A New Approach to Temple and Family History Consulting?

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/temple-family-history/

FamilySearch.org has come around full circle. Many years ago, we had just finished another series of classes in our Ward in Mesa, Arizona teaching the basics of family history from a set of lessons from a FamilySearch DVD and the Ward Family History Consultant and I were sitting around talking about the experience and concluding that the series of classes had accomplished exactly nothing in the way of encouraging the members to get involved in the own family history. In fact, some of the members had been through the classes multiple times. We decided to simply open up our computer room (not really an established Family History Center) and offer to help people every Sunday during the Sunday School Block time. We talked to the Bishop and he said that would be OK, but he was not really interested and if that is what we wanted to try, to go ahead.

For the first few weeks, we announced our availability in the various meetings and waited for people to show up. After a few weeks of having a nice discussion between the two of us, people started popping in and asking if we were really going to be there to help. They slowly started to bring their questions to us. Over the next few months, the number of people coming in began to grow. We added a few more consultants who volunteered to help and before too long, we had standing room only in the computer room. We had six computers and they were always in use. The idea of helping soon spilled over into one-on-one support in the members' homes. After a few years, when we moved out of the Ward, the room was upgraded with new desk space for computers and with new people helping. The whole experience made a tremendous impact on the family history activity in the Ward and ultimately the entire Stake.

Now it is a number of years later. I am in a different Ward in a different Stake in Provo, Utah. Rather than talk about formal classes, for years now, we have been offering to help people in their homes, at the Church, in the Brigham Young University Family History Library or wherever or whenever they need help. Since that time many years ago, we have seen two or three "new" programs from FamilySearch. The latest one is exactly what I and many others have been doing for years: helping people one-on-one find their ancestral family. Given the fact that the new 2-hour block will eliminate the opportunity to help people during the block, we will need to spend more time in their homes and with them in our home as well as using the local Family History Center and Library resources.

Despite the title to the FamilySearch blog post, this is not a "new" approach. It is the only consistently successful approach that we know about. I, for one, am happy that FamilySearch has finally come around full-circle and started to promote the idea of actually helping people in a way that leads to more family history activity. Meanwhile, I have a few appointments and offers to help going on right now and will probably be busy for the rest of my life.

You might want to read the whole article if you don't understand what I am talking about. See the link above to the screenshot. Here it is again. https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/temple-family-history/