2025-06 Jun Message

Jun 4, 2025 family history help unconnected person cousins

June 2025 Ward Temple & Family History Message

Read time: Summary 0.3 minutes | Expanded section: 13.1 minutes | Entire message 13.4 minutes

From your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants:

Summary

Expanded Message

Thank you to the youth and young single adults who have participated in 2025 Temple & Family History work! You are proving this work is not just for grey haired set. ;)

God Knows You Personally

I know God knows you as one of his children. He knows your potential. He knows your current struggles. He wants you to do your best during this mortal journey. Being yoked with Jesus Christ helps us with the various burdens of mortal life. He can help you balance priorities so you don’t run faster than you have strength. He blesses you when you keep his commandments and assist in His work in these last days.

Because God knows you, he also knows your family’s ancestors. Each and every one of them. He knows them by name too. He also helped them in their mortal journeys, before you. And now our Father in Heaven has invited you to help your people. All of your people, not just direct lines out to four generations. But cousins too. This work is not done. If you doubt that, let one of the Temple & Family History Ward Consultants show you what else we can do. If you feel stuck, ask for help. Don’t feel overwhelmed alone.

You can do this. If you have the desire, but not yet the skills, Ward Temple & Family History Consultants manning the Stake Family Search Center can help during its operating hours (posted on the bulletin board outside the Family Search Center and online). We can help you strengthen your skills so you are more capable, and can accomplish more in the time that you have to contribute to this important work.

With God, our willingness to serve in His work has always been more important than our skills to serve. I have observed this pattern at work for four decades in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

God’s pattern is to grow us into the roles he wants us to perform. It’s more uncomfortable His way, but we do grow. Years later, we look back and see how God blessed us in this way, when during the effort we just thought we were helping someone else.

The adversary desires to block God’s work. His tools and his anti-patterns are distraction, loneliness, discouragement, fear, despair, and misery (seen throughout the scriptures). Our Savior has overcome all these things.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, and our continued lifelong learning, to quote a recent graduation speaker, “liberates you [us] from hopelessness and helplessness”. (worth a full read)

God’s pattern is to share freedom, inspiration, hope, cheerfulness, courage, perseverance, patience, kindness, healing, growth, mercy, repentance (U-turns), forgiveness, generosity, service, and power so that we too can overcome with faith in our Savior’s help. We do a little each day, and over time, great things come to pass. With God, all things are possible, in His timing.

We can choose to persevere, equally yoked with Christ (Matt 11:29-30), making the work lighter than attempting it alone.

the Spirit of God, which is also the spirit of freedom which is in them

(Alma 61:15) emphasis added

Please don’t retreat or give up when struggling. God knows you individually. Ask for His help with the challenges of today. Decide to continue as best as you can, letting God prevail. God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).

So, how will you serve someone (living or dead) this week? One soul at a time. We can be like Joshua & Caleb, seeing what’s possible, rather than like the other 11 spies sent who only saw what couldn’t be done. Our mind & spirit can enable or constrain. Let God prevail. Let’s do this work together, as many hands, making the work lighter!

You Can Have Help From Heaven

Just like we often ask for help from the Holy Ghost in church meetings and other times in our lives, we can also ask for, and receive, help from the Holy Ghost for our Temple & Family History efforts. Personal revelation is alive and well in the Lord’s Temple & Family History work.

In your Temple & Family History work, start with a prayer about who to focus on. Listen. Then act. Then offer gratitude for the help after it is received and acted upon.

I testify that the Holy Ghost has prompted me many times over the years towards specific people. For me, this revelatory Temple & Family History help has ranged from small spiritual nudges towards a particular person or record, to an overwhelming sense of certainty. Most often, it is the spiritual validation that each of our steps to aid in this work is helping our Father in Heaven’s work and glory. And there is always a feeling of internal peace while involved in His work.

Temple & Family History Work is a Means to an End

Family history actions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Yes, we learn how to use the current technologies. For example, I learned how to use typewriters and whiteout and the microfilm roll readers back in the earlier days of Family History. None of our youth, young adults, or adults newer than that have to learn those older technologies now. Well, there is one older technology that still helps all of us today: reading cursive writing.

But I don’t use typewriters, whiteout, really wide pedigree pages, or microfilm readers any more. All the microfilm has been digitized now. Indexing is making more and more of it searchable. (Our Ward’s indexing is up slightly this month, and can always use more work.) Yet, I’m still involved in the same work towards the same ends, in service to the same God.

A sister said at last week’s Sacrament Meeting, “I don’t like doing family history, but I like how it makes me feel.” (or words to that effect, sorry my memory isn’t precise on her exact words.)

Her comments prompted this section of this month’s message to the Ward.

When we have a bountiful harvest from our garden, we tend to share the extra with others (especially if we don’t yet know how to can vegetables safely in glass jars).

The Ward’s Temple & Family History Consultants are good at the current technologies and they like to freely share what they know with you. In the Stake Family Search Center, or over zoom, or at your home.

Today it might be how to use the current familysearch.org user interface by typing into a web-application. Later it might be as different as the current webpages are from older rolls of microfilm (it was state-of-the-art technology at one point).

I haven’t met anyone who pines for the old days of typewriters, whiteout, and super wide pedigree pages in a really wide notebook.

The crowd-sourcing of having people all over the world working on the human tree has resulted in some fantastic acceleration of the work.

Who knows, we may have verbal interfaces soon. Each technology set has its plusses and minuses. And serving others of God’s children continues to provide blessings to them and to us.

The work God has invited us to do for his children who have passed on remains the same in intent while the technology tooling and the skills with the current state technology tooling may change.

Please have patience with yourself when adjusting to changes in the technologies or the user interfaces. Focus on aligning with God’s will and the internal peace he reliably offers when we seek to do His will.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

(John 14:27)

Who among us couldn’t use a bit of internal peace in the world today?

We’re improving, and yet for the people in our Ward who do not yet have your 4 generations in FamilySearch, any of the Ward TFH Consultants would be happy to help you get started. Family History is just like any other journey in that you start with the first step. Contact us for free help to get you started and “fishing” on your own.

How to Add an Unconnected Person

Scenario: You’re looking at a digital scan of a newspaper from 1907 and as you finish your ancestors obituary information, you feel prompted to help the other obituary on the page. But you’re not sure how to add them because you don’t know if they’re related to you yet.

  1. First check if they already have a page in FamilySearch.org. Use the record you have to search with whatever information is in that record.
  2. If you find them, then add the information in the Obituary to their existing family search page.
  3. But if not, then you can add a page for that person in FamilySearch.org so their family can find them.
  4. From the top-of-page menu, select Family Tree, then Recents. Note another level of menu options show up.
  5. From that new second row of menus, select Recents (yes, again).
  6. Scroll to the bottom of that pop-up and select ADD UNCONNECTED PERSON.
  7. Enter whatever information you have on that person (e.g., Name, Sex, Deceased, etc.).
  8. Select NEXT. FamilySearch.org will then check if there is already a record. a. It may show another record, which may or may not be this person. b. It may offer Create New button.
  9. Unless you have certainty it is the same person, select Create New.
  10. FamilySearch.org creates a person page for that person you just added.
  11. That person’s family can add more info or merge with a page you didn’t realize was already there.

The End. That’s it. Easy peasy (with practice).

You converted a prompting to help another person into an action that may bless another family.

How do I find Cousins? (Step-by-Step)

This is a way, not the only way. Typically with software applications there are multiple ways to do a task.

  1. Pick a town or city where your direct line relatives lived for some time.
  2. From the top-of-page menu, select Search, then Records. A “Search Historical Records” page shows.
  3. Enter only Last Names, say “Smith”.
  4. Enter the city or county and state in Place.
  5. Select MORE OPTIONS
  6. Under “Add Life Event”, select DEATH.
  7. Enter in Death Place the city or county and state. (Hint: Start smaller geographies. A small town over a big city.)
  8. Enter in Death Year (Range) from as far back as you want (perhaps 1800, or 1900) in From and enter 1925 in To (which is 100 years ago). a. Limiting your search to 100+ years back avoids what to do with living people and helps you focus on the dead, which are public-facing pages. b. Limited your search to just one cemetery makes the process faster to complete (and feel progress). c. You can repeat the process with wider search parameters as you gain confidence and make more progress.
  9. Select the yellow Search button at the bottom. The search results show on another page.
  10. Then sort of like a youth project going to the local cemetery and ensuring everyone has a person page on familysearch.org, that’s what you do for people of your surname in that (hopefully) small location. If they already have a page (the tiny pedigree icon next to the camera icon), then move on to the next name that does not yet have a person page.
  11. Use the preceding instructions, “How to Add an Unconnected Person” to add a page for each person in that town or city.
  12. If you started with a small town, this is easier to start with less people.

I have found that as I add a person page, and then whatever resource hint details on these people, that a large percentage of them ends up being a cousin.

Remember that we started with one of our direct line surnames, AND picked a small location where our own ancestors had lived before.

That method has worked reliably for me for years.

Yes, sometimes you will end up creating a person page for someone unrelated. So remind yourself that you just helped someone from another family find their people, and move to the next person. In Temple & Family History you didn’t waste your time because it is ALL service to others.

This is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. Service to others is a lifetime of work, not a single instance of help. This is true for service both to the living and service to the dead.

My Not-Yet-Member Father Told Me About This

I’m not sure why I didn’t know about it, but I learned about Family Search Labs from my Father.

He teaches a genealogy course at a local university extension class and knew about this and shared it with me.

See Family Search Labs if you’d like to see the experimental (not yet rolled out) approaches FamilySearch is trying now.

Some are quite interesting. You can choose to be an early tester if interested.

Memories (Molecular Memory vs FamilySearch.org Memories)

Story Time

She grew up hearing stories about an ancestor traveling to America on the Titanic. See the 5:28 min video

TIP: Pictures of our ancestors show some shared characteristics inherited by us. Share photos with your extended family in FamilySearch.org Memories tab. I am so grateful for the photos our family has passed down from the 1800’s.

Different optional story. Related to turning our hearts towards our fathers: Woman Stunned to See Grandparent’s Wartime Locket Online After Stranger Buys it in Thrift Shop to Find Owner

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.

As Ward Temple & Family History Consultants we are called to serve & 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)

P.S. - Older versions of this Ward Message (without names), with some how-to instructions, are at familyhistorystuff.com for your reference. This site is not for profit. The .com was a mistake when .org was intended, and would have doubled the cost to fix the mistake.