Sunday School: Temple and Family History Work - Who Needs Their Work Done?

by Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger

28 Nov 2007 05:45 PM

So you've done research and have names, along with their date of birth or death, and you know where these events took place. You are now ready to move on to the next phase of the process - determining what temple work has already been done for those individuals, if any.

Your greatest tool will be the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Perhaps you need to do just a bit more research before taking the name to the temple. Maybe you have enough and feel prompted to go ahead with the work. As you stay close to the Spirit, you will be guided when one of the names is ready.

So, how can you know which ordinances have already been performed?

Start by looking on your family group record. There are spaces to mark down what work has been done. As you go through and find the blank spaces, you can check them off as you obtain the dates.

If you have the Personal Ancestral File, or PAF, you can print out something called the "Incomplete Indiviual Ordinance List" and the "Incomplete Marriage Sealings" list. These are handy tools that compile into one place everything that has not yet been done. Of course, this means, not done by you. It might have been done by someone else without your knowledge, and this is where the FamilySearch comes in.

At the family history library, you will find the FamilySearch program. This takes all submitted information and shows you what is there, and many of the entries will also tell you what temple work has been done, although not every scrap of temple work has been entered. Soon the Church will be launching a more comprehensive program to track those things.

As you find information in the FamilySearch and Ancestral File, you can double-check and cross-reference everything against the International Genealogical Index.

After you've found and verified your names, you'll want to make sure that the individuals in question have been dead for at least one year. If they died before the age of twenty-one and were worthy, or if they were unable to go to the temple during their lifetimes because of distance or poverty, they do not have to wait a year. In addition, many of the names you'll find belonged to those who died before temple work was restored to the earth. They don't have to wait a year, either.

If the person was born within the last ninety-five years, you'll need to take the additional step of getting permission from the next of kin. Often, as we do our genealogy, we are the next of kin, but if you're a niece or nephew, for instance, you'll need to double check with the relatives first.

This is just a basic overview of some of the steps toward submission. We'll continue looking at the process here on Families.com.

Related Blogs:

Temple Ordinances for the Dead

Information Needed for Ordinances

Online Genealogy

Learn more about Tristi Pinkston

I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006.

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