How Youth Can Get involved in Family History

Learning how to do family history is easy enough. Regularly doing it is a bit harder…finding names to take to the temple when your family has been Mormons for generations is challenging! But finding time to do this as a teenager in this world is definitely a difficult feat…and most times, youth are so busy that they don’t take time to get to know an old friend from generations back. There are many ways for youth to get started on family history-and there are those days when youth have empty time and wish to be doing something useful; these are the days when you pull up a chair and start researching your ancestors. First of all, sign in onto Family Tree with an LDS account. After that, view your family tree and start searching for names to take to the temple. Go to grandparents and ask for information about their ancestors. It’s really quite simple to get started. If a teen thinks it’s strange to do family history, well, it’s not only for Grandma! In fact, someone may be waiting just for you-they are praying that you will come and find them and help them be able to be their families for eternity. There is likely one person that only you can find for several reasons: perhaps no one can find them, maybe that person has been trying to connect and get across to your parents and/or your grandparents and they haven’t done anything. You are the key to their eternal happiness. Don’t live with regrets…how does your choice to serve and act as proxy affect those in Heaven? Will you be the reason of their chance to join the church? And remember, family history is not a one-time thing…every time you do work on it, you draw closer to God and your ancestors. It’s just that first time—and then it’s easier to do more every time after that. Youth are blessed so much by doing family history! Don’t worry—you don’t turn into Grandma by doing family history. In fact, most people and other youth are impressed by youth making time to find out more about their family…so let’s get to work! There are a lot of people out there to save!