Genealogy from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS)

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

A Family History Mission: Helping People with their Family History


No. 86

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them or click back through all the posts.

Serving a Senior Mission is not all work and no play. We had a mission-wide activity for all the Senior Missionaries in the Washington, D.C. North Mission where we went sailing on the Bay and then had a crab dinner. It was lovely weather and several of us got to steer the sailboat for a while. Notwithstanding all the places I have been and all the activities I have participated in during my long life, I had never sailed on a large sailboat before and certainly never steered one.

One of the major activities we have had during our stay in Annapolis, Maryland other than digitizing records at the Maryland State Archives, has been to help people find their ancestors and in my case, teach classes, do presentations, and webinars. It has been a blessing to work with the Spanish-speaking members of the Spa Creek Branch and with the support of the Branch President and the Elders Quorum President, we have had quite a few of the members meet with us so we can help them find their ancestors.  Right now, the Washington, D.C. Temple is closed for two years, but the members of our Branch, have been scheduling regular temple excursions to drive 2 hours to Philadelphia to attend the temple.

I have also been working in the local Family History Center two nights a week and helping the patrons, including some of the other Senior Missionaries, to learn how to do the research to find their ancestors. In many ways, this has been a continuation of what we were doing at the Brigham Young University Family History Library before our full-time mission, but it is interesting to have that experience in a whole new area that is far removed from Arizona or Utah.

We are starting to see that our mission will end and the time is flying by. 

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