“An Unprecedented Time for Temple and Family History Work,” Liahona, Aug. 2024.
An Unprecedented Time for Temple and Family History Work
Never before in the history of the world have there been so many temples and, thanks to the latest technology, so many people (including those not of our faith) adding to their family trees.
What inspires you about temple and family history work?
Elder Hamilton: God’s hand is clearly in this work. When President Russell M. Nelson invited us to “strengthen our personal spiritual foundations,” he then said, “Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures.” We’ve never before seen the kind of growth we are seeing now. We’re in an era of temple building that’s unknown in human history, with nearly 180 temples in operation, dozens under construction, and dozens more being announced every year.
And with that growth, the need to build the family tree of humanity grows as well. President Nelson has taught that the temple is “nourished by names.” It’s up to us to make sure our temples are well nourished with the names needed so our ancestors can receive their ordinances and members can enjoy the blessings of the temple throughout their lifetime.
Can you share your thoughts on how we can put the Savior first in family history work?
Elder Hamilton: Ofttimes, we focus first on genealogy, which leads us to our ancestors, which leads us to participating in ordinances and making covenants in the temple, which then binds us to the Savior. That is wonderful, but we should flip that script. The Savior comes first. We seek a closer relationship with Him, so we go to the house of the Lord and receive ordinances and make covenants with Him, binding us to Him. Then we enable that for our deceased ancestors by seeking them out and performing temple ordinances for them.
We start with the Savior and say, “I’d like to help my ancestors bind themselves to the Savior through temple ordinances.” With a couple of taps on a smartphone, the Ordinances Ready tool in FamilySearch searches for members of your family who need ordinances performed so they can have the opportunity to bind themselves to the Savior. The sequence is correct: Jesus Christ, then covenants and ordinances that culminate in the temple—the house of the Lord.
Brother Rockwood: FamilySearch is a service organization dedicated to helping the people of the world find and connect to their families. That’s the core of what we do and have been doing for over 100 years. The Church is bringing temples and FamilySearch closer and closer to people around the world. Our goal is the same: to provide means for people to come unto Christ.
What surprises you most about this part of God’s work of salvation and exaltation?
Brother Rockwood: One of the most surprising things I’ve seen in my 20 years working in the Family History Department is how many people from all over the world are building their family trees. In fact, today most of the people who use FamilySearch aren’t members of our faith. They come from nearly every country on earth. In 2023, 6 million people signed up for a FamilySearch account—and a stunning 97 percent of them aren’t members of our faith. We had 4.1 million people participate in our RootsTech conference last year from 243 countries and territories, and the majority weren’t members of our faith.
Elder Hamilton: It’s a pretty bold statement to say we’re building the family tree of humanity, with only 17 million members of the Church. But with the help of millions more of Heavenly Father’s children across the globe, the tree is being built one family at a time. Latter-day Saints then can perform the temple ordinance work and provide the way for their ancestors to bind themselves to Jesus Christ. This is really the great miracle of our day. The whole world is invited to come and gather names to the family tree and help us identify and document these family relationships across all time and all space.
Is this what people call the spirit of Elijah?
Elder Hamilton: Elijah did indeed come and commit the keys for this work (see Doctrine and Covenants 110:13–15). But President Nelson has taught that what we often call “the spirit of Elijah” is simply the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the divine nature of the family. It’s inspiring to watch. It’s a powerful emotion. Almost every time a person begins to learn more about their ancestors, a powerful spirit comes. It’s the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost’s witness transcends ethnic lines, political boundaries, and language boundaries. This Spirit is sweeping the earth as millions of people come to FamilySearch.
Sometimes we ask people not of our faith, “Why do you do this?” People typically struggle to explain it. They say, “I just want to connect and know how I belong. I want to feel part of a family.” That’s why they keep coming back to FamilySearch again and again—because they feel something. All of this is the hand of the Lord helping to build the family tree of humanity.
What would you say to people who have the notion that family history work is difficult?
Elder Hamilton: I would love people to lose their preconceptions that this is hard work. This is not a clerical work. It’s a spiritual work. It’s a joyful work. You can see that again and again in the history of it.
Brother Rockwood: When the early Saints learned they could do baptisms for their ancestors, they felt an incredible joy and couldn’t wait to begin. In our day we witness the joy people feel when they hear that a temple is announced in their area. This is joy in a time when the world is getting darker and darker. The Lord is bringing this joy to everyone with more and more temples. He’s opening up opportunities for people to discover their ancestors in ways that are totally unprecedented, with technology developed under His inspiration. It’s all because He’s flooding the earth with joy.
And then there is that notion that family history work is best done (or is already done) by someone else in our family.
Elder Hamilton: Some people tune out when they hear “family history” because of a preconceived notion about who should do this work or who would be good at it. Yet there are many ways to do this work. There are experienced family historians who have a great passion for genealogy and spend hours and hours of their time pursuing it, learning about it, and acquiring specialized skills. But there are also people who just want to have a family name at their next temple appointment. There are busy parents, retired people, youth, and even Primary children who are doing family history. We need all of these people, in whatever way they can help.
How can youth and young adults help?
Elder Hamilton: It’s incredible to see the increase in our youth who are participating in family history. In 2011, Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave a talk in general conference in which he invited the youth of the Church to engage in this work. He said, “Your fingers have been trained to text and tweet to accelerate and advance the work of the Lord.” Most young people are comfortable with technology. They love the problem-solving nature of family history—it’s kind of a treasure hunt. You have to figure out where to go next and what to do next.
President Nelson has taught the youth—and the rest of us—that the gathering of Israel is the greatest cause on earth. The youth and young adults are not only engaging in this opportunity but truly leading out in it. It’s amazing to watch these digital natives become part of a great convergence—unprecedented temple building, unprecedented technology, unprecedented numbers of people participating.
These young people love the temple, and they love the Savior. It’s one of the great manifestations of the gathering—the coming forth of the rising generation as they engage in this work.
Brother Rockwood: It’s so wonderful that young children learn that they are children of God as they prepare for their baptismal covenants and later go to the temple. They learn they can participate as children of the covenant in helping to gather Israel, and as they do, they become stronger disciples of Jesus Christ. It’s a tremendous opportunity for the young people to learn who they are and what the Lord’s purpose is for them—and that they truly were saved for this day, “armed with righteousness” (1 Nephi 14:14).
How has family history work blessed your own family?
Elder Hamilton: We ran into a dead end while searching the ancestry of my French great-great-grandfather, Adolph Cuny, for as long as we have been working on it—decades. We were not able to find his parents, no matter how hard we looked. But last year some wonderful French genealogists working with FamilySearch looked at our records and, using their skills and local knowledge, were able to find Adolph’s parents and even his grandparents.
Our family has now been able to do all of their ordinances in the temple, and we are now working on their extended families and descendants. A doorway was opened to so many people from this part of my family tree. This blessing was provided by FamilySearch and its network of dedicated and skilled researchers and consultants. This type of help is available to any FamilySearch patron—member of the Church or not.
What improvements have you seen in this work?
Brother Rockwood: For many years, paper records were kept by churches or governments. Most western records start in the AD 1500–1600 time period. In the 1930s we began to photograph records using microfilm. By the time that ended in 2006, we had 2.6 million rolls of microfilm in our collection. We decided to digitize those images, which looked like it would be a multi-decade project. But divine inspiration brought us new technology that shortened that dramatically to a fraction of the time, completed in 2022. The greatest part of that is what used to be only available on microfilm is now mostly available on the internet, through FamilySearch. You can access it through a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The internet has been a game changer.
FamilySearch made a bold decision to move to a public tree—kind of like Wikipedia, which can be viewed and edited by everyone. Changes are carefully tracked, and with a kind of crowdsource approach, the family tree of humanity can be built with greater participation and fewer errors.
Elder Hamilton: Today, billions of people have access to the internet. To take advantage of smartphone technology, the Church has developed mobile apps to bring FamilySearch to people everywhere. The Memories app, the Family Tree app, and the Get Involved app are all available for smartphones, which has really opened doors to advance the Lord’s work.
Brother Rockwood: We’re in the midst of miracles, with so many temples being built and so much data gathered by the masses. And at the very moment we need it, the technology to organize it and make it widely accessible is developed. Artificial intelligence is now allowing us to organize data in a way that makes it searchable and translated into any language.
Elder Hamilton: Today we are seeing the fulfillment of Ephesians 1:10, which says that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.” One way we see that being fulfilled is in the temples, the names, and the technology all coming together by the hand of the Lord so that we can do the temple work for as many of our Heavenly Father’s children who are willing to receive it. And that really is the story of the temple and family history effort in a nutshell. The Lord is in this work, and miraculous things are happening. They are happening because He directs it.