Wednesday, December 6, 2017

The importance of accuracy in family history research for temple ordinances

Here is a link to another blog post compiled by Cathy Pearce Anderegg about the importance of accuracy when submitting names for temple work.

Prophets Urge Accuracy and Sources Before Temple Work

 Sometimes it is very easy to locate lots of green icons (used to be green arrows) in FamilySearch Family Tree and reserve those names and take them to the temple and get the temple work done. But, how can you be sure that you are not duplicating temple work.

According to one statistical study done in FamilySearch Family Tree, if you find a green icon name for a person born after 1800 there is a 50% chance that the temple work has already been done. If you find a green icon for a person born before 1800 there is a 96% chance that the temple work has already been done.

Often our priesthood leaders make goals that we "find a name and take it to the temple."  So, we want to achieve this goal quickly and easily and we grab the first green icon we find in our FamilySearch Family Tree. For some members such as new converts who have no names in their FamilySearch Family Tree it is easy to find names to take to the temple. For multi-generational members who have many names in their FamilySearch Family Tree it is harder to find names to take to the temple. Some of our ancestors have had their temple work done hundreds of times, besides doing it themselves when they were alive.

Adding and documenting sources in FamilySearch Family Tree is a key way to reduce the amount of duplication. If this is done when you use the "search for duplicates" function you will be more likely to find duplicates.

The last time our family did sealings at the temple we were in the same group as a young couple who brought a stack of family name cards for marriages that were reserved by the wife's mother. As we started to do the sealings, it was obvious that many were duplicates with the same names and dates. We ran out of time and were not able to do them all. The sealer told the young couple that they should have checked for duplicates and then they would have time to complete all the sealings in that session.

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