Family History and Genealogy

Latter-day Saints’ interest in and commitment to family history research emerged from several significant events in the Church’s early history. During Joseph Smith’s first encounter with the angel Moroni in 1823, he was told the Lord would “plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.”¹ In Nauvoo, Illinois, in the early 1840s, Joseph taught that fulfillment of this prophecy entailed the performance of saving ordinances on behalf of one’s deceased relatives.² These included proxy baptisms and confirmations and sealing family members, preserving their dearest relationships in the next life. The Saints enthusiastically began to participate in these ordinances.³

At first, Church members were mainly sealed to their immediate ancestors or to prominent Church leaders as “adopted” kin.⁴ In 1894, President Wilford Woodruff announced that Latter-day Saints should research their family histories and bring their ancestors’ names to the temple so families could be sealed. “We want the Latter-day Saints from this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can,” he taught in general conference, “and to be sealed to their fathers and mothers. Have children sealed to their parents, and run this chain through as far as you can get it.”⁵ Temples became a more prominent and regular part of Latter-day Saint worship as Church members flocked to them to perform proxy work for their deceased family members.⁶

The Genealogical Society

In November 1894, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles approved the incorporation of the Genealogical Society of Utah (an institution that the Church later adopted as the Family History Department in 1987).⁷ Joseph Fielding Smith, an early leader in the society and eventually its president, implemented a collection and archival system based on his research trips to libraries and genealogical societies in the northeastern United States.⁸ While the Genealogical Society’s operations expanded, devoted genealogist Susa Young Gates organized a cataloging system to track records in each temple. In the early 20th century, she worked to promote genealogy by writing articles, teaching classes, urging the inclusion of genealogical education to the Relief Society, and serving as president of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.⁹ Susa Young Gates and Joseph Fielding Smith worked on committees that furnished magazines and classes to instruct the general public in collecting ancestral records and using library collections.¹⁰

office building — Office of the Genealogical Society of Utah before 1917.

From Genealogy to Family History

During the 20th century, Latter-day Saints broadened access to genealogical records. In 1938, they were among the first to use microfilming technology to preserve records. Staff members of the Genealogical Society and later the Family History Department collaborated with archives, churches, state and county governments, and other institutions to photograph records on microfilm, capturing approximately 150 million pages of records by 1954 and accelerating to a rate of 130 million exposures per year by 1992.¹¹ In 1969, the Church held its first worldwide genealogy conference in Salt Lake City with the goal of training amateur researchers and bringing together institutions to collaborate on record preservation and access.¹² Attendance at the second World Conference on Records in 1980 more than doubled, in part because of increased public interest in genealogy after the premiere of the 1977 television series Roots, based on Alex Haley’s book of the same title. Haley received an honorary doctorate from Brigham Young University and partnered with Church leaders to promote the World Conference on Records and family history research generally.¹³

vault interior with microfilm records — Interior of the Granite Mountain Records Vault, where millions of microfilmed records are preserved.

In the 1980s, Church members engaged in a massive effort to gather and record their family histories running back at least three generations.¹⁴ Growing interest in family histories inspired record-keeping beyond strictly genealogical information. In 1987, Church leaders renamed the Genealogical Department as the Family History Department, a title intended to attract everyone to participate. “The change to ‘family history’ will make the work less technical and more appealing to the members of the Church,” President Boyd K. Packer said. He continued, “Sacred family history is fundamental to the temple ordinances and covenants that bless individuals and seal them into eternal families.”¹⁵

Technological Advances and Collaborations

In 1999, the Church launched FamilySearch.org , a website and database for family history research that also tracks proxy ordinance work for the dead. Building on the foundation of 60 years of microfilming records, FamilySearch.org provided access to more than two billion images within two decades of its launch.¹⁶ FamilySearch Indexing began in 2006, which enabled volunteer users to view and transcribe historical documents to assist researchers.¹⁷ Other efforts to advance family history research for the general public culminated in establishing thousands of family history centers, collaborations with regional and national archives to expand access to records, and, in 2011, the first RootsTech—the world’s largest family history convention.¹⁸

convention hall — Convention hall for RootsTech in February 2020.

The Church remains at the forefront of family history research. Church members’ efforts to participate in the three-generation project and provide proxy ordinances for their ancestors, coupled with the Church’s long-standing endeavors to preserve and share records from around the world, produced the crowd-sourced, collaborative Family Tree on FamilySearch.org in 2013. President Russell M. Nelson remarked that such combined undertakings furthered the goal to “organize the family tree for all of God’s children.”¹⁹