Teach Others to Find Family Members

Now that you have experienced the blessings of recieving temple ordinances for your own family members, it's your chance to teach others around you to experience the same blessings. Plus, when you teach others how to find their family, it helps you remember how to find your own family names. Here are some quick tips on how to help others along their own Find, Take, Teach journey.

7 Tips on Teaching Family History

1. Their Story, Not Yours

When we have a good experience finding names to take to the temple, it is natural to want to share our experience because it has touched our heart.

However, the connection that you felt is unique to you and while you want to share this story, it is not going to connect with anyone else.

Everyone has to connect with their own family story, so focus on their family story and not your own.

2. Connect with Their Heart

As you focus on their story, remember that the goal is to help people feel the Holy Ghost as they participate.

The Spirit is the only one who can connect with our hearts, and give us a testimony of the importance of helping our family receive temple ordinances.

While you teach, find moments to stop and let the spirit participate. Begin with a prayer. Pause and connect gospel principles from their ancestors lives to their everyday life.

3. Keep It Quick and Simple

One of peoples' biggest concerns with family history is that it will take too much time because it is extremely complicated.

If a person is afraid of heights, you don't take them out on a tight rope and make them stand on it for 30 minutes to help them overcome their fear.

The same is true when helping others discover their family story. Their first experience should be short and positive.

4. Use the Family Tree App

The Family Tree mobile app can go a long ways in helping people to discover their story quickly and simply.

With the app, 5 minutes a day goes a long way. There are simple, bite-size tasks that can help you do a lot in a short amount of time.

As you teach others to use the app from the beginning, they will become much more comfortable discovering their story on their own.

5. Start with Something Fun

If you go see a movie that just gives the dates and major events where the main actors interact, you would never watch that movie again.

The same is true with your family story, it is the connections that you make with the stories that cause you to want to come back again and again

Use the "Relatives Around Me" and "Map my Ancestors" features in the Family Tree app or other discovery experiences to help others have fun with their story.

6. Teach to Their Age and Ability

Depending on the person's age or ability, you will need to adjust what you teach them.

For example, if you are teaching Aunt Sally who doesn't even know how to turn on a computer, don't waste her time by trying to teach her how to use FamilySearch.org or the family tree app.

Instead, teach her how to organize the records and pictures she already has, and how to enlist the help of her children and grandchildren to put the information online.