Are you interested in finding your family? Your father's (paternal) or your mother's (maternal) side? Do you want to learn more about how to find the records to search for your great-great-grandmother/grandfather? One of the best things about Family History is Family. So researching family isn't hard. However, if you've never researched, it can be daunting and a bit intimidating. I know I was when I first started. Along my Family History journey, I made hundreds of mistakes, and even though I am taking college classes for Family History research, I still make mistakes. Trust me, I'm no scholar when it comes to research or knowing how to put together a research report or the verbatim wordage to use. But I try every day to improve my skill set.
Learning how to research, use pedigree charts, and Family Group records were self-learned before I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1999. After then, life happened, and I fell away from the Church in 2003. However, even during those times, I still researched. In fact, I never stopped. I became active again in 2015, and that was then; it was "All or nothing," I remember saying when I answered the door to two sister Missionaries.
In 2017, while praying, I asked Heavenly Father what He wanted me to do. I was serving already at the Stake Family History Center, attending the Temple, and providing service to those in need. This was the second time Heavenly Father purposely sought me out, and I didn't/don't want to screw it up. But I wanted to do more. It was then I had maybe a dream or premonition of seeing myself helping people with their Family History, I was at home, talking to a young lady on the computer, and I had a missionary tag on. Still, the dream made no sense. I was at home; I have a dog I could not bear to not be with for an extended period of time, let alone eighteen months.
I told my family History center leader what I had dreamt or seen, and she said to go for it. Of course, I needed solid confirmation, and I prayed about it. The next day I was on Facebook thumbing the feed, and I saw an ad from FamilySearch, "Do you want to serve a mission?" I clicked the hyperlink. Long story short, three months later, I was serving a service mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from June 2017 and served until June 2020 for Virtual Records of Operation (VROC), out of Virginia.
Virtual Remote Operation Centers are specific groups of people who help with many things concerning family history work, including special indexing projects, for FamilySearch. I loved my mission. I was able to help people (like you) find their ancestors in the documents that we were indexing. I loved my mission so much my plans are after I graduate in the Spring of 2022 (in just a few short months) from BYU-Idaho; I am planning on serving a FamilySearch Records mission, mainly because I know how important this work is.
Now back to FamilySearch.
So do you have a Family Tree started? Where you can work on it at your leisure and Free? Let me answer a few questions.
- Is FamilySearch better than Ancestry?
Ancestry and FamilySearch are both excellent online family history services. FamilySearch is a completely free genealogy database website, with primarily free access to records (records from Fold3 being the notable exception). You can use an Advanced Search tool by surname, record type, and/or place to access millions of records. The FamilySearch Wiki is a "go-to" resource to find what exists for many family history topics, even beyond FamilySearch's extensive databases.
If you do not have a FamilySearch account, you can register an account and start your own genealogical family tree. Also, FamilySearch is FREE, no charge; did I mention that already? Also, no missionaries will show up at your door, I promise, that is unless you request them to, but that is up to you.
Seriously, what is the worst that can happen when you find new family members? If you need help in doing so, I am always available to help you along the way, in a no-stress, no-frills way, and by Zoom.
If you already have a FamilySearch account, you can do this easily. Log on, then click on the top banner that says Try Relatives at Rootstech: See your relationship to cousins around the world. Click on "Find new Cousins." The next page displays the number of relatives that have joined FamilySearch to see on an interactive map and send a message to connect "View Relatives." Then the next page is RootsTech Relatives; you can find new relatives by location, by an ancestor, search for an ancestor, or talk/message the contacts you have made.
If you have not signed up for Rootstech, I suggest you do! These classes are FREE for the 2nd year in a row.
RootsTech starts on the 3rd of March and concludes on the 5th of March - (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). The classes are Free, and the topics are Connection, DNA, Family Historian, Family History Search, Family Members, Family Tree Chart, Getting Started, Historical Events, Historical People, Historical Places, Preservation, Professional Genealogist, Race and Ethnicity, Record Custodians, Research Help, Research Methods, Storytelling, Technology, Traditions and Travel. There are 5 to 10 subclasses on each topic! If you miss a class you really want to see, YouTube is your friend. However, some of those classes will only be available for a limited time. So tuning in with a notebook for note-taking is the best strategy.
So are you one of my cousins? Let us
find out!
