From Dave Kane on FB Temple and Family History Consultants group
I’m a new Ward Temple and Family History Consultant in Utah. We are having some exciting early successes that I wanted to share with you. Maybe it sparks an idea or two for someone.
Our primary focus is to help members take their own family names to the temple and feel the joy of offering their ancestors the opportunity to make covenants with Christ through temple ordinances.
In our first 3 weeks of our program, we have
- about 20 members who have found ancestors who needed ordinances done and have reserved their temple ordinances. - Most had never reserved names before.
- Several have gone to the temple and started doing those names.
- 40+ people using Ordinances Ready who had not used it before.
- 10+ people doing indexing using the Get Involved app and over 5,000 names completed so far.
- quite a few members have shared that they have really been feeling the spirit of Elijah and we see a lot of members excited about Family History.
We have realized there are some great tools that make the work very easy and we are focusing on using those.
- After reading chapter 25 in the handbook and some training videos , I spoke with our EQ and RS president, their counselors assigned to FH , our Bishop and YW President, and consultants who were already in place. I asked each of them for their input as to where the temple and family history program should go.
- I met with our Ward Council in November and shared a written plan of what we wanted to do. I taught them how to use Ordinances Ready.
- we were invited to share that plan and more on the 5th Sunday in Dec with the adults in the ward.
- on the 5th Sunday we shared our plan, our testimonies, and taught them how to use Ordinances Ready and Get Involved.
- Ordinances Ready- we also taught how OR pulls names and how it will gather your personal names, then family groups then ward, then stake, then world. We shared that we want every member in the ward to either be reserving and printing their own names or using OR. To at least be doing names from the Ward rather than general temple names.
- we taught how to use OR to see your relationship to the name you are doing and to learn a little about them.
- we discussed how we want youth to use this and learn about the ancestors they are performing ordinances for. We discussed how much more meaningful that will make temple device for the youth.
- we emphasized how easy OR is and how it can be learned ina few minutes and only takes a few minutes to use before heading to the temple- including learning a little about the ancestor.
- we taught everyone in the 5th Sunday class how to download the Get Involved app and how to do indexing. We showed them how easy it is to do a ndhiw you can do a batch on your phone in just a few minutes while waiting in line or anywhere.
- We discussed the things we will begin teaching and asked for who was interested. We emphasized that “this is not your grandma’s family history “. That we recognize everyone is very busy and we are not asking for 10 hours per week and lots of trips to libraries. Much can be accomplished with just a few minutes of training and a few minutes of time.
-Because of high interest we are teaching a group class on Tuesday nights but our primary focus is one on one and we do that as well and will do a lot more of it starting in March. (I don’t believe group classes are necessary but in our case, it has been a great kick off and there has been a lot of comradery and excitement in class. We’ve about 15 students per week).
- our focus is on teaching 3 things to members one on one (these are the first three things we taught in our class - then we will teach a few additional things).
1- Ordinances Ready - and if the member will be going to the temple soon, have them reserve the name for it and maybe even reserve a temple time. (Takes only 5-10 minutes)
2- Get Involved including doing their first batch (Takes 5-10 minutes)
3- BYU virtual pedigree (explained below) including reserving 10 temple names (takes about 45 minutes).
So in about an hour we can teach the three or grand and the member will know how to do indexing and finding and reserving temple names using the easiest methods. (For members with intermediate computer skills. We have spent more time with some older members. ).
BYU virtual pedigree is a free web based program that interfaces with family search. Its main function is to scour your ancestors for anyone with a green temple icon- ready to have their ordinances done. It is very similar to how Ordinances Ready finds names if you don’t have any reserved.
Basically, you identify an ancestor from your fan chart in family search- say a 4th great grandather. Put the personal ID in BYU virtual pedigree, then go through some steps and it gives you a list of everyone ready for ordinances. Then you click on each one and it takes you to family search and you reserve the names (doing as much verification accuracy as you desire). Then you go to the next 4th great grandfather and do the same. 32 4th great grandfathers. As one brother recently said to me “what do you think your 4th ggpa in the spirit world is praying for? For all of his descendants to receive their ordinances and make covenants with Christ “. (BYU-VP gets above your own ancestry line and finds all the decendants- your cousins).
- many in our ward come from Pioneer stock. Their family history work is “done”. We have not had any yet that do not have at least hundred of ancestors waiting for their temple work to be done.
- how is this possible for well researched trees? A few main places the names come from:
1- ancestors recently turned 110 years old. (We like to explain- no matter how good grandma or aunt was at family history she couldn’t do the work for these people that had not been deceased long enough and were not direct ancestors.
2- indexing- names are added to the family trees but the work is not submitted as part of indexing
3- non-member lines. More than half of all Famiky Search users are not members. They create trees but do not do the temple work.
Our goal is to teach these three programs to 100 members of the ward in 2024. And to have each one reserve 10 temple names as part of the training. That will be 1,000 names. We’re calling it the 100/1,000 gather Israel plan.
(I’ll add a comment below about what else we will teach in the class and to individuals one on one as they need it).
For our group class we are doing 8 weeks of 1 hour classes.
It’s 4 weeks of training with every other week being a workshop to work on what we taught and get extra help if needed.
There 4 trainings are
1: Gather Israel using Ordinances ready and BYU Virtual Pedigree
2: Gather Israel through Research- an introduction
3: Indexing- 1) Get Involved, 2) standardizing location names and similar projects periodically available in FamilySearch and 3) traditional indexing (we explain that there are usually no “basic” level indexing projects available anymore. This is because AI is used to do the more basic indexing and Get Involved is reviewing what AI has transcribed and approving or correcting it)
4: 1- Adding memories, 2- how to do your own family history(including using My Story in FamilySearch) 3- activities and other fun things in FamilySearch, 4- photo scanning, digitizing home videos and other resources available at our local FS library
About Research- we teach members to go to their fan chart and see if there are people missing. If people don’t have 4-5 generations done then a) BYU virtual pedigree is not the right tool for them. b) they need to do traditional research to find their direct line ancestors.
We teach research one on one because it is different for everyone depending on location and time frame.
Two last points- I just share all this as an example that so far is working for us. I realize it will be different in some smaller wards or branches. I’d love to hear what other people are doing- I love to borrow good ideas.
- Roy from this group recently was very kind and taught me how to use Puzzilla. It is an excellent tool that I now use too. It can also identify individuals in family search who are ready for temple ordinances, but in my opinion BYU virtual pedigree is easier to teach and use- and it’s free whereas Puzzilla is free in the FS libraries or church with browser extension but $40 per year for the premium version that shows those whose ordinances are available (well worth $40). However Puzzilla can do much more that I don’t think BYU virtual pedigree can. Where we will use Puzzilla is for members who have a full tree, have completed or are not interested in BYU VP, and want to find new people missing from their tree. Puzzilla has some great functionality to find missing people. (Ordinances Ready and BYU Virtual Pedigree are great tools but both are using names already in FS. Neither find new/missing people like Puzzilla does)
BYU Virtual Pedigree link (or you can just Google BYU virtual pedigree):
https://virtual-pedigree.fhtl.org/login
- We have some slide decks we could make available to you if that’s if interest. (They are a work in progress and we don’t have the final 2 lessons in there yet. ). (If it’s okay with the admins and there is interest I could add it to the “files” section of this group rather than sending it out individually).
- We also have a step by step training guide 2 page handout for BYU virtual pedigree we can share if anyone would like it. (We are updating it with a couple things).
No comments:
Post a Comment