience helped me realize my answer.
My mother is French. I don’t speak French. I’ve always avoided doing this line in the past, but bravely I venture forward. Luckily, all French records are available online and are indexed. So, it’s just a matter of collecting names and fitting them into my family tree.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not quite that simple. My ancestors lived in the same area for hundreds of years, so there is a lot of inter-marriage. Where I can collect all the surnames I know belong to me, I still need to figure out where they fit in the family tree. And that hasn’t been so easy.
I ran across a name I vaguely knew was in my line. In fact, I kept running into it. It turned out I was finding several children in one family. In total, there were thirteen children! This is not a direct ancestor, and in fact, I don’t know exactly where they fit in yet on the tree. But I decided to figure out who was who anyway.
Finally, after a few hours, I saw that out of the thirteen children, only three grew up to marry and have families of their own. One died at 21 years of age, a couple of them younger than that. Several died between 1-2 years of age. That poor mother!!!
As I pondered this family, I began to visualize them. This family lived in the early 1700s. All this time, half of the family has been trapped in Spirit Prison while the other half has been stranded (without parents) in the Spirit World. The quest to get them to the temple has become personal for me.
Perhaps each one of us needs to see the people that make up our Family Trees and visualize their situation. For me, that has become the WHY for why Family History is important. And this is what I will try to convey as I help ward members, friends, and family gather their families in.