God Bless the Indexer

May 2, 2016 By Guest Blogger

By Jennifer Kerns Davis

A few years ago, I was facing a somewhat challenging research problem in my tree. I had a family pieced together, but I could not extend the mother’s line. I was missing some important bits of data that would help me in my quest. At the time, I had a very busy schedule that would not allow me to spend hours scouring through film or digital images to find the information I needed. I ended up dropping that part of my tree temporarily and focusing on a different part.

About a year later, I decided to revisit this family. After searching indexed records on FamilySearch.org for a few minutes, I couldn’t believe how quickly I was able to find a marriage record that named the maiden name of the mother in question, along with her parents. In the time I deferred my search for this family the year before, someone had indexed the exact record I needed! I was so excited! But in my excitement, I didn’t forget to say a little prayer to God, like I usually did, thanking Him for helping me to find the information I needed.

Then it occurred to me—God was not the only person I needed to thank. I suddenly had a strong desire to thank the person who indexed this marriage record just for me to find! But how could I know who that person was? It was impossible for me to know—except that God knew. Then I knew what to do: I prayed to God and asked Him to bless the person who indexed this record, whoever he or she was. I felt an outpouring of love for the indexer.

I suddenly realized that it was not just the indexer that brought this record to me, it was the arbitrator too! There are also people at FamilySearch who get the records ready to publish, and all the others that touched that record—from the camera operator who took the picture of the record right down to the recorder who sat there with my ancestors so many years ago, pen in hand, and wrote down that information that I now had in my hands. None of these people knew me or even knew my name, but they had done something that meant so much to me. The feeling of love and appreciation for all of the contributors to this record overwhelmed me. As I continued my prayer, I prayed that the Lord would bless each of those persons for carrying out their part. Now this has become a regular occurrence for me: whenever I find a record to fill a branch of my family tree, I ask God to please bless the indexer, arbitrator, and everyone else that brought that record to me.

So if you feel an extra lift while you are indexing or arbitrating, this could be why: there are people praying for you, and thanking you for your work. Perhaps you are receiving blessings outside of your indexing work—blessings for your family, blessings of safety, blessings of health. Whatever the extra strength you feel in your personal life because of your service, just remember that there are appreciative people like me cheering you on, thanking you and praying for you.

William A bBaumgardner Sr. says:

May 2, 2016 at 3:38 pm

I have been working on my family history from the time I was baptized in Nov. 1969. My sweet wife is a 5th. generation member, Catawba Indian , from Rock Hill S. C. Since then I have been REALLY blessed with lots of family history, I’m talking, books with thousands of family names. I release 200-450- ordinances a week to be done by the Temples now & also Index 100-200 names a week. I am a retired truck dive & did not have a lot of time before I retired, but ALWAYS had some time to do some work & have been to 7 Temples 325 times or more.
I received a Blessing, through my Stake President, a few weeks ago & Heavenly Father told me that my name is spoken everyday by those in the Spirit World that I have helped & they love & appreciate ALL I do.  SO we surely do have a lot of people, here & there, that will surely thank us when we see them. 

Welcome to the new Murray 24th Ward family history and indexing blog page.  I thought it would be fun to have a single location for our Ward members to go and get the latest news and information about Indexing and Family History in the Ward.  We will be able to share upcoming events, goals and comments on what's going on in our Ward as we all work together to assist in our Heavenly Father's work on both sides of the veil.  The Lord invites any and all of us to help in this work, just have the desire and give it a try.

D&C Section 4

 1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. 3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are calledto the work; 4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; 5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. 6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance,patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility,diligence. 7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.