Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Family History Department, often asks people who aren’t members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints why they do family history work.
They typically talk about feeling compelled to explore their genealogy, wanting to connect with their family or having a desire to belong, Elder Hamilton said. This “worldwide phenomenon” crosses race, religion, language and any other potential barrier — “pretty much everybody” is interested in family.
But for Latter-day Saints, genealogy is more than a way to find connection and belonging. Elder Hamilton shared something Church President Russell M. Nelson once told him: “‘Now remember, genealogy is not our goal. The temple is our goal. … We do family history, we gather records, we run a RootsTech genealogy conference as a way to increase temple ordinances for God’s children.’”
Elder Hamilton spoke during the Taste of RootsTech lunch — a special event for select general Church leaders and employees as part of RootsTech 2025 — on Friday, March 7.
RootsTech is a three-day global online and in-person family history conference hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other leading genealogy organizations.
The 2025 event was held March 6-8, with an in-person event in Salt Lake City and online at RootsTech.org, with select content available in multiple languages.
During Taste of RootsTech, Elder Hamilton said that the Family History Department thinks often about President Nelson’s directive. President Nelson has also introduced to them the idea that temples are “nourished with names.”
Historically, Elder Hamilton continued, individuals have taken on the task of searching for deceased family members, processing records and submitting names to the temple. But now, technology such as artificial intelligence is hastening the work.
“We have a long history, 130 years now, of scouring the globe, digitizing and capturing records, so that we can then build the trees which provide the names which nourish the temples,” Elder Hamilton said. “This is our model. This is what we do, and this is how we do it.”
Building a ‘family tree of humanity’
Elder Hamilton highlighted how “the entire world can build a family tree.”
He noted that in 2024, millions of individuals registered for a FamilySearch account, with many not being Latter-day Saints. The same year, a significant number of names were added to FamilySearch, and many of these names were contributed by those outside the Church.
“The world is coming to FamilySearch,” Elder Hamilton said. “The world’s coming to RootsTech, where they’re helping build this family tree. … We’re trying to build a family tree of humanity.”
The Family History Department estimates that somewhere around 100 billion people have lived on Earth since Adam and Eve’s time, Elder Hamilton continued. “So we’re trying to link that group of people on both sides of the veil, link them into one large tree so that Latter-day Saints using tools like Ordinances Ready can find the names of their ancestors and perform temple ordinances.”
Ordinances Ready is a tool on the FamilySearch Family Tree app that searches a member’s family tree to find an ancestor for whom ordinance work can be performed. The member then selects an ordinance and brings the name to the temple. If a relative is not found, Ordinances Ready can provide a name from a member’s ward or stake.
Elder Hamilton said tools like Ordinances Ready have helped create the marked increase in recent years of Church members submitting names to the temple.
He added, “I would suggest that RootsTech itself is another manifestation of the hastening of the work. … In lots of ways, I think we can use family history to further the Lord’s work.”
