“Finding Joy in Temple and Family History Work“
Can we be saved through stories? This episode explores the stories we tell, as we record our own experiences, document the stories of family members, and “redeem our dead”–first by rediscovering them and keeping their stories alive and then doing their temple work.
Bradley leads an informed discussion with Jenne, Catherine and Christopher that includes the following points:
- Role of “Family History Work” in current LDS culture
- Family History as collecting data for temple work
- Some advice and guidance
- Family History as collecting and sharing stories
- The power and importance of stories
- Family History and personal ritual
Recurring Donation:
One Time Donation:
Class Member Reading: Malachi 3:16–18; D&C 85:9; D&C 128:7; Moses 6:5–8, 46; Abraham 1:31
Additional Teacher Reading: D&C 110:13–16; Mark 3:31-35
You can access the Assigned Reading here.
You can access the Lesson Notes here.
Resources
- Abundance of Family Search resources:
- Family History for Beginners
- Rookie Mistakes
- Genealogical Proof Standard
- A Guide to Research
- Genealogy Courses
- and of course, Family Search itself
- Ancestry.com
- DNA testing at Ancestry.com
- National Geographic genetic analysis of the human race
- Teaching Family History in a homeschool curriculum
- Pope Francis’ remarks about evangelizing, not proselytizing
- TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are, which makes genealogy very entertaining if not in a way most of us can apply to our own lives!
- Principles of Family History Research
- Book documenting miracles in Family History Research
- University of Utah database with many digitized resources
- Interviewing Guide for Oral Histories
- Catherine’s book on her female ancestors
- Article about how interrelated we all are as a human family
- Daughters of Utah Pioneers Site
Many thanks to Devin Roth for the beautiful bumper music. Check out his arrangement of hymns and other work at DevinRothMusic.
Thanks to James Estrada for the audio post-production.
Engaging Gospel Doctrine 
I enjoyed listening to this episode. I enjoy doing “living” history in the sense of reading and transcribing journals/life histories/letters/etc. Not believing in the after life definitely makes family history even more poignant in the sense that I feel mortality as I do this work – if that makes any sense. Writing our history down (and having posterity) is what makes us immortal – if people actually take the time to read the histories.
I would say that reading journals/letters are interesting but a life history is definitely more easily consumed and many times more interesting as it only touches the highlights. My kids enjoy learning about how people lived in the past (like reading the Little House books). It is great that they will be able to read some of their ancestors histories – for those that took the time to write them. I was a bit disappointed to hear that my grandpa didn’t write his history because his life was too boring (before he got cancer he was the oldest person actively hang gliding – seems interesting to me). I had another great grandfather that also said he had a boring life but took the time to do a life history anyways – reading how he would go with his friends shooting each other with shot guns (not sure what type) for fun was definitely interesting though (don’t know how they didn’t end up killing each other).
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