Ward Activity for Genealogy

by guest author

Sue Maxwell

(Sue always has interesting articles on her blog - http://granitegenealogy.blogspot.ca/ )

I thought I would share a ward activity we held last week. Our Bishop  feels strongly that a ward activity is just that — for the ward,  including children. I put together a round robin of classes on Saturday beginning at 5:30 pm. That’s important because of the children.

I had 5 stops and each stop was in a different room at the church. I  made rotating handouts so that we could start everyone at the same time but in different rooms. I tried to focus the families with small children into the (1) “food” room first and then move on from there. I had a class on indexing (2), one on using the Fan Chart and new FamilySearch (3), one on Involving children in genealogy (4), and one on the “gathering” portion of family history (5) (unique ways of gathering information from family and building your story). We only had 20 minutes each – so about 15 minutes in each class with a few minutes to change rooms. Two of the classes were taught by our YM and YW who I had been working with.

In every room I had a table in the back of the room with activities for the children of the parents who were attending the class. This kept the families together but the children were occupied. I also used YW to teach the various games in each room.

Our Primary President put together and taught the class on “involving children in genealogy” and also put together the activities for each room. All of them were family history related in some way. For example, one of the activities for the children was looking for things in the Where’s Waldo books. As each child found what they were looking for, she gave them a census record and had them look for a name. It was so fun. In her room she used the object lesson of brushing your hair without bending your arm at the elbow. This taught the children about using a proxy to get the job done.

What surprised me the most was the families that attended were mostly the young families with children! And they had the best things to say. They were so exciting to be able to learn about family history without having to worry about their children or chase them around. The whole activity was over in about 90 minutes. And the adults were so impressed that the youth were teaching.

The bishop later told me that he went home and discussed the activity with his children and he was so surprised at all the concepts they learned. Great activity.

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Teaching Members to Understand and Follow Policies for Submitting Names

Note:  apologies for the duplicate article to those of you who subscribe by email.  We have had a computer operator error! – i.e. Peter pressed the wrong key, sent out the article by email, but didn’t post it to the website! – it’s an important article anyway which is only emphasized by sending it out twice!

Much has been reported in the media regarding baptism for the dead in recent weeks.   This is a good time for us to review and teach people to understand and follow policies regarding submission of names to the temple

There have been reports of members of the church not following temple policies and entering names of deceased holocaust victims or famous people to whom they are not related.  People rightfully have been offended.  We should be following our own temple policies.

We have also become aware of other members ignoring temple policies and taking names of unrelated persons to the temple.

On 29 February the First Presidency sent a letter to every unit of the church asking us to follow temple policies. The letter asks members to seek assistance from their Family History Consultant – so be prepared. On 9 March you should have received a letter from the FH Dept to Family History Consultants, Family History Center Directors, and Staff (if you did not receive this letter then go to https://www.familysearch.org/consultant/and register).

Please help members to understand and follow the direction of the First Presidency.

Here are some useful links:

1. There are 2 articles in the Church News and Events section at lds,org:  http://www.lds.org/church/news/church-asks-members-to-understand-policies?lang=eng and http://www.lds.org/church/news/names-submitted-for-temple-ordinances?lang=eng – the second link is the text of the First Presidency letter
2. Church News 1 March 2012 – this article includes comments by Dennis C. Brimhall, the new managing director of the Church’s Family History Department – http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/62066/Family-history—Church-asks-members-to-understand-policies.html# 
3. CNN offers an interesting article on the topic from the public perspective (link shared with me by a good friend):  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/09/mormons-crack-down-on-proxy-baptisms-whistleblowers-access-blocked/?hpt=hp_t3

No doubt you will find many other references.  There was a segment of the CBC radio  program “The Current” devoted to Baptism for the Dead.

People asking about our beliefs is a good thing.  Helping people understand our beliefs is wonderful.

You might want to read the following article from Mormon.org under the menu Values:  http://mormon.org/family-history/ The first article is entitled “Why Family History is Important.”

Where can you read about temple policies other than the letter from the First Presidency? We would suggest that you use page 30 of the Member’s Guide to Temple and Family History Work (bearing in mind the one change from 95 to 110 years when needing permission from the nearest living relative).  You can also use the Tutorials and Guides from the Help panel or Learn How to use FamilySearch from the new FamilySearch home page.  A search in the Help Centre for Temple Policies will take you to the Users Guide for nFS.  If we need more information the church will provide it for us.

Here is a quote from page 30 of the Member’s Guide :

“Do not submit the names of persons who are not related to you, including names of famous people or names gathered from unapproved extraction projects, such as victims of the Jewish Holocaust.”

May we strongly suggest that you do not become the judge of what is appropriate to submit.  If asked a question about submission policy then quote the relevant section.  Avoid contention or debate.  If pressed further then suggest the person talk to their priesthood leader.

When we started writing this article a few weeks ago the objective was to make sure everyone was aware that the policy for obtaining permission to perform ordinances has changed from 95 years to 110 years - this is the only change in temple policy of which we are aware.  Here is the policy (remember to sign in before accessing knowledge documents):

Knowledge Document ID 113599

“The policy for obtaining permission to perform ordinances has changed from 95 years to 110 years

At the RootsTech 2012 conference, it was announced that the 95 year rule relating to getting permission before doing living ordinances is changing.

The new policy is as follows:

Before doing ordinances for a deceased person born in the last 110 years, please remember that close relatives may not want the ordinances performed, or they may want to do the ordinances themselves.

You may do ordinances for your own deceased spouse, child, parent, or sibling, but please consider the wishes of other close living relatives, especially a living spouse.

If you are not a spouse, child, parent, or sibling of the deceased, please obtain permission from the closest living relative before doing the ordinances. The closest living relatives are, in this order: an undivorced spouse (the spouse to whom the individual was married when he or she died), an adult child, a parent, or a brother or sister.

Verbal approval is acceptable. Family members should work together to determine when the ordinances will be done and who will do them.

For information on what to do with family ordinance cards that were printed by mistake, see 1008370.”

Thank you for all that you do to help people understand how to do Temple and Family History work.

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Resource to help with teaching the Temple and FH Course

We are pleased to meet many of you who are teaching the Temple and Family History Course (aka the 7 “basic lessons”).  We were just discussing how to supplement  the materials at a recent training session!

Then I came across the following link:

http://familyhistory.byu.edu/

There is a lot of interesting and useful material on this BYU site!  For the moment don’t be distracted by all these good things,  just scroll down to Family History Companion.  Click on this link!

“Welcome to the Family History Guide Companion!

The purpose of this course is to supplement the Member’s Guide published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by providing additional resources, insights, and information on how to access information that can be used in compiling your family history and provide the necessary ordinances for their salvation. We hope that the material presented here will also help you to come to know who your ancestors are as people and individuals.

In order to get the most out of this class, there will be assignments outside of class. The best way to effectively learn how to do family history research is to actually do research. Therefore, you will be asked to select a family or individual that you wish to come to know and find information about in order to provide temple ordinances. Once this family or individual is selected, there will be simple things that we will ask you to do to successfully find information about them.

We have been asked of the Lord, “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.” (D&C 128:24.)

We hope to be able to help you successfully accomplish family history research in a way that is pleasing unto the Lord, to your ancestors, and to you.”

Each lesson has:

• Additional Resources
• Additional Insight
• Suggested Additional Assignments
• Handout

Of course these are only suggestions – but we hope you find something helpful!

.

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Addendum – FHC wiki pages

Try the Riverbend EdmontonFHC wiki page  - go to FamilySearch.org, click on learn, then search for FHC Riverbend – the one and only result will lead you to the Alberta Edmonton Riverbend FHC wiki page.  Congratulations to Lonni, Bill, and everyone at Riverbend

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