WEBVTT 00:00:01.900 --> 00:00:05.160 Welcome to the Brigham Young University Family History 00:00:05.166 --> 00:00:08.366 Library Webinar Series. My name is Sean Firmage. 00:00:08.366 --> 00:00:10.206 I will be your host for this webinar. 00:00:10.219 --> 00:00:14.059 Today we will be pleased to hear from Kathryn Grant, who will be 00:00:14.059 --> 00:00:17.599 giving a presentation titled, "What every Family Tree User 00:00:17.599 --> 00:00:20.999 should know about name-finding apps. 00:00:20.999 --> 00:00:23.482 After years on the sidelines, Kathryn started doing 00:00:23.482 --> 00:00:27.508 family history and discovered to her surprise that she loved it. 00:00:27.508 --> 00:00:30.230 Her specialty is mentoring new family historians and 00:00:30.230 --> 00:00:32.704 helping them find success, and maybe even avoid 00:00:32.704 --> 00:00:35.284 some of the mistakes that she's made. 00:00:35.284 --> 00:00:39.004 Kathryn teaches Sunday classes at the BYU Family History Library. 00:00:39.005 --> 00:00:41.988 She also presents at Riverton Saturday Seminars 00:00:41.988 --> 00:00:43.869 and other family history events. 00:00:43.869 --> 00:00:46.738 Her column on family history ran in the Nauvoo Times 00:00:46.738 --> 00:00:49.471 for about a year and is still available online. 00:00:49.471 --> 00:00:52.454 Kathryn works for the LDS Church as a technical writer, 00:00:52.454 --> 00:00:57.200 with a focus on usability and process improvement. 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:01.271 Besides family history, she loves uplifting music, 00:01:01.271 --> 00:01:05.219 thought-provoking books and spring lilacs. 00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:08.579 Kathryn, we’ll turn the time over to you. 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:20.640 (Kathryn) Great! Shaun, thank you so much. 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:25.018 Hi everybody and welcome to our webinar today. 00:01:25.018 --> 00:01:28.813 As we’ve seen, technology has its blessings and challenges 00:01:28.813 --> 00:01:32.544 and we appreciate your patience as we’ve gotten started with this. 00:01:32.544 --> 00:01:38.261 Today’s webinar is about a very important topic that has become 00:01:38.261 --> 00:01:43.241 of interest to people with the many name-finding apps 00:01:43.248 --> 00:01:46.423 being made available to Family Tree users. 00:01:46.423 --> 00:01:52.430 Maybe you have had a friend approach you and say something like, 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:55.726 “Hey! Have you tried such-and-such an app? 00:01:55.726 --> 00:01:58.223 It’s amazing! In a matter of minutes, 00:01:58.223 --> 00:02:01.933 I found over a hundred names for temple work!” 00:02:01.933 --> 00:02:04.828 Name-finding apps have become popular in the last few years 00:02:04.828 --> 00:02:09.436 for doing family history, but they’re also widely 00:02:09.436 --> 00:02:12.442 misunderstood and even misused. 00:02:12.442 --> 00:02:16.104 And that misuse has some unexpected consequences. 00:02:16.104 --> 00:02:19.908 Today I’m hoping that we can shed some light on those consequences 00:02:19.908 --> 00:02:23.358 and talk about how to avoid them. 00:02:23.358 --> 00:02:28.142 I hope this webinar will be of help to three main audiences. 00:02:28.142 --> 00:02:37.382 The first is for people who are using the apps 00:02:37.386 --> 00:02:40.858 or may be considering using the apps. 00:02:40.858 --> 00:02:43.359 The second audience is for consultants 00:02:43.359 --> 00:02:45.865 who help others to find family names. 00:02:45.865 --> 00:02:49.394 And then finally, developers of name-finding apps 00:02:49.394 --> 00:02:55.266 or those who may be considering developing a name-finding app. 00:02:55.266 --> 00:02:59.541 Here's a short overview of what we’re going to be talking about. 00:02:59.541 --> 00:03:02.749 First of all, we’re going to get on the same page as far as what 00:03:02.749 --> 00:03:05.833 we’re talking about in this particular webinar 00:03:05.833 --> 00:03:09.293 when we say “name-finding apps.” 00:03:09.293 --> 00:03:12.053 Then we’re going to talk about some common misconceptions 00:03:12.055 --> 00:03:15.631 that people have about name-finding apps. 00:03:15.631 --> 00:03:20.056 Then we’ll look at some unintended consequences. 00:03:20.056 --> 00:03:23.805 And finally, we’ll look at an alternative approach. 00:03:23.805 --> 00:03:25.786 So let’s go ahead and dive in. 00:03:25.786 --> 00:03:31.290 What do we mean in this webinar when we talk about name-finding apps? 00:03:31.290 --> 00:03:35.541 Basically we’re talking about apps that crawl FamilySearch Family Tree 00:03:35.541 --> 00:03:38.259 to find names with green temples. 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:42.810 Why is there such an appeal for name-finding apps? 00:03:42.810 --> 00:03:45.143 I am guessing if you joined this webinar, 00:03:45.143 --> 00:03:48.719 you’ve probably had more than one friend talk to you about their 00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:51.794 favorite name-finding app and how much they love it. 00:03:51.794 --> 00:03:54.454 So, why do people love these apps so much? 00:03:54.463 --> 00:03:59.392 Well, name-finding apps say that they will save you time, 00:03:59.392 --> 00:04:03.416 that they will reduce the effort required for family history, 00:04:03.416 --> 00:04:08.256 that they will eliminate the tedium (and who doesn’t want that), 00:04:08.256 --> 00:04:13.336 and then finally, they promise to make family history fast and easy. 00:04:13.336 --> 00:04:18.176 Now, for a lot of us, especially if we are just starting out, 00:04:18.176 --> 00:04:21.296 family history can seem like kind of a black box 00:04:21.299 --> 00:04:25.113 and we hear people talk about how they spent years 00:04:25.113 --> 00:04:27.034 trying to break down a brick wall. 00:04:27.034 --> 00:04:29.654 And we might look at some genealogical problem 00:04:29.672 --> 00:04:31.866 and just be completely flummoxed. 00:04:31.866 --> 00:04:35.596 What’s not to love about an app that says 00:04:35.596 --> 00:04:38.212 it’s going to take away all those problems? 00:04:38.212 --> 00:04:44.078 But there’s a little bit more to it, so let’s look at some of the common 00:04:44.078 --> 00:04:49.198 misconceptions that happen when people use these apps. 00:04:49.201 --> 00:04:53.371 It’s important to point out that people don’t promote 00:04:53.371 --> 00:04:55.071 these misconceptions on purpose. 00:04:55.071 --> 00:04:59.260 In other words, no user or developer, for that matter, 00:04:59.260 --> 00:05:02.965 says, “I think I’ll spread some misconceptions.” 00:05:02.965 --> 00:05:07.545 When we have misconceptions, one of the reasons we have them 00:05:07.554 --> 00:05:11.545 is that we don’t know they’re misconceptions. 00:05:11.545 --> 00:05:14.560 It’s been my experience that these misconceptions 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.974 lead to using name-finding apps 00:05:17.974 --> 00:05:22.846 and using the apps tends to reinforce the misconceptions. 00:05:22.846 --> 00:05:27.553 Let’s look at a few of those misconceptions. 00:05:27.553 --> 00:05:30.063 First of all there are three misconceptions 00:05:30.063 --> 00:05:32.500 that tend to go hand-in-hand. 00:05:32.500 --> 00:05:35.624 The first is that the Church is the entity 00:05:35.624 --> 00:05:38.688 that provided the names in Family Tree. 00:05:38.688 --> 00:05:42.388 If we think that, it’s not a very far leap 00:05:42.389 --> 00:05:46.409 to believe if the Church provided the names, 00:05:46.409 --> 00:05:48.971 they must be verified and ready for temple work. 00:05:48.971 --> 00:05:52.261 It’s a logical conclusion, right? 00:05:52.261 --> 00:05:55.301 Finally, if we believe the Church has provide the names 00:05:55.307 --> 00:05:59.247 and they are ready for temple work, it’s not too much of a stretch 00:05:59.249 --> 00:06:01.749 to believe Family Tree was supposed to be 00:06:01.755 --> 00:06:04.744 an on-going source of temple names. 00:06:04.744 --> 00:06:10.630 Let’s take a look at the truth about each of these. 00:06:10.630 --> 00:06:13.046 The first misconception that the Church provided 00:06:13.046 --> 00:06:17.226 the names in Family Tree is not true. 00:06:17.226 --> 00:06:22.375 Where the names came from was users, interestingly enough. 00:06:22.375 --> 00:06:25.735 And that's something that is very often misunderstood 00:06:25.735 --> 00:06:29.842 especially by new users to FamilySearch because 00:06:29.842 --> 00:06:33.120 the FamilySearch website is sponsored by the Church 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:37.596 so it's logical to think the Church provided those names. 00:06:37.596 --> 00:06:40.029 But what the Church and and FamilySearch did 00:06:40.029 --> 00:06:44.455 was they gathered names that were provided by users. 00:06:44.455 --> 00:06:47.670 I have another webinar that goes into a lot more detail 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:51.020 on that so I won’t go into a lot of detail here, 00:06:51.020 --> 00:06:54.414 but it's important to realize the names in Family Tree 00:06:54.414 --> 00:06:58.960 were ultimately contributed by users. 00:06:58.960 --> 00:07:02.240 Here’s an example, for those of you who might remember NOTE Paragraph 00:07:02.244 --> 00:07:05.863 the 4-generation program of the last century. 00:07:05.863 --> 00:07:08.263 We sent in our family history 00:07:08.263 --> 00:07:12.723 on family group sheets like this one. 00:07:12.727 --> 00:07:20.047 This is an actual family group sheet for James Waterfield. 00:07:20.047 --> 00:07:25.622 He’s got a couple of daughters, but notice there’s no wife, 00:07:25.622 --> 00:07:30.262 and there’s a half-sister to these other daughters here, 00:07:30.265 --> 00:07:32.963 but the information is scanty. 00:07:32.963 --> 00:07:38.012 Rose Hannah has more information; Mary, not so much. 00:07:38.012 --> 00:07:40.893 But before we judge people too harshly, 00:07:40.893 --> 00:07:42.627 we might look at this record and go, 00:07:42.627 --> 00:07:47.145 “Wow, that’s kind of shoddy work! That wasn’t very complete.” 00:07:47.145 --> 00:07:53.215 Remember, this sheet was prepared before the days of the internet. 00:07:53.215 --> 00:07:56.686 The person may not have even had access to a typewriter back then, 00:07:56.686 --> 00:07:58.885 for those of you who know what typewriters are 00:07:58.885 --> 00:08:01.032 since we don’t use them much anymore. 00:08:01.032 --> 00:08:06.352 I have no doubt this person was doing the very best that they could. 00:08:06.360 --> 00:08:11.464 They were following the counsel to collect names 00:08:11.464 --> 00:08:15.442 for four generations and to submit them to the church. 00:08:15.442 --> 00:08:19.037 And to be honest with you, many of the names that are 00:08:19.037 --> 00:08:23.756 submitted to Family Tree, are about of this quality. 00:08:23.756 --> 00:08:26.984 It’s harder to see when the name is digital. 00:08:26.984 --> 00:08:30.904 We can look at this family group sheet and see there’s a lot missing. 00:08:30.911 --> 00:08:34.031 But when you look at this same name in Family Tree, 00:08:34.037 --> 00:08:36.775 it's not quite so obvious what's missing. 00:08:36.775 --> 00:08:42.055 We don’t want to be judgmental or critical of people 00:08:42.055 --> 00:08:44.596 who have put names in Family Tree. 00:08:44.596 --> 00:08:48.614 Whether they did it through an old 4-generation program 00:08:48.614 --> 00:08:52.286 or they're doing it today, they’re doing the best they can 00:08:52.286 --> 00:08:56.040 with the information and skills that they have. 00:08:56.040 --> 00:08:58.186 For any of you who have indexed, 00:08:58.186 --> 00:09:01.708 you may be familiar with the old extraction program, 00:09:01.708 --> 00:09:04.774 which was the forerunner of the indexing program. 00:09:04.774 --> 00:09:09.034 Many extracted names were also added to Family Tree. 00:09:09.040 --> 00:09:12.898 We see the neat screen in Family Tree and it's all digital 00:09:12.898 --> 00:09:16.398 and beautiful and easy to read, and sometimes we don't stop 00:09:16.398 --> 00:09:19.705 to think about where that information came from. 00:09:19.705 --> 00:09:25.237 It came from a record like this. Some are a little easier to read. 00:09:25.237 --> 00:09:28.607 Some are a lot harder. But they were, in many cases, 00:09:28.607 --> 00:09:31.328 handwritten records made at the time of the event 00:09:31.328 --> 00:09:36.674 by a person who may or may not have had an extensive education. 00:09:36.674 --> 00:09:40.798 People were doing their best, but this kind of information 00:09:40.798 --> 00:09:49.844 ended up in Family Tree and it varied widely in quality. 00:09:49.844 --> 00:09:54.984 So, did the Church verify all the names in FamilySearch Family Tree? 00:09:54.989 --> 00:09:59.292 Actually, they didn’t. Not because they didn't want to, 00:09:59.292 --> 00:10:01.852 but because it simply wouldn’t be feasible. 00:10:01.855 --> 00:10:10.538 Family Tree has 1.1 billion names in it, 00:10:10.538 --> 00:10:14.640 so it wouldn’t have been feasible for the Church to get 00:10:14.640 --> 00:10:19.057 the staff and the manpower to verify every single one. 00:10:19.057 --> 00:10:22.950 The truth is, we the users are responsible for 00:10:22.950 --> 00:10:27.600 verifying the names in Family Tree. 00:10:27.604 --> 00:10:30.048 Many of those names that we just looked at 00:10:30.048 --> 00:10:32.720 became green temples in Family Tree. 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:36.760 So those extracted records or names submitted with the old 00:10:36.773 --> 00:10:42.287 3 and 4 generation program, ended up in Family Tree 00:10:42.287 --> 00:10:45.031 with green temples looking like they need 00:10:45.031 --> 00:10:47.794 temple work when they actually don’t. 00:10:47.794 --> 00:10:50.269 And that’s an important thing to be aware of 00:10:50.269 --> 00:10:52.861 when you’re using a name-finding app. 00:10:52.861 --> 00:10:57.852 In my experience, about 80% of the green temples that I find 00:10:57.852 --> 00:11:01.838 in Family Tree do not need temple work and there are 00:11:01.838 --> 00:11:05.775 four main reasons for that, that are listed here on the screen. 00:11:05.775 --> 00:11:08.095 The first one is they might be a duplicate. 00:11:08.102 --> 00:11:10.571 If they are a duplicate of a record that already has 00:11:10.571 --> 00:11:14.704 temple work attached, then that work doesn’t need to be done, 00:11:14.704 --> 00:11:16.844 the records just need to be merged. 00:11:16.850 --> 00:11:20.226 The records might also have errors in vital information. 00:11:20.226 --> 00:11:25.486 As an example, I found a record in Family Tree that had come from 00:11:25.488 --> 00:11:31.135 an early submission that had the birth place 00:11:31.135 --> 00:11:37.169 of Cathearth in Cambridgeshire, England. 00:11:37.169 --> 00:11:41.288 And there was no such place as Cathearth, but because 00:11:41.288 --> 00:11:45.602 the last name of that person on the record was one of my family names, 00:11:45.602 --> 00:11:48.553 and because it was close to where that family lived, 00:11:48.553 --> 00:11:51.249 which was actually a place called Chatteris, 00:11:51.249 --> 00:11:55.749 I thought there’s something going on, I’m going to check this out. 00:11:55.749 --> 00:11:59.636 So I found the original submission and was able to determine 00:11:59.636 --> 00:12:03.856 that the person had meant Chatteris and not Cathearth. 00:12:03.856 --> 00:12:07.019 But because of the error in that vital information, 00:12:07.019 --> 00:12:10.002 a duplicate did not come up when I did the search. 00:12:10.002 --> 00:12:13.225 As soon as I corrected the error, the duplicate came up 00:12:13.225 --> 00:12:15.855 and this woman’s temple work had already been done. 00:12:15.855 --> 00:12:18.618 So errors in vital information can cause problems. 00:12:18.618 --> 00:12:21.873 There can be relationship errors. Not too long ago, 00:12:21.873 --> 00:12:24.872 I found a mother having children when she was four. 00:12:24.872 --> 00:12:29.559 Not so likely, right? So there was a problem there. 00:12:29.559 --> 00:12:32.325 Even though those names had green temples on them, 00:12:32.325 --> 00:12:34.758 they weren’t ready for temple work. 00:12:34.758 --> 00:12:38.593 Another common problem is that people will put in names, 00:12:38.593 --> 00:12:42.228 maybe based on a census or they’ll come from extraction, 00:12:42.228 --> 00:12:45.775 where they won’t have a death date because they don’t know it 00:12:45.775 --> 00:12:48.923 so the person shows up with a green temple, 00:12:48.923 --> 00:12:52.758 but a little more research shows that they died before eight 00:12:52.758 --> 00:12:55.136 and all they need is sealing to parents. 00:12:55.136 --> 00:13:00.109 So green temple names may not need work for any of these reasons 00:13:00.109 --> 00:13:05.625 and a name-finding app will normally not be able to distinguish this. 00:13:05.625 --> 00:13:09.825 They may tell some duplicates but on most of the rest of them, 00:13:09.832 --> 00:13:12.209 these other three bullet points, 00:13:12.209 --> 00:13:15.489 they don’t have the programming power 00:13:15.489 --> 00:13:22.986 or the algorithms, to determine whether those problems exist. 00:13:22.986 --> 00:13:26.232 The last misconception of those three is that Family Tree 00:13:26.232 --> 00:13:29.314 is intended to be an ongoing source of temple names. 00:13:29.314 --> 00:13:35.836 Again, that’s logical if you think that the Church originally 00:13:35.836 --> 00:13:38.876 populated Family Tree with these temple names. 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:45.991 I found that this misconception gets passed so frequently, 00:13:45.991 --> 00:13:50.293 kind of like wildfire gossip, from one member to another. 00:13:50.293 --> 00:13:54.408 Where I live, people are constantly telling each other this, saying, 00:13:54.408 --> 00:13:57.913 “All you have to do is go to Family Tree and find your temple names. 00:13:57.913 --> 00:14:01.156 Isn’t that awesome that the Church has made it so easy! 00:14:01.156 --> 00:14:02.991 They’ve just handed us these names.” 00:14:02.991 --> 00:14:08.851 And so the “good news” gets spread around with people 00:14:08.851 --> 00:14:13.556 not realizing that it’s actually a misconception. 00:14:13.556 --> 00:14:18.015 But the truth is that Family Tree is a wonderful gift that was 00:14:18.015 --> 00:14:21.153 given to us by the Church through FamilySearch 00:14:21.153 --> 00:14:24.946 as a place to collaborate with other researchers, 00:14:24.946 --> 00:14:33.858 a place to track temple work, and where we can add family names. 00:14:33.858 --> 00:14:37.078 Once in a while when I talk about the problems 00:14:37.078 --> 00:14:42.777 with the data in Family Tree, I have had a couple of people say, 00:14:42.777 --> 00:14:46.415 “Wow! It sounds to me like you’re criticizing Family Tree.” 00:14:46.415 --> 00:14:50.426 One person even felt like I was criticizing the Prophet because 00:14:50.426 --> 00:14:54.364 the Church sponsors Family Tree. But the truth is, 00:14:54.364 --> 00:14:58.013 to point out the reality of the data in Family Tree 00:14:58.013 --> 00:15:02.397 isn’t a criticism, it’s actually empowering, 00:15:02.397 --> 00:15:05.644 because if we understand the data in Family Tree, 00:15:05.644 --> 00:15:08.384 we understand better how to use it. 00:15:08.385 --> 00:15:11.963 So data issues don’t mean that Family Tree is flawed, 00:15:11.963 --> 00:15:14.907 or that the Church did something wrong 00:15:14.907 --> 00:15:17.802 by putting this data in Family Tree. 00:15:17.802 --> 00:15:24.581 It only looks like a criticism of Family Tree to point out the data 00:15:24.581 --> 00:15:28.418 if a person thought the data was supposed to be perfect 00:15:28.418 --> 00:15:31.838 and that Family Search had intended it to be perfect. 00:15:31.841 --> 00:15:35.836 If you think something’s perfect and then someone says it’s not, 00:15:35.836 --> 00:15:40.590 that sounds like criticism and like the program failed. 00:15:40.590 --> 00:15:46.730 But if we realize that the purpose of Family Tree 00:15:46.730 --> 00:15:50.081 is for us to collaborate, track temple work, and add names, 00:15:50.081 --> 00:15:55.826 and it was never meant to be a perfect source of verified names, 00:15:55.826 --> 00:16:00.569 then we realize it’s not a criticism of Family Tree. 00:16:00.569 --> 00:16:02.755 So the problem isn’t the Family Tree data. 00:16:02.755 --> 00:16:08.473 The problem is the misconceptions that we might have about it. 00:16:08.473 --> 00:16:12.953 Two more common misconceptions that go a little bit hand in hand -- 00:16:12.964 --> 00:16:16.343 One of those is that success in family history 00:16:16.343 --> 00:16:19.685 means reserving large numbers of names. 00:16:19.685 --> 00:16:27.673 Again, this is one of those misconceptions promoted by apps, 00:16:27.673 --> 00:16:31.540 at least the way they are used, because so many people use them 00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:34.184 to find large numbers of temple names. 00:16:34.184 --> 00:16:39.518 Associated with that, is the misconception that family history 00:16:39.518 --> 00:16:44.753 is tedious and time-consuming, especially so without an app. 00:16:44.753 --> 00:16:51.033 Let’s look a little bit closer at those two misconceptions. 00:16:51.035 --> 00:16:53.069 So, does success in family history mean 00:16:53.069 --> 00:16:55.075 reserving large numbers of names? 00:16:55.075 --> 00:16:58.834 We’ve been taught in conference that’s not the case. 00:16:58.834 --> 00:17:02.212 You might remember Elder Scott’s talk where he mentioned that he 00:17:02.212 --> 00:17:07.232 didn’t think people would be very happy beyond the veil if someone 00:17:07.251 --> 00:17:11.211 reserved a large number of names and kept them in their temple queue. 00:17:11.211 --> 00:17:16.236 So that's a problem and the Church has dealt 00:17:16.236 --> 00:17:18.753 with that problem by releasing names from 00:17:18.753 --> 00:17:22.337 people’s temple queues if they’re older than two years. 00:17:22.337 --> 00:17:29.817 So that took care of that problem, but still I hear people saying, 00:17:29.823 --> 00:17:38.119 “Wow! I found 400 names!” It almost becomes a matter of pride. 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:43.349 I remember hearing a talk that was given in my stake by a young woman 00:17:43.349 --> 00:17:47.329 who had been taught to use a name-finding app to just comb 00:17:47.332 --> 00:17:49.767 through family tree and find bunches of names. 00:17:49.767 --> 00:17:52.926 So she had used the app. She had gone through and gotten 00:17:52.926 --> 00:17:56.896 a couple hundred names and then her sister tried to use the app 00:17:56.896 --> 00:18:02.138 to crawl the tree, but the older girl had already reserved the names 00:18:02.138 --> 00:18:05.610 after the app had run for a certain period of time. 00:18:05.610 --> 00:18:09.710 So the younger sister was really frustrated and discouraged because 00:18:09.732 --> 00:18:11.972 she tried to do the same thing her sister did 00:18:11.977 --> 00:18:18.857 and wasn’t able to get this huge number of names. 00:18:18.862 --> 00:18:24.553 Another problem with this misconception is that it can lead 00:18:24.553 --> 00:18:27.482 to cutting corners and not verifying the names. 00:18:27.482 --> 00:18:30.501 So people will use the app. They’ll gather hundreds 00:18:30.501 --> 00:18:34.104 and in some cases I’ve heard of, people doing thousands of names, 00:18:34.104 --> 00:18:36.768 and then they don’t verify them. They either put them in their 00:18:36.768 --> 00:18:40.505 temple queue or share them with the temple system, 00:18:40.505 --> 00:18:43.148 and then other people end up doing the invalid names, 00:18:43.148 --> 00:18:46.563 which is not really fair to them. 00:18:46.563 --> 00:18:50.303 So if success in family history doesn’t mean reserving 00:18:50.304 --> 00:18:56.867 huge numbers of names, how do we qualify success in family history? 00:18:56.867 --> 00:19:00.243 After years of working with people and helping them get started, 00:19:00.243 --> 00:19:03.621 I’ve come to believe that success in family history 00:19:03.621 --> 00:19:06.920 means a consistent, diligent effort. 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:10.682 In a way, for those of you who are home or visiting teachers, 00:19:10.682 --> 00:19:14.602 it’s the same principle. Home and visiting teaching 00:19:14.614 --> 00:19:17.332 isn’t a one and done. We don’t just visit a person 00:19:17.332 --> 00:19:19.904 once and then say, “Okay, you’re good for life.” 00:19:19.904 --> 00:19:25.704 or just think about them once towards the end of the month. 00:19:25.704 --> 00:19:27.970 Being a good home or visiting teacher means 00:19:27.970 --> 00:19:31.271 consistent, diligent effort on a regular basis. 00:19:31.271 --> 00:19:34.485 And I really believe it’s the same in family history. 00:19:34.485 --> 00:19:37.609 So, our goal shouldn’t be to be gathering large 00:19:37.609 --> 00:19:40.791 numbers of family names, but instead to be 00:19:40.791 --> 00:19:45.430 making a consistent, diligent effort. 00:19:45.430 --> 00:19:48.719 And this one, oh my goodness, please forgive me because 00:19:48.719 --> 00:19:52.385 this is actually one of my greatest concerns, 00:19:52.385 --> 00:19:56.485 one that I just wish I could shout from the rooftops 00:19:56.497 --> 00:20:00.584 and tell people it’s a myth that family history 00:20:00.584 --> 00:20:02.374 is tedious and time-consuming. 00:20:02.374 --> 00:20:04.934 Let’s leave the app aside for a minute. 00:20:04.934 --> 00:20:08.874 There’s a misconception in the church that family history is 00:20:08.879 --> 00:20:13.279 tedious and time-consuming. It’s true that some time periods 00:20:13.282 --> 00:20:19.797 and some areas of the world are more difficult than others. 00:20:19.797 --> 00:20:24.999 I wish I could tell people that everybody has places 00:20:24.999 --> 00:20:28.222 on their line like that, but everybody also has 00:20:28.222 --> 00:20:31.722 places on their line that are easier than others. 00:20:31.722 --> 00:20:37.642 So family history is not tedious and time-consuming per se. 00:20:37.642 --> 00:20:43.173 What is tedious and time-consuming is doing it without the spirit. 00:20:43.173 --> 00:20:47.118 Let me give you an example. I was helping my friend Marci 00:20:47.118 --> 00:20:55.697 get started with family history quite a few years ago. 00:20:55.697 --> 00:20:59.804 I was kind of new to what I was doing and hadn’t fully realized 00:20:59.804 --> 00:21:03.173 the power of prayer and the power of following the spirit. 00:21:03.173 --> 00:21:06.055 So Marci and I just met in the Family History Center and 00:21:06.055 --> 00:21:09.152 sat down to work on her lines. I asked what she wanted to work on. 00:21:09.152 --> 00:21:12.772 And she said, “Well, what about this?” So we got in there 00:21:12.773 --> 00:21:18.797 and we looked and looked and tried stuff and churned and finally 00:21:18.797 --> 00:21:25.323 after 45 minutes or an hour, we both looked at each other and 00:21:25.323 --> 00:21:31.064 agreed it wasn't working and didn't feel right. 00:21:31.064 --> 00:21:33.276 It was a good learning experience that it took me 00:21:33.276 --> 00:21:36.296 that long to realize that it wasn’t working. 00:21:36.299 --> 00:21:39.906 And it was tedious. And it was time consuming. 00:21:39.906 --> 00:21:44.266 And we both felt that we had not made the best use of our time. 00:21:44.266 --> 00:21:48.584 But what was interesting is that after we realized that, 00:21:48.584 --> 00:21:52.773 and then we sought the Lord and the inspiration of the Spirit, 00:21:52.773 --> 00:21:55.238 we felt prompted to move to a different place 00:21:55.238 --> 00:21:58.190 in her family tree and things just opened up. 00:21:58.190 --> 00:22:01.695 And it was not tedious, and it was not time-consuming. 00:22:01.695 --> 00:22:07.111 So, I really believe it’s a myth, and we do people a disservice 00:22:07.111 --> 00:22:11.631 when we teach them family history is tedious and time-consuming. 00:22:11.631 --> 00:22:18.727 So, technology can help us. It can take some of the searching. 00:22:18.727 --> 00:22:21.366 We can search digital records so much more quickly than if we 00:22:21.366 --> 00:22:27.422 had to travel to a court house. But family history only becomes 00:22:27.422 --> 00:22:30.934 tedious and time-consuming when we’re not going by the Spirit. 00:22:30.934 --> 00:22:33.601 It can be challenging, but it won’t be tedious 00:22:33.601 --> 00:22:37.921 and it won’t be this terrible experience. 00:22:37.921 --> 00:22:43.241 So, unintended consequences of those misconceptions, 00:22:43.241 --> 00:22:49.965 let’s take a look at some of those. Invalid or duplicate temple work. 00:22:49.965 --> 00:22:54.266 We’ve talked a little bit about that with the high percentage 00:22:54.266 --> 00:22:57.854 of green temples that are invalid. 00:22:57.854 --> 00:23:01.603 Another problem that has surfaced within 00:23:01.603 --> 00:23:06.357 the last year or so is using a name-finding app to take 00:23:06.357 --> 00:23:16.137 names that somebody else is right in the process of reserving. 00:23:16.143 --> 00:23:20.905 And then not realizing that names need to be added to Family Tree. 00:23:20.905 --> 00:23:25.822 So if we think that Family Tree is this pool of names that 00:23:25.822 --> 00:23:28.841 the Church has provided, then we don’t realize that 00:23:28.841 --> 00:23:31.534 a lot of names are missing and that we are the ones 00:23:31.534 --> 00:23:35.054 who are supposed to be adding those names. 00:23:35.055 --> 00:23:38.720 And finally, another unintended consequence is not becoming 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:43.592 self-sufficient in finding names because we don’t think we have to 00:23:43.592 --> 00:23:48.172 and so we don't and so we never learn to become self-sufficient. 00:23:48.172 --> 00:23:51.533 I want to go into a little bit more detail about this problem 00:23:51.533 --> 00:23:56.033 of taking names that other people are currently reserving. 00:23:56.033 --> 00:23:59.391 I want to share two experiences that I had on that. 00:23:59.391 --> 00:24:03.611 The first is that one of my friends called me almost in tears. 00:24:03.620 --> 00:24:08.120 Her voice was teary when she said, “I’ve been working on this 00:24:08.120 --> 00:24:10.415 such and such family.” She was pretty new to 00:24:10.415 --> 00:24:13.654 family history at the time and she was learning to 00:24:13.654 --> 00:24:16.692 do careful verification and find family and 00:24:16.692 --> 00:24:20.206 it had just been such a beautiful experience for her to finally 00:24:20.206 --> 00:24:22.419 take her own family names to the temple. 00:24:22.419 --> 00:24:25.444 So she had found this family and she was very carefully 00:24:25.444 --> 00:24:29.132 putting them in family tree, verifying the names, 00:24:29.142 --> 00:24:31.663 adding the sources, and so forth and then, 00:24:31.663 --> 00:24:34.527 before she could finally make the reservations, 00:24:34.527 --> 00:24:38.539 someone else came through with a name-finding app 00:24:38.539 --> 00:24:42.151 to reserve those green temples and took the names that 00:24:42.151 --> 00:24:45.619 my friend had very carefully researched and verified, 00:24:45.619 --> 00:24:47.975 and this other person had not done any 00:24:47.975 --> 00:24:51.048 research or verification on the names. 00:24:51.048 --> 00:24:57.754 So that’s one experience that I learned first-hand from my friend. 00:24:57.754 --> 00:25:00.474 And then I had an experience the other night, 00:25:00.489 --> 00:25:06.242 where I was working on a name and I promise you the name had not 00:25:06.242 --> 00:25:10.810 been available in the system for more than five minutes, 00:25:10.810 --> 00:25:13.634 and I think it was more like about 3 minutes, 00:25:13.634 --> 00:25:16.934 when somebody else came through and got the name. 00:25:16.934 --> 00:25:21.850 I was in the very process of reserving it for temple work. 00:25:21.850 --> 00:25:27.857 Now, it’s important to point out that it is not wrong to reserve a 00:25:27.857 --> 00:25:31.297 name added by somebody else. That’s not what I’m saying. 00:25:31.297 --> 00:25:35.977 So, my niece, just as an example, she loves doing family history 00:25:35.985 --> 00:25:39.940 and the other day she had found some names that were very 00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:44.711 difficult to find while she was working on our family. 00:25:44.711 --> 00:25:47.422 So she found family names, but she found some other names 00:25:47.422 --> 00:25:52.605 in that process, of people that it took her awhile and they were 00:25:52.605 --> 00:25:55.822 tricky to find. Well, she made the choice to put 00:25:55.822 --> 00:26:00.254 those names in Family Tree because she suspected that it would be very 00:26:00.254 --> 00:26:04.963 difficult for somebody else to repeat the research she had done. 00:26:04.963 --> 00:26:06.697 So she put the names in Family Tree, 00:26:06.697 --> 00:26:10.595 but because they weren’t on her line she did not reserve them. 00:26:10.595 --> 00:26:13.538 So if somebody comes along and reserves those names, 00:26:13.538 --> 00:26:18.224 that’s why she put them there. So that is not a problem at all. 00:26:18.224 --> 00:26:23.604 The problem arises when -- Well, I just have to ask myself, 00:26:23.604 --> 00:26:26.617 is it fair to take names that somebody else 00:26:26.617 --> 00:26:29.897 has loved and labored over with no more 00:26:29.897 --> 00:26:34.177 thought than running an automated name-finding program. 00:26:34.177 --> 00:26:37.977 So to avoid this problem, as you’ve probably noticed 00:26:37.980 --> 00:26:40.261 if you’ve used one of these name-finding apps, 00:26:40.261 --> 00:26:45.181 they don't tell, at least none of the ones that I have tried, 00:26:45.181 --> 00:26:47.681 tell you when the name was created. 00:26:47.681 --> 00:26:50.681 And so, if a name was created, NOTE Paragraph 00:26:50.681 --> 00:26:53.560 and you can tell this is by looking in the change log. 00:26:53.560 --> 00:26:57.570 Over on the right-hand side of the Person page, 00:26:57.570 --> 00:27:00.457 there’s a link that says “Show All Changes.” 00:27:00.457 --> 00:27:03.125 If you click that link and scroll to the bottom, 00:27:03.125 --> 00:27:06.845 it will tell you when that name was created. 00:27:06.845 --> 00:27:10.989 So you can tell if the name was created within the last week 00:27:10.989 --> 00:27:12.805 or maybe even within the last month, 00:27:12.805 --> 00:27:17.473 it would be a nice courtesy to contact the person who 00:27:17.473 --> 00:27:20.761 contributed that name and say, “I noticed that you 00:27:20.761 --> 00:27:24.578 contributed this name. They’re on my family line too, 00:27:24.578 --> 00:27:28.404 and I was hoping to reserve some names for the temple. 00:27:28.404 --> 00:27:31.064 Are you OK with me reserving these names?” 00:27:31.066 --> 00:27:33.473 And who knows, through that process you might meet a 00:27:33.473 --> 00:27:36.445 cousin who you can collaborate on research with. 00:27:36.445 --> 00:27:41.156 But just doing that resolves the problem of reserving names 00:27:41.156 --> 00:27:45.545 that other people are right in the process of reserving. 00:27:45.545 --> 00:27:48.611 You can imagine how discouraging that is, especially for a new 00:27:48.611 --> 00:27:53.051 family historian, to be right in the process of adding names and 00:27:53.054 --> 00:27:56.194 just have those names vanish right before their eyes as 00:27:56.194 --> 00:28:02.952 they’re trying to add them. That’s a reason that I recommend 00:28:02.952 --> 00:28:07.627 not adding lots of names all at once with a name-finding app, 00:28:07.627 --> 00:28:10.345 but rather checking those names and checking to make sure that 00:28:10.345 --> 00:28:17.172 somebody else is not already planning to reserve those names. 00:28:17.172 --> 00:28:22.305 Another problem is that people get the mindset that family 00:28:22.305 --> 00:28:25.999 history means searching in Family Tree for names and 00:28:25.999 --> 00:28:28.596 they don’t realize names need to be added. 00:28:28.596 --> 00:28:31.221 So I did some checking and got some updated figures. 00:28:31.221 --> 00:28:36.187 These population totals used to be higher but current estimates 00:28:36.187 --> 00:28:41.707 are that about 100 to 115 billion people have lived on the earth 00:28:41.710 --> 00:28:45.499 since the beginning of human history. 00:28:45.499 --> 00:28:50.005 Only 1.1 billion people are in Family Tree. 00:28:50.005 --> 00:28:54.945 I am not really good at math, but even I can figure out that 00:28:54.948 --> 00:29:01.553 this leaves between 99 billion and 114 billion people 00:29:01.553 --> 00:29:05.393 that probably need to be added to Family Tree. 00:29:05.397 --> 00:29:10.512 Granted there are not records for many people who lived 00:29:10.512 --> 00:29:13.151 back through time where either the records have been destroyed 00:29:13.151 --> 00:29:17.439 or they didn’t keep them. So there are some of this 00:29:17.439 --> 00:29:20.838 large group that we’re not going to be able to find records for, 00:29:20.838 --> 00:29:28.523 but there are a surprisingly large number that do have records. 00:29:28.523 --> 00:29:31.781 A lot of people still need to be added to Family Tree 00:29:31.781 --> 00:29:35.258 and it is an absolute joy. I don’t know that I’ve ever 00:29:35.258 --> 00:29:38.498 felt the Spirit stronger than when I find a name 00:29:38.499 --> 00:29:42.639 and add it to Family Tree. That person has just gone 00:29:42.639 --> 00:29:47.337 from being lost to “getting in the queue” 00:29:47.337 --> 00:29:52.346 of having the opportunity to get their temple work done. 00:29:52.346 --> 00:29:55.912 Some more unintended consequences -- 00:29:55.912 --> 00:29:57.769 An unfortunate one that I’ve noticed 00:29:57.769 --> 00:30:01.169 is relying on technology instead of the Spirit. 00:30:01.181 --> 00:30:05.021 Now let me be careful to explain what I mean there. 00:30:05.021 --> 00:30:09.250 One problem is that people trust technology more than 00:30:09.250 --> 00:30:13.650 they trust themselves. I’ve been in information technology 00:30:13.659 --> 00:30:17.439 for about 20 or 25 years now as a web designer, 00:30:17.444 --> 00:30:21.444 as a database person, done different things 00:30:21.444 --> 00:30:24.184 with technology and I love technology. 00:30:24.190 --> 00:30:31.390 Technology is so miraculous to us 00:30:31.399 --> 00:30:35.435 in so many ways that we give it more credit than it deserves. 00:30:35.435 --> 00:30:39.855 We think it’s maybe a little more perfect then it is. 00:30:39.855 --> 00:30:43.778 Because of that sometimes people will trust the technology 00:30:43.778 --> 00:30:49.442 and not trust the Spirit. And usually in a case like that, 00:30:49.442 --> 00:30:52.140 it’s not so much that they don’t trust the Spirit, 00:30:52.140 --> 00:30:55.405 but more that they doubt the prompting that they’re hearing 00:30:55.405 --> 00:30:58.365 because they think, “why am I getting that prompting 00:30:58.365 --> 00:31:01.573 because the technology right on my screen that I can trust, 00:31:01.573 --> 00:31:05.652 or I feel I can trust, is showing me something different.” 00:31:05.652 --> 00:31:10.016 If it’s a toss-up and they’re not quite sure that the Spirit’s 00:31:10.016 --> 00:31:12.891 really speaking to them, I’ve seen that a lot of people 00:31:12.891 --> 00:31:18.978 will tend to go with technology. Another issue is that technology 00:31:18.978 --> 00:31:21.918 can just make the Spirit seem unnecessary. 00:31:21.925 --> 00:31:24.279 So it’s not that people are blocking the spirit 00:31:24.279 --> 00:31:27.094 or ignoring the spirit, it’s just that if you use 00:31:27.094 --> 00:31:30.523 a name-finding app and it presents you with 400 names 00:31:30.523 --> 00:31:33.429 of people who apparently need temple work, 00:31:33.429 --> 00:31:37.343 then why do you need to follow the Spirit on that, 00:31:37.343 --> 00:31:40.959 The names are right I front of you. And I understand that. 00:31:40.959 --> 00:31:46.479 I can see why people would. It would not even occur to them 00:31:46.479 --> 00:31:49.765 that they would need to follow the Spirit in a case like that 00:31:49.765 --> 00:31:54.789 because the names have just been handed to them as they see it. 00:31:54.789 --> 00:32:01.009 So another challenge that comes up, another unintended consequence is 00:32:01.009 --> 00:32:04.240 that these misconceptions just spread like wildfire. 00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:09.090 Because somebody reserves 400 names or 8,000 or whatever, 00:32:09.090 --> 00:32:12.003 and they feel that they’ve experienced such great success, 00:32:12.003 --> 00:32:14.932 and they can’t wait to share it with everybody else. 00:32:14.932 --> 00:32:19.072 Just in the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen people posting on facebook 00:32:19.074 --> 00:32:23.981 and posting on forums, saying, “I’ve found this wonderful app, 00:32:23.981 --> 00:32:28.179 and I reserved these hundreds of names and now I’m just so glad 00:32:28.179 --> 00:32:31.185 that I did that and you guys should try it too. 00:32:31.185 --> 00:32:36.091 So it just spreads because it sounds so fantastic. 00:32:36.091 --> 00:32:42.171 And it sounds like it’s going to make a difficult task easier. 00:32:42.171 --> 00:32:48.311 The problem is because people have these false expectations, 00:32:48.311 --> 00:32:52.435 then when somebody tries to share the facts with them, 00:32:52.435 --> 00:32:58.059 the facts are really not welcome. And that also is understandable. 00:32:58.059 --> 00:33:01.759 Nobody likes to be disappointed in their expectations. 00:33:01.762 --> 00:33:05.591 I’ll give you a couple of examples. There was someone on a public forum 00:33:05.591 --> 00:33:09.602 who was talking about gathering hundreds and hundreds of names, 00:33:09.602 --> 00:33:14.469 and submitting them to the temple. When a few of us very gently tried 00:33:14.469 --> 00:33:18.989 to suggest that a lot of the names gathered that way probably 00:33:18.989 --> 00:33:21.733 weren’t valid and at least they should be verified, 00:33:21.733 --> 00:33:24.787 the person responded, “Do you mean to tell me that 00:33:24.787 --> 00:33:28.794 the Church has spent millions of dollars to make Family Tree 00:33:28.794 --> 00:33:32.196 and the names in it aren’t even ready for temple work?” 00:33:32.196 --> 00:33:35.794 So that was shock to them and it was a huge disappointment, 00:33:35.794 --> 00:33:40.371 because they had been led to believe that all they had to do 00:33:40.371 --> 00:33:44.989 was run an app and gather names out of Family Tree. 00:33:44.989 --> 00:33:47.877 Another person that I was helping not too long ago, 00:33:47.877 --> 00:33:53.057 we sat down and he happily showed me his name-finding results, 00:33:53.059 --> 00:33:58.785 where he had around 300 names that the app had found 00:33:58.785 --> 00:34:04.178 and he said, “Isn’t this great? I’d like to get these names done.” 00:34:04.178 --> 00:34:09.190 And I said, “I’m so glad you found those names. 00:34:09.190 --> 00:34:12.846 We really should verify them. There’s a chance that some 00:34:12.846 --> 00:34:16.385 of them may not be accurate and it’s always just a good idea 00:34:16.385 --> 00:34:18.870 to go through and attach some sources and so forth.” 00:34:18.870 --> 00:34:22.990 And he just said, “No, I’d really rather not. 00:34:22.991 --> 00:34:26.968 The names look ready to me so I think I’m just going to go ahead.” 00:34:26.968 --> 00:34:32.334 Of course as a consultant, you can’t put your foot down and say 00:34:32.334 --> 00:34:35.292 “NO! You’re not submitting those names until you’ve verified them.” 00:34:35.292 --> 00:34:38.222 We all have our agency and we’re all responsible, 00:34:38.222 --> 00:34:42.229 but I have to think that this brother had very good intentions, 00:34:42.229 --> 00:34:47.699 I know he had very good intentions, and I have to think that one reason 00:34:47.699 --> 00:34:51.496 he felt that it was appropriate was because he had used an app that 00:34:51.496 --> 00:34:55.703 presented those names to him as apparently needing temple work, 00:34:55.703 --> 00:35:03.643 and it just seemed superfluous that he would need to verify them. 00:35:03.643 --> 00:35:09.412 For the last part of these unintended consequences, 00:35:09.412 --> 00:35:18.646 I want to talk about some of the more spiritual downsides to using 00:35:18.646 --> 00:35:22.286 name-finding apps and gathering large numbers of names. 00:35:22.286 --> 00:35:26.201 What I’m noticing among people that have done this is that they 00:35:26.201 --> 00:35:29.494 don’t really get to know the people whose names they’re 00:35:29.494 --> 00:35:33.319 reserving so their hearts aren’t really turned. 00:35:33.319 --> 00:35:39.058 All those people are is names on a list to them. 00:35:39.058 --> 00:35:41.719 Don’t get me wrong, they feel a general sense of 00:35:41.719 --> 00:35:45.308 “Wow, this is great! Now their temple work can be done.” 00:35:45.308 --> 00:35:49.768 That is wonderful but they don’t know anything about these people. 00:35:49.768 --> 00:35:53.013 Where did they live? What was their life like? 00:35:53.013 --> 00:35:58.903 What did they experience that has contributed to the way I live? 00:35:58.903 --> 00:36:02.791 What sacrifices did they make that enabled me 00:36:02.791 --> 00:36:05.704 to enjoy the blessings I have today? 00:36:05.704 --> 00:36:10.084 So when we don’t dig into those names as we’ve actually been 00:36:10.094 --> 00:36:15.086 counselled to do then we lose something really precious and, 00:36:15.086 --> 00:36:20.166 in my experience, people’s hearts are not turned by just 00:36:20.166 --> 00:36:24.108 submitting names from an app, and especially just by submitting 00:36:24.108 --> 00:36:28.508 large numbers of names that aren’t verified. 00:36:28.515 --> 00:36:33.576 Another problem that I’ve seen is that an app can encourage 00:36:33.576 --> 00:36:37.731 people to have that “one and done” mentality, 00:36:37.731 --> 00:36:41.208 like the woman that I mentioned, I don’t think I told this 00:36:41.208 --> 00:36:43.754 whole story in this webinar, but I mentioned somebody 00:36:43.754 --> 00:36:49.349 who found 8,000 names. She was a sister from California, 00:36:49.349 --> 00:36:53.100 who had been taught to use a name-finding app and didn’t realize 00:36:53.100 --> 00:36:57.087 that there were some possible problems with it so she had just 00:36:57.087 --> 00:37:00.683 reserved all these names and shared them with the temple system 00:37:00.683 --> 00:37:08.970 and thought, “OK, that’s done. I’ve fulfilled my obligation 00:37:08.970 --> 00:37:12.545 to family history.” What’s interesting about 00:37:12.545 --> 00:37:15.676 family history is that, as Boyd K. Packer said, 00:37:15.676 --> 00:37:21.792 there is no work that is more spiritually refining. 00:37:21.792 --> 00:37:24.187 When we treat it like a “one and done” 00:37:24.187 --> 00:37:28.185 I think we miss out on that spiritual refinement. 00:37:28.185 --> 00:37:32.583 We don’t have that on-going blessing of learning to 00:37:32.583 --> 00:37:36.063 recognize the spirit, of connecting with our ancestors, 00:37:36.063 --> 00:37:38.703 of discovering our family stories. 00:37:38.706 --> 00:37:44.721 And so, I think we rob ourselves of that blessing when we make 00:37:44.721 --> 00:37:50.649 family history into a “one and done” experience. 00:37:50.649 --> 00:38:00.842 I debated whether or not to share this next one because once 00:38:00.842 --> 00:38:05.628 in a while people have gotten offended at my bringing this up. 00:38:05.628 --> 00:38:11.450 But, I’ve experienced it myself and I’ve talked to so many other people 00:38:11.450 --> 00:38:15.559 that have experienced it that I think it’s worth mentioning. 00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:21.161 And that is, that when we submit invalid names for temple work, 00:38:21.161 --> 00:38:25.519 our temple experience is less meaningful. 00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:29.340 And I think there’s a good reason for that. 00:38:29.340 --> 00:38:33.370 As perhaps you have, I have been in the temple when I have 00:38:33.370 --> 00:38:37.589 literally felt the gratitude of the person whose work I was doing. 00:38:37.589 --> 00:38:41.292 I could tell they were pleased. I could tell that they accepted 00:38:41.292 --> 00:38:45.647 the work and that they were so happy about the chance to progress. 00:38:45.647 --> 00:38:50.542 I don’t think I would feel that same joy and gratitude from 00:38:50.542 --> 00:38:55.063 somebody if I were doing their work for the 20th time. 00:38:55.063 --> 00:38:59.263 I had a friend who had an experience that illustrated 00:38:59.263 --> 00:39:03.210 this not too long ago. He had gone to the baptistery 00:39:03.210 --> 00:39:05.867 to do some family names that he had carefully 00:39:05.867 --> 00:39:09.461 researched and validated and he said that the Spirit was so 00:39:09.461 --> 00:39:13.832 strong during that experience. He was just overjoyed to tell that 00:39:13.832 --> 00:39:16.772 those people were happy about their temple work. 00:39:16.778 --> 00:39:19.834 So after he did the work for his ancestors, 00:39:19.834 --> 00:39:25.261 apparently it wasn’t a very busy day so the officiator asked if he 00:39:25.261 --> 00:39:30.330 could stay and do other names. And so he agreed gladly and 00:39:30.330 --> 00:39:34.416 started doing the names. As he did, he noticed that the 00:39:34.416 --> 00:39:39.456 wonderful feelings were no longer present, and that seemed strange. 00:39:39.456 --> 00:39:44.163 As they went through the names, what he started to notice is that 00:39:44.163 --> 00:39:48.252 there were a couple of them that were apparently the wrong gender. 00:39:48.252 --> 00:39:53.499 They were clearly women’s names that were being baptized as men. 00:39:53.499 --> 00:39:57.420 And also there were some dates that were suspect and some places, 00:39:57.420 --> 00:40:00.941 and things that you could just tell that these names 00:40:00.941 --> 00:40:03.653 had not been very carefully researched. 00:40:03.653 --> 00:40:07.175 And for my friend, that was just another testimony 00:40:07.175 --> 00:40:12.021 that when we are careless with our family names and don’t 00:40:12.021 --> 00:40:15.606 properly verify them, and then if we do work and 00:40:15.606 --> 00:40:19.980 the names turn out to be invalid, it’s not going to be as meaningful 00:40:19.980 --> 00:40:23.430 of a temple experience. Now the reason some people have 00:40:23.430 --> 00:40:26.488 expressed concern before, is that they’ve misunderstood me 00:40:26.488 --> 00:40:29.918 to say the temple’s not a good experience. 00:40:29.918 --> 00:40:35.284 No, that’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is that 00:40:35.284 --> 00:40:39.894 if we’re careful about doing our research and we find 00:40:39.894 --> 00:40:44.765 valid names and we’re guided by the Spirit in doing that work, 00:40:44.765 --> 00:40:47.804 then we’re going to have an especially beautiful experience 00:40:47.804 --> 00:40:53.564 at the temple which we might not otherwise have. 00:40:53.564 --> 00:40:58.806 Let’s return, if you don’t mind, to the misconception that I said 00:40:58.806 --> 00:41:03.041 was one of my greatest concerns, and that is that we're teaching 00:41:03.041 --> 00:41:06.627 people that family history is tedious and difficult. 00:41:06.627 --> 00:41:09.613 And in this particular context people are being taught that 00:41:09.613 --> 00:41:12.834 it's tedious and difficult without the app. 00:41:12.834 --> 00:41:15.581 The truth is family history is 00:41:15.581 --> 00:41:24.437 tedious and difficult without the Spirit. 00:41:24.437 --> 00:41:33.377 What I’d like to do now is show you an alternative 00:41:33.377 --> 00:41:36.567 approach to using name finding apps, 00:41:36.567 --> 00:41:40.782 especially to find large numbers of names. 00:41:40.782 --> 00:41:44.468 A little while ago, the Church did some research 00:41:44.468 --> 00:41:47.530 and I learned about this in a presentation that I attended 00:41:47.530 --> 00:41:51.650 by a brother named Mike Sandberg who works for family search. 00:41:51.652 --> 00:41:54.410 He said that the Church had done research on people 00:41:54.410 --> 00:41:58.767 who were not submitting any temple names at all 00:41:58.767 --> 00:42:02.202 and suddenly they went to submitting names regularly. 00:42:02.202 --> 00:42:06.192 So naturally, the Church had a burning question. 00:42:06.192 --> 00:42:10.733 How did they make the transition? What enabled them to go from 00:42:10.733 --> 00:42:14.731 not submitting any names at all to successfully submitting 00:42:14.731 --> 00:42:17.991 temple names regularly? What they found out 00:42:17.991 --> 00:42:23.011 was very interesting. 85% of those who made this 00:42:23.011 --> 00:42:30.930 transition had a helper and 65% of them got help multiple times. 00:42:30.930 --> 00:42:36.512 So the Church discovered that having a person to help or mentor 00:42:36.512 --> 00:42:42.772 somebody new to family history was the key to success. 00:42:42.772 --> 00:42:46.581 If this is sounding familiar to any of you, you will realize 00:42:46.581 --> 00:42:51.431 that this became the basis for the Church’s Find-Take-Teach program. 00:42:51.431 --> 00:42:57.056 Find-Take-Teach is a Spirit-led, one-on-one effort 00:42:57.056 --> 00:43:04.202 where help is given by a person who pays the price 00:43:04.202 --> 00:43:07.896 to know how to help that person by the Spirit. 00:43:07.896 --> 00:43:12.159 Let me go ahead and show you in a little more detail 00:43:12.159 --> 00:43:18.239 why this approach works. I’m simplifying this. 00:43:18.239 --> 00:43:22.356 If you want more information you can look on FamilySearch.org. 00:43:22.356 --> 00:43:24.707 They’ve got a complete description of it. 00:43:24.707 --> 00:43:29.680 But very simply, the helper and the patron both pray for guidance 00:43:29.680 --> 00:43:34.900 and then the helper prepares a personalized lesson by the Spirit. 00:43:34.900 --> 00:43:37.931 And during this lesson, also by the Spirit, 00:43:37.931 --> 00:43:40.387 they find a starting place for this person 00:43:40.387 --> 00:43:45.757 or they find valid temple names for the person. 00:43:45.757 --> 00:43:49.768 Finally, when they get together, the helper guides the patron 00:43:49.768 --> 00:43:54.825 in a one-on-one setting to reserve those temple names. 00:43:54.825 --> 00:44:00.885 I want to show you as a person who has responsibility currently for 00:44:00.885 --> 00:44:04.645 helping and mentoring people, I want to show you the process 00:44:04.645 --> 00:44:09.175 that I go through to find a good starting place when I’m working 00:44:09.175 --> 00:44:12.344 with somebody in a Find-Take-Teach experience. 00:44:12.344 --> 00:44:17.518 This is not the only way to do it. It’s the way that works best for me 00:44:17.518 --> 00:44:22.098 and I have other friends that are equally successful in using 00:44:22.098 --> 00:44:26.602 different approaches but I can speak to what works for me. 00:44:26.602 --> 00:44:29.678 I hope that this example might be helpful to you 00:44:29.678 --> 00:44:35.079 in finding your own best approach. So the first, most important thing 00:44:35.079 --> 00:44:39.539 for me is that I have to go some place quiet where I can 00:44:39.539 --> 00:44:44.135 hear the Spirit in preparing this Find-Take-Teach experience. 00:44:44.135 --> 00:44:49.055 I can’t be where I’m distracted. I can’t be where I feel pressured. 00:44:49.055 --> 00:44:52.283 I have to be in a place where I can truly feel 00:44:52.283 --> 00:44:54.710 the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 00:44:54.710 --> 00:45:01.272 So, I make those arrangements, whatever it takes. 00:45:01.272 --> 00:45:06.652 In one of my classes a sister said that she can’t do it at home. 00:45:06.652 --> 00:45:08.638 There’s just no way, even in the bathroom 00:45:08.638 --> 00:45:11.578 it’s like knock, knock, knock “Mom! Are you in there?” 00:45:11.578 --> 00:45:15.918 So what she does is she goes to the public library 00:45:15.918 --> 00:45:17.961 where people are supposed to be quiet. 00:45:17.961 --> 00:45:21.157 And so that place works for her. You might find a different quiet 00:45:21.157 --> 00:45:24.535 place that works for you. But whatever you do, 00:45:24.535 --> 00:45:27.651 find a place where you can be in tune with the Spirit. 00:45:27.651 --> 00:45:31.791 And then, I bring up the Fan Chart, that’s my favorite place to work. 00:45:31.791 --> 00:45:35.718 And I listen for what I call “heart tugs” which are 00:45:35.718 --> 00:45:39.498 spiritual promptings to me that somebody is wanting 00:45:39.498 --> 00:45:43.405 their temple work to be done. So here’s an example. 00:45:43.405 --> 00:45:47.685 I had offered to help a sister at the MTC as part of a 00:45:47.685 --> 00:45:52.786 Find-Take-Teach experience there. This sister had a very full tree 00:45:52.786 --> 00:45:56.976 and she wasn’t convinced that we would be able to find anything. 00:45:56.976 --> 00:45:59.956 So I asked for her helper number. 00:45:59.956 --> 00:46:03.197 The place where we were working that Sunday in the MTC was very 00:46:03.197 --> 00:46:07.669 noisy and I knew that it was not a good place for me to 00:46:07.669 --> 00:46:12.127 really hear the Spirit and find a good starting place. 00:46:12.127 --> 00:46:17.816 I asked for her helper number and we arranged to meet the following week. 00:46:17.816 --> 00:46:22.136 And I went to a place where I could listen to the Spirit. 00:46:22.136 --> 00:46:27.050 As I did, I prayed sincerely, and I had asked her to pray with me. 00:46:27.050 --> 00:46:32.150 And so, I looked at the fan chart and as I pondered and looked and 00:46:32.150 --> 00:46:36.124 clicked on a few different names, I found that I was drawn to this 00:46:36.124 --> 00:46:40.724 name of Abraham Chadwick. So I thought, "OK, I’ll follow that 00:46:40.724 --> 00:46:43.342 prompting and I will check Abraham’s 00:46:43.342 --> 00:46:46.561 Person page and see what’s going on there." 00:46:46.561 --> 00:46:51.341 Well, as my friend mentioned, he had done a lot. 00:46:51.341 --> 00:46:54.578 As it turned out, and I had no way of knowing this of course, 00:46:54.578 --> 00:47:01.834 he was the first member of their family to join the Church. 00:47:01.834 --> 00:47:04.665 So as I looked here and read his personal history and clicked 00:47:04.665 --> 00:47:07.660 on his wives’ names and his children’s names, 00:47:07.660 --> 00:47:10.809 sure enough all their work was done and it was evident 00:47:10.809 --> 00:47:14.521 that he was a good, faithful man from reading his testimony. 00:47:14.521 --> 00:47:17.715 So I thought, "Wow, this might be harder than I thought." 00:47:17.715 --> 00:47:21.273 But I continued to pray and ask the Spirit for guidance to be led 00:47:21.273 --> 00:47:24.624 to that place where the Spirit wanted me to work 00:47:24.624 --> 00:47:30.239 for my dear sister in the MTC. And as I did, again just another 00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:32.898 line-upon-line gentle prompting, I found that I was 00:47:32.898 --> 00:47:35.814 led to this name of Sarah Ann Chadwick. 00:47:35.814 --> 00:47:39.854 So I looked at that and this is what I found. 00:47:39.861 --> 00:47:46.206 She had a husband, George Bradbury, and they had six kids. 00:47:46.206 --> 00:47:52.066 And all their work was done too, so I’m so grateful that by this 00:47:52.066 --> 00:47:55.546 point I had learned better how to recognize the Spirit, 00:47:55.546 --> 00:47:59.303 because in my younger days I might have doubted myself and just said, 00:47:59.303 --> 00:48:03.860 “Wow, I’ve been digging around here and I’m not finding anything so that 00:48:03.860 --> 00:48:05.850 might not really have been the Spirit.” 00:48:05.850 --> 00:48:11.420 I might have questioned myself. But because I had, fortunately, 00:48:11.420 --> 00:48:16.265 tried really hard to grow in my ability, and I’m far from perfect, 00:48:16.265 --> 00:48:19.273 but I’d really tried to grow in my ability to hear the Spirit, 00:48:19.273 --> 00:48:23.664 I trusted these promptings. I thought, “I’m gonna keep going. 00:48:23.664 --> 00:48:26.423 I am not sure why ‘cause this isn’t looking too good, 00:48:26.423 --> 00:48:30.676 but I’m gonna keep trying.” So I clicked on the first name of 00:48:30.676 --> 00:48:37.190 their first son and that’s when I started to feel that I was going 00:48:37.190 --> 00:48:40.829 the right direction. And so the first thing that caught 00:48:40.829 --> 00:48:44.790 my attention was that Samuel’s wife didn’t even have a last name. 00:48:44.790 --> 00:48:48.790 So that indicated more research definitely needed to be done. 00:48:48.790 --> 00:48:53.307 And I noticed that they didn’t have many children. 00:48:53.307 --> 00:49:01.727 Back in the 1800’s, most families had a large number of children. 00:49:01.738 --> 00:49:07.187 With just a little bit of research, it wasn’t like I took days and days, 00:49:07.187 --> 00:49:09.709 in fact I don’t think it was even hours, 00:49:09.709 --> 00:49:15.609 it was just a little quick checking in Ancestry and FamilySearch 00:49:15.613 --> 00:49:19.268 historical records. It didn’t take long to discover 00:49:19.268 --> 00:49:23.793 that Samuel and Kate were missing four children from Family Tree. 00:49:23.793 --> 00:49:27.554 These children were not there and needed to be added so that their 00:49:27.554 --> 00:49:29.899 temple work could be done. And then I thought, 00:49:29.899 --> 00:49:32.919 “OK, that is why I got that prompting.” 00:49:32.919 --> 00:49:36.819 I think the reason I was prompted to start with Abraham was that if 00:49:36.819 --> 00:49:40.639 I got a prompting like suppose that the name Samuel Bradbury 00:49:40.643 --> 00:49:44.394 came into my mind, I would not have a clue what to do with it. 00:49:44.394 --> 00:49:51.132 And so the Spirit led me along a path where I could see how this 00:49:51.132 --> 00:49:55.772 family first got involved with the Church and then how these 00:49:55.772 --> 00:50:01.469 people who needed their ordinances were related to that first convert. 00:50:01.469 --> 00:50:05.272 So this was just a wonderful, beautiful experience in 00:50:05.272 --> 00:50:12.217 finding these names. Also, as I did more research, 00:50:12.217 --> 00:50:17.697 I found in the 1911 census that Kate had died and so Samuel had 00:50:17.697 --> 00:50:21.690 remarried and his second wife Ada Sarah was not in 00:50:21.690 --> 00:50:25.530 Family Tree either, and her temple work needed to be done. 00:50:25.534 --> 00:50:29.016 So just from following that prompting, I was able to find and 00:50:29.016 --> 00:50:34.956 verify these five names and pass those on to the sister in the MTC 00:50:34.956 --> 00:50:38.379 so that she could get that temple work done. 00:50:38.379 --> 00:50:42.539 Another example on this family, was that when I looked at Hannah, 00:50:42.539 --> 00:50:47.041 Samuel’s younger sister, she did not have a spouse. 00:50:47.041 --> 00:50:49.017 Again, just a little bit of research. 00:50:49.017 --> 00:50:52.509 This wasn’t hours of looking through court records or something, 00:50:52.509 --> 00:50:56.774 this was doing a search on Ancestry in available censuses. 00:50:56.774 --> 00:50:59.894 In just a short period of time I discovered that at one point 00:50:59.900 --> 00:51:02.325 Hannah had been living with her mother. 00:51:02.325 --> 00:51:10.085 And so there was the definite proof there that this really was my 00:51:10.085 --> 00:51:14.243 Hannah that I was looking for, and found out that she did have a 00:51:14.243 --> 00:51:17.199 husband and they had three children together. 00:51:17.199 --> 00:51:20.990 Right there were four more names, four valid names that needed 00:51:20.990 --> 00:51:26.756 to be added to Family Tree. So that is an example of how 00:51:26.756 --> 00:51:31.604 to follow the Spirit to find a place to work in Family Tree. 00:51:31.604 --> 00:51:36.167 But I was mentioning this to a dear sister in my stake who I was 00:51:36.167 --> 00:51:40.807 helping get started with family history and this is what she said, 00:51:40.809 --> 00:51:43.966 “I don’t think I’m that good at hearing the Spirit.” 00:51:43.966 --> 00:51:46.197 I have to tell you something about this sister. 00:51:46.197 --> 00:51:49.865 She is amazing! She serves people. She’s wonderful. 00:51:49.865 --> 00:51:52.726 I don’t think she was giving herself enough credit. 00:51:52.726 --> 00:51:57.570 But, I think all of us have felt that kind of sense of inadequacy. 00:51:57.570 --> 00:52:01.823 I know I certainly did, especially when I was first starting to really 00:52:01.823 --> 00:52:04.627 try to follow the Spirit in family history. 00:52:04.627 --> 00:52:10.167 Fortunately we all learn to hear the Spirit line upon line. 00:52:10.167 --> 00:52:13.805 Wherever you are in learning to follow the Spirit, 00:52:13.805 --> 00:52:18.905 wherever I am, that’s a place to start growing from. 00:52:18.905 --> 00:52:22.902 In fact the only place we can start growing from is where we are. 00:52:22.902 --> 00:52:25.620 So we all learn to hear the Spirit line upon line, 00:52:25.620 --> 00:52:29.044 and to me that is such good news, because that’s doable. 00:52:29.044 --> 00:52:31.873 I can do that. I can grow line upon line. 00:52:31.873 --> 00:52:35.353 And the wonderful thing I that have found about family history, 00:52:35.359 --> 00:52:41.814 and to me it’s one of its greatest, greatest blessings is that it is 00:52:41.814 --> 00:52:46.909 simply one of the best tutorials in learning to hear the Spirit. 00:52:46.909 --> 00:52:50.890 I could give you dozens of examples on this, but I won’t. 00:52:50.890 --> 00:52:56.290 I’ve got a whole other webinar on that and I’ll show you the 00:52:56.290 --> 00:53:01.097 link at the end of this one and you can watch that if you'd like. 00:53:01.097 --> 00:53:09.152 I have found as I listen to the Spirit in doing family history, 00:53:09.152 --> 00:53:12.672 I’ve learned more about how the Spirit speaks to me and that 00:53:12.680 --> 00:53:17.491 knowledge has grown over the years as I continue to hear promptings 00:53:17.491 --> 00:53:21.497 and discern then correctly, and sometimes not correctly. 00:53:21.497 --> 00:53:26.478 I learn from making mistakes too. But the point that I wanted to 00:53:26.478 --> 00:53:30.151 make is that family history is one of the very best 00:53:30.151 --> 00:53:33.278 tutorials in learning to hear the Spirit. 00:53:33.278 --> 00:53:37.297 And if we don’t try to follow the Spirit in family history then we 00:53:37.297 --> 00:53:44.803 lose that great opportunity of refining our ability to hear. 00:53:44.803 --> 00:53:51.061 Hearing the Spirit better brings blessings in all areas of our lives. 00:53:51.061 --> 00:53:55.441 I love this quote by Joseph Smith, and it’s something that I have 00:53:55.441 --> 00:54:00.463 experienced doing family history. And that is that a person may 00:54:00.463 --> 00:54:04.958 profit by noticing the first intimation (or hint) 00:54:04.958 --> 00:54:08.527 of the spirit of revelation. It may give you sudden strokes 00:54:08.527 --> 00:54:13.282 of ideas like call so and so, or sit here at this meeting 00:54:13.282 --> 00:54:16.319 because you don’t know this but you’re going to find somebody 00:54:16.319 --> 00:54:20.691 to help you with temple names, or there’s a mistake in your record, 00:54:20.691 --> 00:54:23.443 go back and check it. So it may give you these sudden 00:54:23.443 --> 00:54:28.140 strokes of ideas so that by noticing it you find it fulfilled. 00:54:28.140 --> 00:54:30.806 So you find that prompting you got was a real 00:54:30.806 --> 00:54:35.058 prompting because whatever it told you about was true. 00:54:35.058 --> 00:54:37.430 So you find it fulfilled the same day or soon 00:54:37.430 --> 00:54:41.824 and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, 00:54:41.824 --> 00:54:45.200 you may grow into the principle of revelation. 00:54:45.200 --> 00:54:49.309 And it’s my testimony that this is absolutely true and that doing 00:54:49.309 --> 00:54:51.674 family history gives you the opportunity 00:54:51.674 --> 00:54:56.734 to grow in hearing revelation in this way. 00:54:56.734 --> 00:55:05.698 So, closing thoughts. This is something that comes up 00:55:05.698 --> 00:55:09.730 from time to time when we talk about the problems with 00:55:09.730 --> 00:55:14.142 misusing name-finding apps. So the person will say, 00:55:14.142 --> 00:55:17.391 “But, the app I’m using is certified by FamilySearch. 00:55:17.391 --> 00:55:20.081 Doesn’t that mean that it finds valid names?” 00:55:20.081 --> 00:55:23.753 And that’s understandable why people would think that because 00:55:23.753 --> 00:55:27.672 the word “certified” sounds really official, doesn’t it. 00:55:27.672 --> 00:55:31.150 It sounds like there’s some type of guarantee on the app 00:55:31.150 --> 00:55:33.850 that it’s going to perform as I expect it to. 00:55:33.853 --> 00:55:38.871 But, that’s actually not the case. The short answer is no, 00:55:38.871 --> 00:55:42.505 being certified doesn’t guarantee finding valid names. 00:55:42.505 --> 00:55:46.825 And, in fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with valid names. 00:55:46.829 --> 00:55:52.694 Let’s take a look at what FamilySearch certification means. 00:55:52.694 --> 00:55:57.192 This is a direct quote from the FamilySearch certification site. 00:55:57.192 --> 00:56:00.386 The reason most people probably don’t read this is that it’s 00:56:00.386 --> 00:56:03.497 geared towards developers. So most of us don’t have any 00:56:03.497 --> 00:56:07.488 reason to go out to this site. But, listen to what it says. 00:56:07.488 --> 00:56:11.844 The designation is simply used to identify software applications 00:56:11.844 --> 00:56:16.284 that FamilySearch believes to be generally compatible with 00:56:16.284 --> 00:56:20.060 FamilySearch or its application programming interfaces, 00:56:20.060 --> 00:56:23.761 which is basically the way the programs talk to each other. 00:56:23.761 --> 00:56:28.405 So FamilySearch believes that this app is generally compatible 00:56:28.405 --> 00:56:32.529 but FamilySearch takes no responsibility and is no way 00:56:32.529 --> 00:56:38.451 liable for any such application. Accordingly, FamilySearch in no way 00:56:38.451 --> 00:56:44.071 warrants that these applications will function as intended or that 00:56:44.071 --> 00:56:48.157 they are free from harmful or undesirable aspects 00:56:48.157 --> 00:56:54.068 or free from errors. So, the reason I bring this up 00:56:54.068 --> 00:56:58.788 is just to help us understand that to say an app is FamilySearch 00:56:58.788 --> 00:57:03.747 certified is a wonderful thing and it does mean something specific. 00:57:03.747 --> 00:57:07.738 It means that you can generally count on it to work correctly with 00:57:07.738 --> 00:57:15.017 the FamilySearch.org website, but it does not guarantee anything 00:57:15.017 --> 00:57:20.097 about the app being used in a certain way, or misused, or any 00:57:20.097 --> 00:57:26.537 problem that result from its use. Here’s another thing that I hear 00:57:26.537 --> 00:57:30.808 sometimes in talking with a couple of different app developers or 00:57:30.816 --> 00:57:33.981 reading their websites. They say, “I’m an app developer 00:57:33.981 --> 00:57:37.418 and my app warns people that they should research the names that 00:57:37.418 --> 00:57:41.699 they find so isn’t that enough?” You would hope that it would be. 00:57:41.699 --> 00:57:44.347 You would hope that everybody reads the fine print, 00:57:44.347 --> 00:57:51.147 but my own experience is that I don’t always read the fine print. 00:57:51.147 --> 00:57:55.517 Sometimes if I’m in a hurry I just glance at it and think 00:57:55.517 --> 00:57:59.907 "I don't have time for this." My experience is most people don't 00:57:59.907 --> 00:58:04.734 read the warnings not only for these apps but for anything. 00:58:04.734 --> 00:58:07.441 In fact, I’ll give you an example. The other day I was helping 00:58:07.441 --> 00:58:11.861 somebody in a Find-Take-Teach experience and several warnings 00:58:11.861 --> 00:58:15.288 came up during the process of our working together and 00:58:15.288 --> 00:58:18.761 the person I was helping just clicked right past the warnings. 00:58:18.761 --> 00:58:23.829 And the sense that I got was that they felt that they would not 00:58:23.829 --> 00:58:27.258 have understood the warnings anyway so why bother to read them. 00:58:27.258 --> 00:58:31.749 So maybe it was a little sense of technophobia or inadequacy or 00:58:31.749 --> 00:58:36.608 whatever, but for whatever reason, most people don’t read the warnings 00:58:36.608 --> 00:58:41.158 on these apps or anyplace else. I’ve also found that the few people 00:58:41.158 --> 00:58:45.405 who read the warnings don’t really understand how to apply it because 00:58:45.405 --> 00:58:48.985 often the main users of name-finding apps are people 00:58:48.985 --> 00:58:51.543 who are just getting started in family history and 00:58:51.543 --> 00:58:54.686 somebody has told them about the app and said this is a 00:58:54.686 --> 00:58:57.021 quick and easy way to find temple names. 00:58:57.021 --> 00:59:00.073 So they get to the app, and if they read the warning, 00:59:00.073 --> 00:59:05.693 they go, “Oh, Okay, I’ll research, whatever that means.” 00:59:05.704 --> 00:59:09.110 And so they reserve their hundred names, or whatever, 00:59:09.110 --> 00:59:11.845 and then they look at the list of a hundred and they go, 00:59:11.845 --> 00:59:17.576 “Well, looks fine to me. I’m not really sure what I’m 00:59:17.576 --> 00:59:22.764 looking for but I don’t see any problems so I guess I’ll go ahead.” 00:59:22.764 --> 00:59:26.068 And we can’t fault people for that because if they’re just 00:59:26.068 --> 00:59:29.684 getting started and they don’t understand, then they’re doing 00:59:29.684 --> 00:59:33.804 their best to follow the warning but they didn’t really understand 00:59:33.811 --> 00:59:36.829 what the app developer meant by the warning. 00:59:36.829 --> 00:59:42.329 So, that’s an example of how just putting a warning on an app doesn’t 00:59:42.329 --> 00:59:47.177 really help solve the problem of the app being misused to find 00:59:47.177 --> 00:59:51.417 invalid names or large numbers of names. 00:59:51.417 --> 00:59:53.762 So at this point you might be asking yourself, 00:59:53.762 --> 00:59:57.774 what if I submitted a lot of names like the dear sister in California 00:59:57.774 --> 01:00:02.234 that has submitted 8,000 names gathered with a name-finding app? 01:00:02.234 --> 01:00:06.202 Well, if the names are in your reservation list, verify them. 01:00:06.202 --> 01:00:12.523 You’ve got them. There's no reason to not verify them. 01:00:12.523 --> 01:00:16.319 What that means is not just kind of looking at them and going 01:00:16.319 --> 01:00:21.392 “Well, I don’t see any problems,” but rather going back and verifying 01:00:21.392 --> 01:00:25.663 is the vital information correct? Is it supported by sources? 01:00:25.663 --> 01:00:28.799 Are the relationships correct? Are there any obvious problems 01:00:28.799 --> 01:00:32.209 like the mom having kids when she’s age four? 01:00:32.209 --> 01:00:33.707 So verifying those names, 01:00:33.707 --> 01:00:36.739 you can’t really verify names en masse. 01:00:36.739 --> 01:00:39.107 You need to verify them individually, 01:00:39.107 --> 01:00:43.076 just like when the Savior had the individuals come to him. 01:00:43.076 --> 01:00:46.290 When he appeared in the Americas, they came one by one. 01:00:46.290 --> 01:00:49.138 We also need to verify names one by one 01:00:49.138 --> 01:00:51.166 and make sure that they’re correct. 01:00:51.166 --> 01:00:54.705 So that, of course, is not necessarily a short process, 01:00:54.705 --> 01:00:57.905 especially if you have 8,000 names in your temple queue. 01:00:57.905 --> 01:01:01.405 So if it’s going to take longer than two years before the names 01:01:01.411 --> 01:01:06.191 will be released by the Church, then you probably would want to 01:01:06.191 --> 01:01:09.608 put those names back in FamilySearch and let other people 01:01:09.608 --> 01:01:12.546 go ahead and reserve them and hopefully they would reserve 01:01:12.546 --> 01:01:16.055 just a few and they would carefully verify them. 01:01:16.055 --> 01:01:18.683 If the ordinances are already done, 01:01:18.683 --> 01:01:21.223 don’t worry about it. Don’t beat yourself up. 01:01:21.223 --> 01:01:24.295 I know of people who have beat themselves up. 01:01:24.295 --> 01:01:27.590 Like a sister I’m aware of who found out that she had, 01:01:27.590 --> 01:01:33.090 after reserving green temple names and doing about 30 ordinances, 01:01:33.090 --> 01:01:37.691 a cousin contacted her and said, “Did you realize you just did 01:01:37.691 --> 01:01:40.938 all this duplicate work? Those names were done years ago. 01:01:40.938 --> 01:01:44.880 And she was so hurt and so frustrated and so disappointed 01:01:44.880 --> 01:01:48.348 because she had been told that the right thing to do was just gather 01:01:48.348 --> 01:01:51.168 these green names and that she didn’t need to verify them. 01:01:51.168 --> 01:01:54.084 So she was so hurt and disappointed that she exclaimed, 01:01:54.084 --> 01:01:57.628 “I am never doing family history again!” 01:01:57.628 --> 01:02:02.134 Now, hopefully after she thought about it she changed her mind. 01:02:02.134 --> 01:02:06.734 That was hopefully just said in the disappointment of the moment, 01:02:06.734 --> 01:02:10.340 but that’s what we don’t want to do is beat ourselves up. 01:02:10.340 --> 01:02:13.660 If you’ve done some of these names, especially if you did them with 01:02:13.660 --> 01:02:16.571 the best of intentions, consider it a learning 01:02:16.571 --> 01:02:19.671 experience and just say, “Okay, that’s water under the bridge. 01:02:19.671 --> 01:02:22.583 Going forward I’ll know better what to do.” 01:02:22.583 --> 01:02:26.683 And, you can help people that you talk to be aware of these problems 01:02:26.686 --> 01:02:31.586 so that they don’t run into the same types of issues. 01:02:31.586 --> 01:02:35.081 Your next question might be, are you saying that I should 01:02:35.081 --> 01:02:39.647 never use a name-finding app? No, I’m not saying that, 01:02:39.647 --> 01:02:44.874 because it is possible to use name- finding apps to find valid names. 01:02:44.874 --> 01:02:48.114 It's just that in my experience, and this is anecdotal, 01:02:48.114 --> 01:02:51.314 so this is just my experience as a Stake Temple and 01:02:51.314 --> 01:02:53.768 Family History Consultant and a ward consultant 01:02:53.768 --> 01:02:57.994 in a number of different wards, it’s been my experience 01:02:57.994 --> 01:03:01.345 that they usually aren’t used to find valid names. 01:03:01.345 --> 01:03:04.443 Most of the time the people who are using them have been 01:03:04.443 --> 01:03:07.381 told that it’s a fast and easy way to find 01:03:07.381 --> 01:03:13.461 temple names and they’re not told about verification. 01:03:13.462 --> 01:03:18.002 So, if I use a name finding app, how can I find valid names? 01:03:18.002 --> 01:03:21.269 You can! So here are some tips for finding valid names 01:03:21.269 --> 01:03:26.737 with name-finding apps. First of all, most importantly, 01:03:26.737 --> 01:03:33.982 seek the guidance of the Spirit. I know a woman who started to use 01:03:33.982 --> 01:03:37.327 a name-finding app and the Spirit told her not to. 01:03:37.327 --> 01:03:40.602 Now that was specifically for her situation. 01:03:40.602 --> 01:03:43.551 That should not be generalized to anybody else 01:03:43.551 --> 01:03:46.511 in any other situation. That was just in hers. 01:03:46.512 --> 01:03:51.237 But, she was told not to and if she had disobeyed 01:03:51.237 --> 01:03:54.321 the Spirit, then that would have been a mistake for her. 01:03:54.321 --> 01:03:57.301 So you want to seek the guidance of the Spirit 01:03:57.301 --> 01:03:59.889 in using the name-finding apps, and if you’re warned 01:03:59.889 --> 01:04:02.902 not to use them, then don’t. On the other hand, if you’re 01:04:02.902 --> 01:04:10.313 told to use them by a definite spiritual prompting then do. 01:04:10.313 --> 01:04:13.598 Verify each and every name carefully that you find. 01:04:13.598 --> 01:04:16.826 So verify the vital information, the relationships, 01:04:16.826 --> 01:04:21.466 check for duplicates, add sources, make sure the vital information 01:04:21.471 --> 01:04:28.151 agrees with the sources. And here a tip is to use 01:04:28.151 --> 01:04:32.591 one or more names as a starting point to find and add more names. 01:04:32.592 --> 01:04:36.812 So you can find, maybe a couple of names using a name-finding app 01:04:36.813 --> 01:04:41.273 and then go back to Family Tree and thoroughly research those names and 01:04:41.273 --> 01:04:44.789 see if anybody’s missing, kind of as we did in the example 01:04:44.789 --> 01:04:53.679 that I showed you of the Find- Take-Teach experience in the MTC. 01:04:53.679 --> 01:04:57.899 And then finally, I found that it really helps to work 01:04:57.906 --> 01:05:03.688 on one family at a time, rather than a large list of random names. 01:05:03.688 --> 01:05:07.248 The reason it’s helpful to work on one family at a time is that you 01:05:07.248 --> 01:05:10.397 get to know that family, you become familiar with 01:05:10.397 --> 01:05:13.586 the place that they lived, with what they did for a living, 01:05:13.586 --> 01:05:17.395 with how many children they had, with when their kids left home 01:05:17.395 --> 01:05:20.583 and got married, and so forth. And so, as you follow 01:05:20.583 --> 01:05:24.127 this family through time, as you find their birth records, 01:05:24.127 --> 01:05:26.976 their census records, their death records, 01:05:26.976 --> 01:05:30.167 all those different things that help you know that family, 01:05:30.167 --> 01:05:34.927 then you’re able to correctly find the information for them, 01:05:34.927 --> 01:05:38.103 validate those names and add them to Family Tree. 01:05:38.103 --> 01:05:41.219 And I felt so much more comfortable working in 01:05:41.219 --> 01:05:45.981 family units to add names to Family Tree rather than 01:05:45.981 --> 01:05:51.041 just working from a mass list of random names that are just in 01:05:51.041 --> 01:05:58.020 whatever order they were found by the name-finding app. 01:05:58.020 --> 01:06:00.887 So, therefore what? Do you remember President Packer 01:06:00.887 --> 01:06:04.167 used to say this a lot, so what are the takeaways that 01:06:04.167 --> 01:06:08.136 I hope we’ll get from this webinar? Well, if you are a user 01:06:08.136 --> 01:06:11.062 of a name-finding app, the takeaways are 01:06:11.062 --> 01:06:13.805 I hope that you would be aware of the potential problems 01:06:13.805 --> 01:06:17.204 that we’ve talked about today and also that you’d help others 01:06:17.204 --> 01:06:20.788 be aware because there’s so many misconceptions going around, 01:06:20.788 --> 01:06:24.871 that you would use these apps as guided by the Spirit, 01:06:24.871 --> 01:06:27.660 that you would remember that there are so many names 01:06:27.660 --> 01:06:31.295 that still need to be added to Family Tree, 01:06:31.295 --> 01:06:33.850 that you would realize that a good helper can help you 01:06:33.850 --> 01:06:38.314 in a way that an app can’t, and that you would remember 01:06:38.314 --> 01:06:44.134 that technology doesn’t replace thought, research, or the Spirit. 01:06:44.134 --> 01:06:48.244 As amazing as technology is, it’s not perfect and we need 01:06:48.244 --> 01:06:51.603 to use it as a tool and as a companion to our 01:06:51.603 --> 01:06:55.971 spiritual efforts but not as a replacement for them. 01:06:55.971 --> 01:06:59.103 If you are a developer, what would I hope that 01:06:59.103 --> 01:07:02.523 you would take away from this webinar today? 01:07:02.540 --> 01:07:06.175 I would love to see app developers educate people about 01:07:06.175 --> 01:07:10.548 the data in Family Tree to combat those misconceptions. 01:07:10.548 --> 01:07:14.928 Again, I don’t think most developers are setting out 01:07:14.928 --> 01:07:20.298 to tell people wrong facts about the data in Family Tree. 01:07:20.298 --> 01:07:23.721 They’re not meaning to communicate misconceptions, 01:07:23.721 --> 01:07:28.341 but users pick them up anyway, especially when they’re shared 01:07:28.341 --> 01:07:32.594 word of mouth from user to user or posted on Facebook or wherever. 01:07:32.594 --> 01:07:36.567 So app developers could do a huge favor to users 01:07:36.567 --> 01:07:40.941 by educating them about the data in Family Tree. 01:07:40.941 --> 01:07:43.843 Also, teach people that Family Tree is not meant 01:07:43.843 --> 01:07:46.890 to be a primary source for finding names. 01:07:46.890 --> 01:07:50.850 Yes, there are some great, valid green temple names in Family Tree, 01:07:50.851 --> 01:07:55.591 but Family Tree was never intended to be a primary source of temple 01:07:55.591 --> 01:08:02.067 names so we don’t have to find our own family or do our own research. 01:08:02.067 --> 01:08:06.947 I would love it if app developers did not give users the impression 01:08:06.947 --> 01:08:10.968 that family history without the app is difficult and tedious. 01:08:10.968 --> 01:08:15.128 Again, family history is only difficult and tedious 01:08:15.133 --> 01:08:19.494 if we don’t have the Spirit. Let me take that back on difficult. 01:08:19.494 --> 01:08:23.790 There can be challenges, especially in some time periods 01:08:23.790 --> 01:08:28.770 and some places, but what I found is that if you follow the Spirit, 01:08:28.772 --> 01:08:31.332 you’ll be led to solve those problems and there’s a 01:08:31.332 --> 01:08:36.706 sense of joy and it’s not difficult in a horrible way. 01:08:36.706 --> 01:08:40.570 It’s difficult in a challenging and invigorating way. 01:08:40.570 --> 01:08:43.844 So, I would love for this misconception to be done 01:08:43.844 --> 01:08:48.286 away with in the Church, that family history is synonymous 01:08:48.286 --> 01:08:54.266 with difficult and tedious. I would also love it if apps 01:08:54.266 --> 01:08:58.002 put caps on the number of names that they found. 01:08:58.002 --> 01:09:01.427 I’m aware of some that do, but to my understanding, 01:09:01.427 --> 01:09:05.163 there are some that don’t, that allow users to just grab 01:09:05.163 --> 01:09:10.523 huge numbers of names and submit them for temple work. 01:09:10.523 --> 01:09:15.258 I was talking with some friends the other day about the problems 01:09:15.258 --> 01:09:19.621 that we continue to see with people submitting large numbers of invalid 01:09:19.621 --> 01:09:24.081 names using name-finding apps and we would love it if 01:09:24.081 --> 01:09:26.929 there was some kind of feature that would allow 01:09:26.929 --> 01:09:30.933 people to clean up those large numbers of the invalid names 01:09:30.933 --> 01:09:34.090 that have been submitted, whether it was some 01:09:34.090 --> 01:09:37.963 super duplicate search or something, I don’t know. 01:09:37.963 --> 01:09:40.610 This was on our wish list. We thought it would be 01:09:40.610 --> 01:09:43.930 so wonderful if there was some way to clean up 01:09:43.934 --> 01:09:48.654 those many invalid names that have been submitted. 01:09:48.654 --> 01:09:52.732 I would like to close with a quote from David Rancher, 01:09:52.732 --> 01:09:55.803 who is currently the chief genealogical officer 01:09:55.803 --> 01:09:59.668 at FamilySearch. He said, “I love my computer. 01:09:59.668 --> 01:10:02.255 I love it for everything it can do for me, 01:10:02.255 --> 01:10:06.655 but the computer is not what turns my heart. 01:10:06.655 --> 01:10:10.343 What turns my heart are the experiences and the impressions 01:10:10.343 --> 01:10:17.255 I have from the Spirit and the things that I know and understand. 01:10:17.255 --> 01:10:19.178 So that concludes our webinar for today. 01:10:19.178 --> 01:10:22.750 I wanted to share with you those promised additional resources. 01:10:22.750 --> 01:10:27.630 The first one is a list of other webinars that you can get on this 01:10:27.630 --> 01:10:31.193 link down at the bottom and they are webinars that go into 01:10:31.193 --> 01:10:33.972 more detail about what we’ve talked about today. 01:10:33.972 --> 01:10:42.132 Many times people use name-finding apps because they’ve been told that 01:10:42.132 --> 01:10:45.604 it is the only way to find success as a beginner. 01:10:45.604 --> 01:10:48.478 And, unfortunately, I’ve even seen this attitude 01:10:48.478 --> 01:10:52.390 among consultants where they will say it is too hard 01:10:52.390 --> 01:10:55.497 to teach a beginner to do careful family history. 01:10:55.497 --> 01:10:58.353 They’re going to get discouraged and they won’t do it. 01:10:58.353 --> 01:11:02.785 And so therefore I have to teach them to use the name-finding app. 01:11:02.785 --> 01:11:07.205 Well of course, Find-Take-Teach has turned that on its head. 01:11:07.205 --> 01:11:12.668 As a helper prepares a Spirit-led Find-Take-Teach experience 01:11:12.668 --> 01:11:18.425 to find valid names, beginners do learn to do valid family history. 01:11:18.425 --> 01:11:23.665 So that first webinar kind of touches on that subject. 01:11:23.665 --> 01:11:26.254 The second one dives more into using the Holy Ghost 01:11:26.254 --> 01:11:29.922 in family history, duplicates in Family Tree, obviously. 01:11:29.922 --> 01:11:34.189 And then the last one goes into a lot more detail on understanding 01:11:34.189 --> 01:11:37.014 the data in Family Tree, where it came from and 01:11:37.014 --> 01:11:39.940 what some of the additional challenges are with it. 01:11:39.940 --> 01:11:42.007 And then lastly, I want to recommend to you 01:11:42.007 --> 01:11:46.275 this amazing book that I just love. It’s available at Deseret Book. 01:11:46.275 --> 01:11:48.249 It’s called "Hearts Turned to the Fathers," 01:11:48.249 --> 01:11:52.900 and it’s a history of family history since the restoration. 01:11:52.900 --> 01:11:55.192 So it starts out from the beginning of the 01:11:55.192 --> 01:12:00.032 restored gospel to about the 1990’s when the book was 01:12:00.032 --> 01:12:04.200 published and when FamilySearch was just gaining traction. 01:12:04.200 --> 01:12:09.040 So if you love family history I think you would love this book. 01:12:09.040 --> 01:12:11.961 So thank you everybody for your time and attention today 01:12:11.965 --> 01:12:14.945 and I hope that this webinar is helpful to you, 01:12:14.946 --> 01:12:17.687 hope that it makes your family history more meaningful 01:12:17.687 --> 01:12:21.209 and more successful. Thank you. 01:12:21.209 --> 01:12:24.055 (Sean) Okay thank you so much to Kathryn for that wonderful 01:12:24.055 --> 01:12:27.951 presentation. I would just like to remind everybody that these 01:12:27.951 --> 01:12:31.386 webinars will be uploaded onto YouTube and our channel name 01:12:31.386 --> 01:12:35.746 is BYU Family History Library. If you could, before you leave 01:12:35.746 --> 01:12:39.132 the webinar today, look at the different polls that we have 01:12:39.132 --> 01:12:41.477 down at the bottom of the screen. 01:12:41.477 --> 01:12:46.717 We’d love to hear any feedback that you have or suggestions 01:12:46.717 --> 01:12:50.417 to different topics that you’d like us to cover in the future. 01:12:50.417 --> 01:12:54.677 That would be very helpful for us and our different presenters. 01:12:54.680 --> 01:12:57.941 And again, thanks to Kathryn for that wonderful presentation today 01:12:57.941 --> 01:13:08.161 and we hope to see you guys at our next webinar. Alright, Bye.