As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are counseled by our leaders to search out our ancestors. There are so many ways to learn about our family history and SO MUCH TO LEARN. Each of us is the unique product of generations of men and women who lived, loved, laughed, and hopefully, left a legacy. But one of the special reasons members of our church learn about their families is tied to our belief that families can be sealed in holy temple and live as families in the eternities. For more information on these beliefs, please see this explanation.
I am blessed to come from a long line of LDS pioneers, but one thing that means is that my direct line family history work has been researched for a long time by people much, much smarter than me with much, much more time and resources. I have tried to take advantage of their faith and generosity by using their information to educate myself and my children about our family history. One thing I have always longed to do though is temple work for someone related to me. A new resource, called puzilla.org, has finally made this possible. It focuses on helping people do descendancy research, and I was able to "find my cousins" as Elder Neil L. Andersen has challenged - a whole family - thanks to puzilla.org and the US Census resources. Last weekend my 12 year old son and I attended the Atlanta Georgia temple and performed the baptisms and confirmations in behalf of these deceased relatives. I look forward to the coming weeks/months where I will be able to perform other temple work in their behalf and eventually seal this entire family together, allowing them to have the opportunity of being together as a family forever.
