The Great Family Project

As parents of nine children, we are always on the look-out for anything we can do to help them navigate the astonishingly complex and difficult world they have to face day to day.  So it was only natural that our ears perked up one day in 2011 as we sat in our little church building near our home in Prague, Czech Republic and watched a transmission of the October General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when an Apostle made us a specific promise.  One of the best things about the church is that it is lead on earth by a Prophet and a Quorum of Twelve Apostles, authorized by Christ’s own priesthood to act and speak in His name here on the earth.  We believe it and when the Apostles say something or promise something in the name of Jesus Christ, we try hard to pay attention and take it in.  

That day in Prague, we heard Elder Bednar speak about the importance of seeking out our ancestors in order to provide for them the opportunity to receive sacred covenants such as baptism.  (We can be baptized vicariously—on their behalf—and they can accept or reject it according to their choice from their perspective on the other side of death’s veil.)  As he spoke and invited the youth of the world to participate in genealogy and family history, he made the most incredible promise and his words struck a chord deep in our heart.  In his words, 

     “As you respond in faith to this invitation, your hearts shall turn to the fathers. ... 
     Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding. And I 
     promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As 
     you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and 
     throughout your lives.”  

That protection is exactly what we as parents spend so much time seeking to provide for our children.  And here was an Apostle of Jesus Christ, promising exactly that if we and our children would “turn [our] hearts to [our] fathers.”  

We talked about it and tried a few things to make family history more interesting and to a certain extent, it was working.  Then a year later we found ourselves once again snuggled together with our children, this time in our new home in Colorado Springs, listening to General Conference.  Another Apostle, Elder Richard G. Scott, spoke on a similar theme.  Like Elder Bednar, he taught of the protection this type of work could provide.  He said:

      "Do you young people want a sure way to eliminate the influence of the 

      adversary in your life? Immerse yourself in searching for your ancestors, 

      prepare their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the 

      temple, and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the 

      ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As you grow older, you 

      will be able to participate in receiving the other ordinances as well. I can think 

      of no greater protection from the influence of the adversary in your life."

Once again, this teaching reverberated within us and we decided to put it to practice.   Fast forward to a sunny Sunday afternoon a month ago as we ate dinner on our patio in our home in Brasilia, Brazil (we move a lot).  We were talking about a number of things, including these promises.  As we talked, an idea came to mind that seemed to originate outside ourselves. I believe it was inspiration.  We were talking about how close we are, relatively speaking, to the bicentennial anniversary of the restoration of Christ’s church on earth.  It was formally restored on April 6, 1830 and we were only 14 years away from the 200th anniversary.  We thought of what the next 14 years would bring and realized that it would see most of our children make their way from childhood to adulthood, with the very youngest halfway through adolescence when the date arrived.  In a flash we saw a way for our family to commemorate the bicentennial in a meaningful way with a project that would take us 14 years to complete and, in the process, open our family up to the tremendous blessings promised by Elder Bednar and Elder Scott.

To understand what our project entails, it is important to explain a tiny bit about modern genealogical research.  The Church has volunteers and professionals around the world who are photographing and preserving genealogical and public records at a furious pace (think in the billions of records).  These records cannot be searched via online or digital research tools unless each and every one is first read by a human (most are handwritten in one of dozens of languages and alphabets or character sets) and then entered into digital, searchable databases that allow researchers to find the information contained in the photograph.  This process is called indexing.  It sounds more complicated than it is and it is easily accomplished by youth and even mature children.  As of today, the Church and a veritable army of volunteers have indexed over 1.3 billion records (70 million just in the 7.5 months so far of 2016).  

But there is so much left to do.

So, back to our project.  We decided as a family that we would try to index 1,000 records for every year the Church has been restored, up to the bicentennial.  That comes out to 200,000 records between the 11 of us (two parents, nine kids).  Splitting it evenly, that’s 18,182 names for each member of our family, which seems like a lot until you factor in how many days there are in the years between when we started our challenge and April 6, 2030.  We only have to average 4 names per day, which takes only a few minutes.  Of course, some of the littlest kids will only have a couple of years where they are old enough to participate before our deadline arrives, so the older ones will need to work hard now to finish their 18,182 and get cracking on the remainder, but we think it’s within the realm of possibility.  

We’re putting together this blog for our own use and hopefully it will serve to motivate us as the next 14 years race by.  By itself it will become a chapter in our own family history record and we can look back on it as the years pass and find motivation to keep going.  We hope.  If we get really ambitious, we’ll incorporate history and writing assignments that tie into what we’re doing, like exploring certain regions or time periods.  For example, I did marriage records from 1877-1878 today and saw trends in the ages and professions of the people getting married in those years that were really interesting.  

We believe that existence does not end at death and that our ancestors are on the other side of mortality, aware of our efforts on their behalf.  Can you imagine with us the strength our teenagers will find in having 18,182 people each on the other side, cheering for them and urging them to make wise choices?  Maybe their encouragement will drown out the distracting voices that will hammer against the kids during their adolescence and beyond.  However it happens, we believe the promises the Apostles have made that our children will be helped and protected as they serve in this way.

You are reading this because somehow you came across our new blog.  We invite you to join us in our challenge!  Go to https://familysearch.org/indexing/ to get started!  Feel free to comment on this blog how your own project is going, what you are learning, and how these promises are coming true in your life!