I just wanted to let you know how much I love each of you. The past few months I have been thinking a lot about family history work. Even though I have been thinking a lot about family history work I have not done much about it. I have taken the family history class and looked at the FamilySearch website but really I had no idea what I was doing. At one point I was attending a presentation by our area family history consultants and they mention something called "descendency". I had never heard of it before. Essentially what it involves is finding your cousins. Typically when I have gone on family search and I have looked for my ancestors going back as far as I can. Elder Neal L. Anderson in the last RootsTech conference talked about this technique.
The concept is that you go back to about 1800 and then go forwards- meaning you look for holes in the information- places where the line stops. You can search for children, spouses, grandchildren etc. Once you find a hole I would recommend looking on ancestory.com which often has much more information than the familysearch.org website. Once you find a name you will often then be able to find parents, children, etc. I was amazed when someone else showed this to me and in about 3 hours I found about 20 names that I could take to the temple.
Elder Bednar said speaking of the invitation to do family history work:
"As you respond in faith to this invitation, your hearts shall turn to the fathers. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts. Your patriarchal blessing, with its declaration of lineage, will link you to these fathers and be more meaningful to you. Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase. Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding. And I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives."
Elder Bednar's Conference Talk
I know that there are so many things competing for our time. However, I know that if we will make doing family history work a priority that we will receive those blessing that have been promised us by an Apostle of the Lord.
This is a picture of Great-Grandpa Angus Porter. He is standing in the back holding his oldest son Russell (Grandpa Porter's oldest brother) This was taken in 1926 at their Cokeville, Wyoming ranch. The older woman on the end standing next to Great Grandpa Porter is his mother Rheumah Walton. Look closely. See any family resemblances?
Love,
DAD
