I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for my ancestors. I wouldn’t have been born in the USA if it weren’t for my ancestors didn’t come to America, starting in the 1600s, including ones that came on the Mayflower. I wouldn’t be a member of the church if my ancestors hadn’t converted in Sweden and Denmark and come to America to be in Zion. I wouldn’t have the comfort in knowing that I’m going to see and be with my grandmother, again, when she passes away. I’ll see my beloved grandfather who died 15.5 years ago because I had ancestors who believed and were converted. Knowing that is powerful to me.

Unfortunately, I tend to be more motivated by the making of big charts than it is by story gathering. Am I still obligated to search out the stories, I mean beyond what Starfoxy mentioned, for the purpose of gathering more information?

Of course this is all academic right now since I’m not actively engaged in either genealogy or family history. I’m just trying to figure out what I should do if I ever actually get off my lazy rear end and get started.

With Lynnette, I have a hard time imagining that my next life relationships with my ancestors will be more important than my ongoing relationships with my unrelated contemporary friends. After all, my ancestors will probably be most interested in spending the eternities with their immediate family and their contemporary unrelated friends, I suspect, and will not have more than a passing interest in me.

Of course, this speculation will all be moot when I’m the one damned, hopelessly breaking the family line. Sorry, Eve, Kiskilili, and Lynnette!

I think the current term ‘family history’ has as much to do with the church’s present sociopolitical concerns as any theological reason.

I think it would be foolish for people to think that if a family line is broken somewhere that those after the break are stuck by themselves. We do not know or understand the organization of the CK or how God will fix problems of gaps in families.

This is one of the a beautiful things about the millenium. It will be a time for temple work and all the problems and dead ends that were run into here during mortality will be able to be corrected.

I trust that the Lord will fix the problems that we may see in His plan. It is a plan that has been devised by the omniscient divine and I will trust that there are no chinks, loopholes, or omissions. Trust in the Lord.

As for our relationship with our ancestors, I don’t consider them to be fictional characters any more than I consider famous historical figures to be fictional or people who are alive now that I don’t know. Do you consider people alive right now that you don’t know fictional? How are they less fictional than your ancestors?

In researching your genealogy, you should develop an affection for and a love for your ancestors but that doesn’t mean it has to be the strongest bonds and ties you have ever forged. Of course it will be weaker than many other ties you have developed merely for the lack of interaction and information. However, your loyalty should be to your family, as God has instructed, not to other people, no matter how interesting, notable, respectable, or “close” you feel to them.

For example, what if basically your entire ancestral line for the last several centuries is burning in hell? If you do go to the CK, you’re not going to be in any tribe or clan. If people are living in tribes, you’re going to have to find one that will adopt you.

Also, I’m still not sure what our spiritual relationship is to our ancestors. What if, as a historian, I read personal unpublished journals (or even ancient letters) and feel a connection to the individuals who wrote them? Is it acceptable for me to seal myself to them and break the sealing with my current line?

And this poses even more potential problems. Our relationship to the dead is mediated almost entirely through written materials, which do not always yield an accurate portrait of how someone behaves in person. Is it fair to say our relationship to the distant dead is, in some ways, essentially a relationship with fictional characters?

To that end, the vast efforts the church has put in place regarding family history is simply for temple work. That is what the church is gaining from the vast resources (money, time, effort, etc.) used in compiling the information.

So, if we look at his statement from that perspective, he is making no comment at all on what we as individual members are supposed to gain from family history.

I personally think that the 6th verse of Malchi 4 refers to much more than just names, dates, and doing work for someone we don’t know:

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Yes, you may have feel more connected with friends than ancestors you have never met, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the status quo is how things should be or how He wants them to be.