Thursday, April 9, 2015

“G” is for Genealogy

GBehold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he will turn the heart of the fathers toward the children, and the heart of the children toward their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”1

Genealogy--NinoThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has perhaps the largest collect of genealogical archives in the world, and it is in constant expansion. There are Family History Centers all over the world where all people (not just the LDS) are invited to visit and begin their research for their ancestors. And if you don’t live near a Family History Center – where personal assistance in learning all you need to know to find your ancestors is guaranteed – you can take advantage of the services offered online, all free of charge (both in situ or online).

While I was in Italy, doing my husband’s genealogy was tedious, and at times dirty and a bit iffy, but the heavy, delicate volumes were at my gloved fingertips – up to a point: while the tomes went back as far as the early 1500s, some of his ancestors only came to the city we lived in, in 1710. Now, a great deal of this information is available at http://familysearch.com. I am now working on my own family’s genealogy and am finding names that heretofore were unavailable.

Indexing is a project that the Church began in 2006 to further assist in searching for our ancestors. It consists of looking at original documents and entering the information found into the Church archives. This is done on a voluntary basis, and anyone who wishes to participate in this project may, whether they are members of the Church or not; just click on the hyperlink in the preceding paragraph and then click on indexing if you are interested.

The Church’s interest in genealogical research is based on the scripture introducing this article. If you are interested in knowing more about WHY it is so important to us, you will need to wait for the letter “T” in this series. Open-mouthed smile

 

1Malachi 4:5-6 (Old Testament)

© Mary Purpari 2015 All Rights Reserved.

5 comments:

  1. I had no idea the church was so heavily involved in genealogy, Mary. How great to have all this information at your disposal! Looking forward to your "T" post. ☺

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It really is great. I need to see if maybe I can get some more of Nino's work done, following up on the line that came from the other city, which as the crow flies, was fairly close, but following the roads, THAT is a different matter.

      Delete
  2. J here, stopping by from the #atozchallenge - where I am part of the A to Z Ambassador Team! (I'm a minion/volunteer under Arlee.)
    Great post. I'm looking forward to more. Let me know if I can help you in any blogging way this month. I've followed you on your listed social media sites.
    @JLenniDorner

    Interesting. A large portion of my family isn't on those sites. The Lenni-Lenape never tell our true name to people (the Name Giver and perhaps one other person are the only ones to know). So we weren't documented. That, and by the time our tribe was legally considered human, most of us were dead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi J. They used to have a Native American section that was completely different from the others, because it listed only first names. I know, because I looked up some of my Cherokee ancestors. But that was like 10 years or so ago and many things have changed. I'll look into it if you'd like. I'm glad you enjoyed the post--genealogy is one of my passions, and I've written three other articles about it.

      Delete
  3. When I was in college I researched a lot of my family history. I keep thinking one day I'll get back into it again. Now that we have online access to so much information, I should be able to fill in a lot of holes. (Visiting A to Z!)

    ReplyDelete

I would really love to read your thoughts, so leave a comment so we can all converse. Thanks.