130 Years of Uniting Families for Eternity

April 2025

ELDER BENJAMÍN DE HOYOS of the Seventy said in a recent general confer­ence talk, “The Lord encourages us as members of His Church to preserve our own family history, to learn from our ancestors, and to make the necessary arrangements for them to receive the ordinances of the gospel in the temples. . . . That is a central focus of the plan of our Heavenly Father: uniting family for this life and for eternity.”

FamilySearch, the world’s largest nonprofit genealogy organization, is an important part of Heavenly Father’s plan to unite families for eternity. The organization recently celebrated its 130th anniversary along with the 25th anniversary of FamilySearch.org. This website has provided billions of genea­logical records and resources for free to help people around the world discover family connections.

Today, FamilySearch spearheads the latest advancements in family his­tory technology, reengineering and reimagining how family history work can be done worldwide. FamilySearch’s goal of gathering and disseminating family history information has not changed since it was established in 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah. With the Salt Lake Temple dedication preceding the genesis of the society by only 18 months, the importance of and relation­ship between temple ordinances and family history work is evident.

One of the many blessings that has come from FamilySearch is the way tem­ple work for families has become easier than ever. Historically, preparing names for the temple was a laborious process that involved traveling from place to place to track down records. Digitizing the record and making it available to members was another arduous task that often resulted in duplications of temple ordinances.

The momentous introduction of the Ordinances Ready tool in 2018 has made doing temple work for ancestors simpler than ever. Through the tool, users can quickly find ancestors who have temple ordinances ready to complete. This advancement in technol­ogy falls in step with President Nelson’s encouragement for members to attend the temple more and that “temples are nourished with names.”

Divinely inspired, FamilySearch has been and continues to be a resource that brings joy to families as they are brought together for eternity. Elder De Hoyos said, “The Spirit will flood our hearts, awaken our faculties to do it, and guide us as we search for the names of our ancestors. . . . It is uniting families and feeling the joy that comes from extending to them the ordinances of the gospel.”

Thank you for your consecrated efforts and for letting the Spirit flood our hearts to do good. It is thanks to your contributions to the Church General Fund that priorities like FamilySearch will continue to gather God’s children in the years to come.