For a little over a week, I've felt the need to get back into doing some family history research and prepare some family members who've passed on to receive their temple ordinances.
After several attempts to schedule a meeting with our ward family history expert, Brother Celaya, we crossed paths in church. He pulled me into the clerk's office, where he sucked me into his world and began showing me the new features on FamilySearch.org.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing! This thing is PAF on steroids! With PAF you have to go and find some resource that has census records or birth certificate or death or marriage document of some kind. You manually copy that information into PAF, where it lets you add pretty much whomever you want, without much in the way of verifying who is who and what the relationship should be. Having never done it before, I didn't know when I would reach a point where someone was ready to go to the temple.
In the new FamilySearch, you have direct access to census, birth and death records and so on. One search pulls up all of it. You click on a record to add to your sources, and then tell the system you want to associate that record with the person you're looking for and tie it into your family tree. The system automatically figures out everything else and copies it in. The data is updated at the Church automatically. What's more, if a census record finds other people in the same household, the system will automatically add them to the person you're working on, and figure out all the relationships: mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter etc... Then you go through the new persons added and attach them to your family tree. Go through and find one more census record to back up all the new attachments, and you have a new family ready to go to the temple!
Inside of about an hour and a half, Brother Celaya and I had found my grandfather's uncle Mervin, and we got him ready to go to the temple. That afternoon, I found his wife, Hallie, and her mother and father, Frederick Rehrig and Zanobia Wagner. With more help from Brother Celaya, I was able to get all of them ready for the temple, and request their ordinances.
That afternoon, it was neat to talk to Grandpa Bernie and ask him about his Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie. I'll have to bug him again - I want more!
That night, I told Brother Celaya, "If temple work for my own family really is this accessible, I have no excuse for going to the temple without taking a family member with me!". To this he responded, "I'm glad you feel that way!"
Yesterday, after submitting the request via FamilySearch, I sent the family an email, informing them of my find and my excitement and of submitting their names for ordinance cards. I can't begin to describe how neat it felt to find my Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie and get this started for them! I can't begin to describe how neat it felt to have an undeniable sense that, even though they've moved on, Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie know what I'm doing, and they're overjoyed by it!
I can hardly wait to have those little blue and pink cards in my hands, and I can hardly wait to go to the temple and perform those sacred ordinances for people I know are excited and waiting to receive them!
After several attempts to schedule a meeting with our ward family history expert, Brother Celaya, we crossed paths in church. He pulled me into the clerk's office, where he sucked me into his world and began showing me the new features on FamilySearch.org.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing! This thing is PAF on steroids! With PAF you have to go and find some resource that has census records or birth certificate or death or marriage document of some kind. You manually copy that information into PAF, where it lets you add pretty much whomever you want, without much in the way of verifying who is who and what the relationship should be. Having never done it before, I didn't know when I would reach a point where someone was ready to go to the temple.
In the new FamilySearch, you have direct access to census, birth and death records and so on. One search pulls up all of it. You click on a record to add to your sources, and then tell the system you want to associate that record with the person you're looking for and tie it into your family tree. The system automatically figures out everything else and copies it in. The data is updated at the Church automatically. What's more, if a census record finds other people in the same household, the system will automatically add them to the person you're working on, and figure out all the relationships: mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter etc... Then you go through the new persons added and attach them to your family tree. Go through and find one more census record to back up all the new attachments, and you have a new family ready to go to the temple!
Inside of about an hour and a half, Brother Celaya and I had found my grandfather's uncle Mervin, and we got him ready to go to the temple. That afternoon, I found his wife, Hallie, and her mother and father, Frederick Rehrig and Zanobia Wagner. With more help from Brother Celaya, I was able to get all of them ready for the temple, and request their ordinances.
That afternoon, it was neat to talk to Grandpa Bernie and ask him about his Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie. I'll have to bug him again - I want more!
That night, I told Brother Celaya, "If temple work for my own family really is this accessible, I have no excuse for going to the temple without taking a family member with me!". To this he responded, "I'm glad you feel that way!"
Yesterday, after submitting the request via FamilySearch, I sent the family an email, informing them of my find and my excitement and of submitting their names for ordinance cards. I can't begin to describe how neat it felt to find my Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie and get this started for them! I can't begin to describe how neat it felt to have an undeniable sense that, even though they've moved on, Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie know what I'm doing, and they're overjoyed by it!
I can hardly wait to have those little blue and pink cards in my hands, and I can hardly wait to go to the temple and perform those sacred ordinances for people I know are excited and waiting to receive them!
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