Helping those with family history who cannot help themselves

As I grew older, I discovered an interesting phenomenon. From time to time, I see younger people who I recognize from my neighborhood and Ward in stores or other public places, but I am very seldom reciprocally recognized. In addition, often when passing younger members of our Ward in the halls of our chapel, I may as well be invisible. Of course, in the genealogical sub-culture that I now live in, I am readily recognized by the dominant demographic of older participants.

The reality of life is that unless we die along our path to becoming elderly, we will all suffer a decline in our physical abilities and some of us will become both physically and mentally incapacitated sometime before we die. Because of this reality, there is an opportunity here for genealogical service that is frequently overlooked. There are those of our elderly population in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who would love to "do their genealogy" but have lost the physical or mental ability to physically complex operations necessary to become involved in finding names to take to the Temples. Perhaps, those of us who still have these abilities could take the time to directly assist our less capable brethren and sisters in having the opportunity to take some of their own ancestors' names to the temples.

Many of these elderly people can still attend the Temples and some of them provide consistent temple service, but still, cannot operate computers and submit names directly. Of course, there are some of us who can still perform those tasks. How about those who can, helping those who cannot? Perhaps, charitable genealogical service could be helping another find names to take to the temple without the additional burden on the elderly that they learn those skills for themselves. Maybe as genealogical helpers, we can assist without the need to expect the elderly to perform those tasks for themselves.

In some cases, I find that I can assist my elderly friends with names from their own families and they can perform the time-consuming tasks of taking those names to the Temples.

Maybe even some of those youth who have those alleged "computer skills" could become involved in acting as a computer surrogate for the elderly in your Ward or Stake? Perhaps those of us who can still function at a high level can help those who cannot. Think about it.

Perhaps, this service can be extended to those whose computer skills are lacking for other reasons rather than age? Think some more about it.