Temple and Family History

  Temple and Family History Lesson 11 Correcting Errors in Family Search   As we have mentioned before, the Family Search date base is different from most other genealogy web sites in that it is a one-world tree.  That means that each user does not create and maintain their own personal family records, but all records are combined into one great collection with everyone having access to everyone else’s data.  I suppose this suits the Lord’s purposes of having all the world’s families linked together in an unbroken chain back to Adam and Eve, and it avoids a tremendous amount of duplication of data where so many of us descend from the same ancestors. The one-world tree is great for sharing data and making connections to ancestors that we might not otherwise have known about, but it can be troublesome when other users have access to your family information and can edit or change it at will.  It requires that all users be gracious and patient with each ot...

  Temple and Family History Lesson 10 Descendancy Research   In our last lesson we looked at how to find and submit ordinances for temple work.   In that lesson we introduced the concept of Descendancy Research.   In this lesson we will look more closely at this activity and how to apply it to bless thousands of our relatives with ordinances of salvation. There are still members of the church who, when asked if they would like help with their family history work, will say that their work is “all done”.   I’m not sure what the expression “all done” really means and I’m sure the members who uses those words to describe their family-history status don’t know either.   It is plainly impossible, even with today’s unprecedented information availability, for all of the temple ordinances for all of one’s relatives back to Adam to be “all done”.   What the expression usually means is that all of the obvious, easy to find, direct ancestors and some o...

  Temple and Family History Lessons Lesson 9 Submitting Names for Temple Ordinances   In Lesson 7 we talked about verifying the information concerning our deceased ancestors with valid and dependable sources.   In Lesson 8 we introduced techniques and tools for seeking out these names and relationships.   One of our prime reasons for seeking and verifying these names of our people is to perform vicariously for them, in sacred temples, the saving ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Family Search is currently the only avenue available to members of the Church for submitting names to temples.   The reason for this is that the Family Search program has the means to search existing temple records world wide and determine if the ordinances for a deceased person have already been done. The duplication of temple ordinances in the past has been a serious concern.   To avoid duplications   sophisticated search algorithms have been developed to ...