Sheldon Martin, director of audience engagement and growth in the Priesthood and Family Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taught a principle in his class, “Discovering My Ancestors’ Stories Can Strengthen My Emotional Wellness,” at this year’s RootsTech conference:
“As we start to think about our ancestors, there can be a strength that is beyond us: the crowds cheering us on — those who’ve come before.”
Many who participate in genealogy and family history work around the world find this as they research.
‘Confidence to do more and to keep searching’
Kathryn Hollingsworth, a mission leader of the Uruguay Montevideo West Mission with her husband, President Flint D Hollingsworth, is an example of this.
Sister Hollingsworth’s mother, who died in 2003, loved family history. She told Sister Hollingsworth about a gap in their family tree, a project she never had the opportunity to complete. Sister Hollingsworth, years later, had the opportunity to work with a friend in her ward who was well-versed in family history.
“I needed a lot of help from my ward-member friend. I was at the beginning, and it gave me confidence to do more and to keep searching,” she said.
The gap in her family tree started with her fourth-great-grandmother, whose marriage records were missing.
“Once we were able to find that first marriage of my fourth-great-grandmother and find that she had a daughter, that opened up this whole line that none of this daughter’s work of her family had been done because nobody could find a real record of her.”
Sister Hollingsworth quickly dove into the family line and found families of 10 or more whose records had never been found.
“I probably found 75 people that hadn’t had their work done,” she said.
‘I felt like she was helping me’
Throughout the process of discovering her ancestors, Sister Hollingsworth was discovering more about her personal connection with her mother: “I felt like she was helping me find the correct information for this older daughter that nobody really knew about,” she said. “So, that was really cool for me to help my mom finish what she had started and wasn’t able to finish.”
Her mother wasn’t the only ancestor on the other side of the veil “cheering her on,” as Martin taught. As Sister Hollingsworth dove deeper into this family line, she had one name repeating in her mind:
“Evelyn.”
“Her name just kept coming to my mind over and over again. When I found her, I saw her name out of the corner of my eye on the computer screen, and it jumped out at me,” she said.
With the assistance of a friend in her ward, Hollingsworth found a record of Evelyn’s daughter who had died when she was 2 years old.
“She wanted that little girl sealed to her and her family,” Sister Hollingsworth said.
Family history work ‘written on my heart’
Martin, during his message at RootsTech, said: “We have learned that as we discover their stories — not just find their names, but learn who they are, try to understand the life that they lived, there begins to be a strength that we feel inside of us.”
For Sister Hollingsworth, taking the 2-year-old’s name to the temple was an unforgettable memory.
“This experience taught me that through priesthood power, authority and keys that those ordinances are real and that they are on earth and in heaven. Those ordinances can only take effect through Jesus Christ,” she said. “And so, I think this experience solidified what I already knew and just made it more written on my heart that family history work really is powerful because of Jesus Christ.”
At the end of his message at RootsTech, Martin left audiences with an invitation: “I hope that we can discover more than just names and dates and places. I hope we can discover who these people were. What could you learn about them? What circumstances did they grow up in? As we do that, we know that it will help us gain perspective about their experience and about our own life.”
