THE GENESIS OF GENEALOGY

“Why do they do what they do?”A historical narrative about

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’

interest in Family History

The what informs, the why transforms.

IN THE BEGINNING . . .

And the Lord God said, It is not

good that the man should be

alone… - Genesis 2:18

The begats - Genesis 5, Genesis 11

TO TURN THE HEARTS

Closing of the Old Testament with

Malachi’s promise of Elijah’s

coming to turn the hearts. One of

several prophets that spoke about a

“book of remembrance” which kept

records of the generations of Adam

and Eve’s children.

 NEW TESTAMENT

Genealogy of Mary and Joseph - Matthew 1, Luke 3

MIDDLE AGES

Generally, the records were kept to

determine who got power, authority,

and property. If you can tie a line into a

royal line of any country, you will have

many generations already done for you.

So where do the Latter-day

Saints come into the picture?

And why are they so closely

associated with this work?

TO TURN THE HEARTS

One of the first messages given to

Joseph Smith was the reiteration of

Malachi’s promise concerning the

coming of Elijah to turn the hearts –

Sept. 21, 1893

FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY

We believe Elijah returned to earth

to deliver sacred authority on April

3, 1836, in a temple in Kirtland,

Ohio.

Only three years later, microfilm

was invented.

FAMILIES ARE ETERNAL

In the early and mid-1830s, Joseph

received several revelations

regarding the eternal nature of the

family. At a funeral sermon for

Seymour Brunson on 15 August 1840,

the doctrine of baptism for the dead

was first preached publicly.

TEMPLE WORK

The scriptures teach that baptism is

an essential ordinance.

 We believe that the doctrine of proxy

work in behalf of those who are

deceased was revealed so that all

could have an opportunity to

progress.

FREE AGENCY

However, we also believe that this

work performed in the temples of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints is done only as a gift offered to

our ancestors. They are still free to

accept or reject these ordinances.

THE WHAT & HOW

In order to provide these ordinances,

our ancestors have to be identified

individually. The Church began

collecting copies of records.

The Genealogical Society of Utah

was established in 1894.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

The Family History Library was an

outgrowth of the Society’s efforts to

collect and preserve genealogically

significant documents.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

The first Family

History Library was

located in the office of

the Church Historian

at 58 East South

Temple in Salt Lake

City until 1917.

For a time, the

records were housed

in the lower floors of

the Salt Lake Temple.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

They were later

moved to the old

ZCMI building in

downtown Salt Lake.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

They moved them to the

Church Office Building at

50 East North Temple

after its construction in

1971. The Library

occupied part of three

floors in this building, but

soon outgrew it as well.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

Current Family History

Library at 35 East North

Temple opened its doors on

October 23, 1985. It has five

floors (142,000 square feet)

devoted completely to the

preservation of family history

documents and making them

freely available to the public.

MAKE AVAILABLE

Microfilming of genealogical

records began in 1938. The

collection now includes over 2.4

million rolls of microfilmed

genealogical records.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

The Granite Mountain

Records Vault completed in

1963 as a secure, long-term

repository for the records.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

In 1965, the Church asked its members to

research and prepare documentation for

four generations of their ancestors. Data

collected from this program provided a

large portion of the foundation of the

Ancestral File.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

Records of temple ordinances performed were

initially recorded in the Temple Records Index

Bureau which covered the years1846 to1969.

In 1969, the International Genealogical Index

(IGI) was commenced and recorded temple

work done for deceased persons and initially

made available to researchers on microfiche.

COLLECT & PRESERVE

Branch libraries, known

as Family History Centers,

began to open and now

total 46,000 in more than

18 countries throughout

the world. The FHC in

Charlottesville opened in

1970.

MAKE AVAILABLE

MAKE AVAILABLE

Personal Ancestral File (PAF), a

computerized genealogy program,

was launched in 1984, thanks to the

work of several computer

programmers who donated their

work to the Church.

MAKE AVAILABLE

Digital imaging of records commenced in

1998.

In May 1999 the newly created Internet

website www.familysearch.org went

online. It almost immediately crashed due

to an overload of eager viewers. This site

made available many of the earlier

databases such as Ancestral File and the

IGI.

MAKE AVAILABLE

Development of a new database was begun in

2001. This new resource,

new.familysearch.org, attempted to form

individual entries into a family tree format.

Learning their lesson, the Church has been

rolling out this site out gradually to its

members in order to address the problems.

Will eventually roll to general public.

MAKE AVAILABLE

Worldwide Extraction/Indexing Project - a

project that aims to create searchable

digital indexes for scanned images of

historical documents.

Available to be done online in one’s home.

Millions of volunteers.

SUMMARY

The promotion of genealogy and family

history is a vital part of the mission of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints. Millions of dollars along with

millions of hours of volunteer time have

been expended in its support. The

Church’s goal is to make all records more

easily available in order to promote an

increasingly greater knowledge of the

history of the human family.

SUMMARY

The Church’s goal is to make all records

more easily available in order to promote

an increasingly greater knowledge of the

history of the human family.