2024-11 Nov - Puzzling and Detective Work

Nov 8, 2024 family history cousins National Archives McCullough puzzle choose

Read time: Summary 0.3 minutes | Expanded section: 10.3 minutes | Entire message 10.6 minutes

Summary

Expanded Message

Mortality is a master class in learning to choose the things of greatest eternal import.

When you make choices, I invite you to take the long view—an eternal view. Put Jesus Christ first because your eternal life is dependent upon your faith in Him and in His Atonement.

~ President Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Oct 2023

Building a Puzzle Together

During a recent mini-reunion of three of our children coming home to help Grandma belatedly celebrate a birthday that had been marred by a medical procedure on her actual birth date, multiple family members gathered around a 1,000 piece puzzle to help my spouse attempt to complete the puzzle picture. The picture included many yellow daisies with only slight differences in the shades of yellow. Granddad said it was hard to distinguish which puzzle piece went where. They made some progress, and enjoyed working with each other on the joint effort. But alas, they did not complete the puzzle before it was time to head back to airports and head to their own homes. We were grateful and happy for their visit.

We can liken that experience to our vast millions-of-pieces puzzle called the “Gathering of Scattered Israel”. Many of us virtually gather together around the puzzle table (familysearch.org) and look at puzzle pieces (sources to attach to the right person) and attempt to place pieces. Sometimes like on the flower puzzle, we try a piece to find it does not fit in this location (with that person), so we put that piece back in the not-yet-done pieces area and try another piece.

In my experience, 1,000 piece puzzles and toddlers don’t mix well. Toddlers ability to focus their attention in pursuit of a goal other than food, play, or sleep is still growing and maturing at that point in their development. What about us? How well do we currently contribute to the human-family puzzle? (focusing on the living counts too)

Consider that for toddlers, their time-perspective is here and now. A toddler is unlikely to find pleasure in accomplishing a puzzle over a week or two during a few moments here and there, like my spouse does. When we think Celestial, how is our time perception as children in God’s kingdom? Are we able to see clearly the building of this human-family puzzle when the build-time for some pieces can sometimes be measured in years and decades? How might we adjust our time-perspective to how God views it?

Like the flower puzzle, sometimes we happily find a cluster of pieces quickly, forming coherence and clarity for a portion of the puzzle, maybe a single flower, while the total puzzle is still has much to be done. In the human-family puzzle, we sometimes find some people quickly, or find many sources for them in a short period of time and feel grateful to see their lives with more clarity.

Yet other parts of the human-family puzzle sit on the puzzle board unfinished for years and decades because we don’t yet have all the data God has, so this area of the puzzle remains undone for now. Do we sense its taking too long, like the toddler? My spouse does not stop her puzzle because she can’t yet find the spot she was on. Instead she moves to another part of the puzzle where she can make progress with the puzzle picture she has now. I do that in family history puzzles.

Similarly when we work on the human-family puzzle. Sometimes I find 15 sources for one person in a day. Yet, I have one branch of the family that I have not made any progress on for two decades. Do we let the blockage in one part of the puzzle stop us from contributing what we can to other parts of the puzzle? I continue to work around that blockage, occasionally checking if new information has been digitized and indexed so that blocked branch can continue.

Our son and daughters helped their mother with some of their time on the flower puzzle. But other times, they were pulled away to other priorities. The puzzle was not the only thing happening during their visit. And so it is with visit to mortality. The human-family puzzle of Temple & Family History is not the sole focus of our lives. Even so, we can do a little here and a little there. We can be motivated to keep coming back to do bits of the puzzle like she does with her flower puzzle.

In a few weeks, she has the satisfaction of seeing the puzzle finished. I suspect we might see the human-family puzzle finished only after Christ’s second coming. In the mean time, you, me and others still living in mortality can work on the grand human-family puzzle. We can be aided by people on the other side of the veil. Sometimes we can discern their help from the other side (perhaps more often while in the temple, but sometimes while doing Family History research too). Though God is capable of doing his work without our help, He asks us to contribute our part in this work. To what degree are we willing to gather his children? How often has the Lord worked to gather us as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing? Would we or would we not? (Matt 23:37) Will we let God prevail here a little and there a little?

As you and I become more complete (another translation for “be ye therefore perfect”), we become more capable of contributing to the human-family puzzle. If you have a current temple recommend, you can worship in one of the 367 temples (open + coming soon) around the world. If you are still working on your recommend, you can still help with the puzzle on familysearch.org right now (indexing, finding sources, adding memories, etc.).

As Elder Dale G. Renlund taught, “[His] goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him.”

~ Elder Paul B. Pieper, Of the Seventy, April 2024 General Conference

The US National Archives Book Introduction Quote

My father-in-law recently bought a book about the national archives. I wanted to share a paragraph from the introduction by an author whose books I have enjoyed. This comment about the archives applies to Temple & Family History work too.

You are caught up, carried forward by all the elements of surprise and fascination in detective work. You find things you were not looking for and these trigger new ideas that never would have occurred to you otherwise. It is what is called the serendipity of original research. The driving force is the excitement of discovery. You feel a bond with those vanished people. They are not just anybody and nobody any more and they never will be for you ever again.

~David M. McCullough (emphasis added)

A Stronger Case For Your People Using the ‘Preponderance of the Evidence’

The legal phrase “preponderance of the evidence” can also apply to familysearch.org sources. No one is in legal jeopardy, but it is a helpful concept for evidence using sources.

I knew my granddad personally, but my grandchildren did not get that chance. Other people married into the family have their take on him, yet that may not be complete. How can I help everyone to see granddad for who he really was?

The United States legal system has a potential help for family history, as we try to convince others and resolve questions when we still do not have the full picture of what happened in our ancestor’s lives. They know, but they have passed to the other side and we’re still in the mortal realm.

Personally knowing them is great for me and you, but what about others who didn’t get to meet them personally? How can we turn their hearts towards their fathers?

So using sources to back up what we know can involve the preponderance of the evidence concept. I mean “more likely than not” or just over 50% certainty. This legal standard strikes a balance between the need to resolve disputes fairly and the understanding that absolute certainty is rarely attainable in mortality. Even my interactions with Granddad were not when he was piloting aircraft during WWII for the USA. I interacted with him on family trips. Many sources help provide the preponderance of the evidence to others and to his direct lineage. Many sources helps ensure that others also see your ancestor as you knew them. In the unlikely event of a disagreement between two researchers, many sources show more evidence, making a stronger case than your personal knowledge alone. Besides we all eventually pass to the other side, so many sources remain after we’re gone from mortal life, helping our progeny or cousins remaining to know their ancestors and turn their hearts towards them.

As we continue to index more digitized historical records, and attach those sources to our ancestor’s page on family search, we help complete the puzzle for people coming along behind us.

God Could Do Temple & Family History Work Without Us, so Why Does He Want Us To Help?

If our time in mortality is a period of testing, perhaps our Father in Heaven has growth for us in mind when he asks to help him in the work of Temple & Family History.

He has blessed us with continually improving technologies over the decades that make the work easier to scale.

Much work has been done. Yet I wonder if we’re being helped by doing this more than we realize. We get to learn who our people were. We get to know they went though challenges and difficulties. Sometimes knowing their trials helps us face our own trials. We can know we are not alone.

And, we get to do our small part in His grand plan. We are blessed for even the small amounts of time we spend doing what He asks of us.

I wanted nothing to do with Family History when I was 14 years old and my Granddad gave me his ten years worth of work researching our family line. Back then, I was not yet a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I didn’t join until I was in college.

Yet I have been able to discover what he discovered and more. It has been an awesome blessing to participate in Temple & Family History service. And I can’t help but feel I’ve gotten more out of it than I expected. I encourage you to reflect on your own blessings from doing this work.

Story Time: I once was lost, but now am found

Here are two small stories about finding that which had been lost.

Reminder. Current Workflow for Family History:

Think Inputs and Outputs.

  1. Historical people’s information first has to be digitized (others do this).
  2. We index people’s digitized information so the image can be associated with text, which can be found in computer searches. AI is still not good enough to do this by itself.
  3. We link families' data together in FamilySearch.org (each member’s initial target is 4-Generations found and linked. Later we work cousin lines too.)
  4. We attach people’s information (source data) to the right person to help us and others to get to know them better. Attaching more sources also shows our hypotheses about individuals more likely true than not true as we build a clear picture of who they were.
  5. Then, we can get names to take to the temple and offer them the choice of being linked to their families for eternity.
  6. By delving deeper, finding and attaching sources and their small bits of information about our ancestor’s experiences, we get to know our people (both direct lines and cousin lines), and our hearts turn to them. As more original sources are digitized and indexed, more puzzle pieces become available. It’s an ongoing and accelerating effort. When are we “done” knowing someone? We can all go beyond the dates of their birth and death and get to know our people.
  7. We can bless others by sharing with our immediate family and cousins what we’ve learned about our shared ancestors or kin, helping all of us feel more grounded, knowing where we came from. Potentially helping them to turn their hearts to their fathers too.

How We’re Doing as a Ward

Thank you to Ward youth and adults for your time spend gathering.

As Ward Temple & Family History Consultants we are called to help you with HOW to do these things, the Lord has asked that we all do.

Sincerely, Your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants,

During Stake Family Search Center posted hours, our staffing assignments are posted

(our contact info is in the tools app, or see us in church)