"...names are important in genealogical research. Knowledge of the historic context in which our ancestors lived, the details of their lives, and the experiences that shaped their personalities are essential to our understanding of ourselves."
"The plan of salvation and the Atonement of Jesus Christ are the very backbone of genealogical research. What about our ancestors who lived and loved and filled their lives with good things to the extent of the knowledge they may have had? Is there any hope for them? Each individual must have the right and privvilege of accepting or rejecting the saving ordinances and principles. The identification of our ancestors and the performance of sacred ordinances on their behalf provide a way for them to make this very decision."
"By the third or fourth generation our ancestors live in obscurity. They are lost from memory. But the obscurity of which Malachi speaks is much more. It is a spiritual obscurity, a spiritual wasteland in which one stands alone, disconnected from ancestors and posterity alike. Family history is the saving of one's ancestors from the spiritual obscurity in which they reside."
"Does not family history reach as easily to future generations as to past ones? The quality of life is affected by knowledge of one's ancestors because it gives one a sense of identity and personal responsibility that, really, can come only in that way. If this is true, is it not also true that our posterity will be so influenced by our lives?"
**** "If we do not create records that document our lives, or that of our families, knowledge of who we are is lost within a generation or two, and we become those who are lost in obscurity. Without that knowledge, our posterity becomes disconnected from their roots and from the nourishment those roots provide."
Elder Neuenschwander
July 27, 2010
Conference on Family History and Genealogy at BYU
