This document summarizes what the author wishes everyone knew about family history. It dispels myths that genealogy is complete or too difficult, noting there is always more to do. The purpose of family history work is to submit names for temple ordinances. The author provides tips on utilizing FamilySearch's resources like Family Tree, indexed records, and hints to find ancestors requiring temple work. Youth are encouraged to participate to avoid temples providing names when families need assistance.

1. What I Wish Everyone in the Church Knew About Family History
Ben Baker

2. My Background
•Nearly 5 years as a Software Engineer at FamilySearch
•Currently work on Family Tree, but try to use all our products
•Have previously given several presentations going into more detail on several similar topics. To view/download these presentations go to http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84.

3. 3 Great Myths of Family History
My genealogy is done / There is nothing for me to do
Doing Family History is too hard and time consuming
Family History is for old people

4. Purpose of FamilySearch
The purpose of the Family History Department is to helpChurch members fulfilltheir divinely appointed responsibility to discovertheir families and submittheir names for temple ordinances

5. Key Indicator Reports
Ask your
•Family history consultant(s)
•High priest group leader
•Bishop
•Stake president
about this report for your stake/ward.

6. Share Your Knowledge
As shown from the purpose statement and key indicator report, increasing participation among all members is paramount.
Share what you know with:
•Your family, from immediate family to distant cousins
•Your friends, from ward members to those not of our faith

7. Why Youth Are Needed
Elder Neal L. Anderson challenged the youth at RootsTech 2014 “to set a personal goal to help prepare as many names for the temple as baptisms you perform in the temple.” https://www.lds.org/topics/family-history/temple-challenge
Why?
Because temples shouldn’t have to provide names
when your own family needs your help and
Experiencing “both halves” of the blessing builds faith
NO MORE TEMPLE WELFARE!

8. Critical Paradigm To Understand –Part 1
Where you can help the most
1.Find your relatives in indexed records and link them to persons in Family Tree
2.Upload photos, stories and documents of your relatives and link them to persons in Family Tree
3.Help index historical records
4.Clean up data in Family Tree
5.Reserve temple ordinances for your family
Family Tree
Digitized Images
Indexed Records
Historical Records (Microfilm and original documents)
Living Memory
Photos, Stories, Documents, Audio
Completed LDS Temple Ordinances

9. Critical Paradigm To Understand –Part 2
The best way
to find people who need LDS temple work is to find people who are NOT in the tree yet
The best way
to find people not in the tree yet is
to find them in a historical record with someone who is already in the tree

10. Embrace Change
Embrace change, don’t be afraid of it
Click on new things to see what they do
I don’t think you can mess up anything in a single click, but be sure to read warnings.

11. Keep up to Date
Read the FamilySearch blog at https://familysearch.org/blog/en/for updates on new features and other happenings.
Subscribe to the blog via RSS
Google “how to subscribe to an rssfeed” for helps –I use Outlook and feedly
Use the categories and search for information you’re most interested in

12. Family Tree is “Our Tree”
•Freely available to anyone worldwide
•Reduces duplication of effort
•Increases collaboration to arrive at the best information
•Information added outlives contributors
•Link person profiles to additional information
•More on this topic in my presentation “Finding ‘My Tree’ Within FamilySearch Family Tree’s ‘Our Tree’” on SlideShare
We can all go further faster by working together

13. Record Hints are Awesome!
•Searches indexed records for you
•Will find records based on all information, including maiden and married names
•Often overcomes errors in records
•Only presents high confidence matches
•4x increase in sources attached since rollout

17. Congratulations!
You have just found someone in a record that is not in the tree

19. Record Hints in the DescendancyView

20. Search Records Link
•Starting point
•Search section for how to refine

21. Starting Point for Further Refined Searches

22. Example Search Refinement

23. Use Other “Tree” Views

24. DescendancyView

25. Fan Chart View

26. Portrait Pedigree View

27. Puzzilla.org Can Also Help Find Areas To Work

28. View Memories of Your Relatives

29. Scope of Interest
Internal term used to define those persons who will show up in this section of memories and also in temple opportunities.
The system is showing you persons four generations above you along with their spouses, children and grandchildren.

32. Make Your E-mail Public

33. Use Family History Resources on lds.org
View the main lds.org page for family history at http://www.lds.org/topics/family-history

34. Get Help With Family History Callings
For training and resources for Family History callings go to http://www.lds.org/callings/temple-and-family-history

35. Share The “Why” of Family History With Those Not of Our Faith
Share http://mormon.org/family-historywith others

36. Other Useful Tips
•Use more than one tab when doing work to keep context more easily. Using your mouse to middle click will open something in new tab
•Use https://beta.familysearch.orgto try out things and see previews of coming features
•There is now a site map for familysearch.org at https://familysearch.org/site-map. I gave a presentation at the 2013 conference that while getting out of date is also a decent site map. See http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/a-whirlwind-tour-of- family-search-resources-syllabusand http://www.slideshare.net/bakers84/a-whirlwind-tour-of- family-search-resources-presentationfor the list of URLs and presentation.
•Many more than time allows

37. 3 Great Myths of Family History
My genealogy is done / There is nothing for me to do
Doing Family History is too hard and time consuming
Family History is for old people

38. © 2014 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved
Thank You!

39. Images Used
•Slide 5 –Screenshot from Family History Department Priesthood Key Indicator report
•Slides 11, 13-26, 28, 30-32 –Screenshots taken from https://familysearch.org
•Slide 27 –Screenshot taken from https://puzzilla.org
•Slide 33-34 –Screenshots taken from http://lds.org
•Slide 35 –Screenshot taken from http://mormon.org