Many Strategy

When trying to find family names to take to the temple, many members of the church who are from pioneer stock, or who are a second or third generation member feel that their family history is "done." Most likely, Aunt Julie has traced their ancestry back to Adam, and Uncle Ed has written volumes of books about your ancestor's life. So where does that leave the rest of us who want the promised blessings that come from doing temple ordinances for our family members, but don't want to launch into a college level research project to find new family members? If this describes your situation, then the "Many" Strategy is going to be perfect for you.

Turning Family History Upside Down

10th Great-Granparents

Going back 10 generations, you only have 2047 family members (you and all your grandparents)

This is the part that is done. Aunt Julie found all 2047 of them.

This is because Aunt Julie has been focused mainly on the "Some" and "None" Strategies.

Flip Your Perspective

The "Many" Strategy is about turning from looking backwards for family to looking forwards.

Your grandparents want to be sealed to their posterity as much as you want to be sealed to your immediate family.

On average, each set of your 10th great-grandparents have 16,384 grandchildren that you can do temple work for.

Finding Cousins

That means in those 10 generations, you have over 8,388,608 cousins!

It is not possible that all of this work is done. There are many more cousins to find.

The "Many" Strategy focusses on quick ways to find your cousins who need ordinances. Watch the video below for a brief overview.

"Many" Strategy Steps

Sign in to FamilySearch.org with your LDS Account, and then click Family Tree.
Find an ancestor who was born before 1830.
Select the ancestor, and click Tree. Then change the view to Descendancy.
Expand the viewed descendants of your ancestor, and look for record hints.
Look for both the record hints icon and the research suggestions icon together. The two icons together mean that there may be records for the person and possibly missing family members to add.
Click the research suggestions icon to view possible gaps or missing family members.
Click the record hints icon to view possible records about the person. Select a record, and then click Review and Attach.
Compare the information from the suggested record to the information already in your family tree.
If the information is accurate, attach the record, and add any missing family members to your family tree.
Click Return to Family Tree. Reserve ordinances for the newly added family members.