I realize that there are very few family members who read my blog and so you have no idea who I am talking about but I thought I would share my Family Ancestry adventure. I don't want to rewrite the email I sent to my family members so I have just copied and pasted it here.
For reference purposes...Mernie = Mary Jane = My great aunt and only sister of my grandma. She never married and never had any children therefore, my mom, aunt and uncle are her next of kin and I am the oldest of the next generation. I should also point out, we all loved Mernie but she wasn't always the easiest person to like so there are parts that are tongue in cheek directed towards my cousins who lived with her during the last few months of her life.
It has been 11 years ago since Mernie left us *sigh* I thought it fitting that I would have a Mernie Tale to share during this week of reflection of her life and how much we all miss her….
As most of you know I have been working on genealogy for more than a year now. Last week I finally took the next step in going to the family history library at my stake center so I could start seeing what Temple work actually needs to be done. There were a few gaps in information for Mernie, Grandma and Grandpa since they have died so recently (which have now been fixed). I came across Mernie’s record - was cross referencing it as one does and saw that in her endowment someone had “cleared” it for them to do her endowment. I thought, WHAT? She did her own endowment. This put me on a quest to find out when she took them out. So I do all the research I can short of going downtown. Still nothing. (For sake of the story…there is an old program called DOS (I don’t think it is in dos though.) Her information was NOT there. Then I moved on to Family Search. It too was not in there but the “cleared” was, just egging me on to do more research.
SO today I went downtown. First I met with a lovely librarian who had access to the NEW family search, which is NOT available on the Wasatch Front. (It probably won’t be until 2010. When the Church opened it up to the LA Temple and Vegas Temple districts it about crashed due to the overwhelming use. They figure they need to do some more updates before they can bring it online in Utah even though it has been mentioned in the Ensign several times now.)
In the mean time she recruited some others to come and help just in case. She pulls up Mernie’s record and it shows that her initiatory was done April 3rd 2007 in the Timpanogos Temple and that her endowment was done June 13th 2008 in the Provo Temple – not only did they do unnecessary work, they did it under the name Mary Jane Hair, they left off the Stewart. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t her full given name Mary Jane Stewart Hair?) First of all, the NEW family search is awesome! Because of the way it is set up and the information that is put into it, it will stop repeat ordinances being done. If it were up and running and had all of the correct information such as Mernie’s live endowment and someone held a card from prior to it coming online, they would go to the Temple, have the card zapped and be told, sorry this work has been done. In my research I can’t tell you how many ancestors had their endowments done in the Endowment House and then someone did them again in our life times and sometimes more than once.
I was then told, well since you knew her and you know 100% sure that she did her own endowment you need to go to “Special Collections”. I thought, alright so I headed down to basement #2, not just the basement but the DEEP basement. As I walked in I saw micro fisch. I thought, oh crap! The other problem was, I had NO idea what year to start looking through. So I sat down with the librarian and we start looking through this book and she said, you really have no idea? I said, “nope I think sometime in the 80’s but that is it”. She said, “It will take you hours and hours so I have a suggestion for you, you go home and call the “deceased membership records” and see if they can find it. And if you get someone who won’t look it up, wait a few hours or a day and call again because some people are really nice there and they will look it up.” She went on to tell me that there is no reason for me to spend the hours going through the micro fisch looking for this information when someone can quickly look it up and I can move on to those who need the work done, not that getting records correct isn’t important. I thought that was a great idea and came home.
I called and received the nicest lady. I explained what I was trying to do expecting her to transfer me to someone else and she asked her name. I gave it to her and she said yes, I have it in the deceased records. Then asked what information I needed, I said her endowment. The next thing I knew she was giving me the date, almost before I could write it down. October 18, 1979 in the Salt Lake Temple. I could have spent days and days looking through micro fisch and obviously never found it. In less than 30 seconds this lady gave me the information needed. She asked if I needed her baptism, which I didn’t but hey, she was all for giving me whatever I needed!
In the mean time, two people have updated/contributed to OUR family records and obviously didn’t know what they were doing. Their log ons are wjgriffin and medargan Obviously someone printed off a Temple card and took it to 2 different Temples to do her work and obviously they didn’t know her very well. While talking with the 3 who were helping initially I learned that not only does the Church want us to only work on our DIRECT line we are NOT to do Temple work for anyone outside of this direct line unless they have been dead for more than 100 years, this includes siblings of our direct line which I found interesting. So one could do a person’s grandparent and have them sealed to your great grandparents BUT you are not to do your aunt or uncle unless they have been dead for more 100 years.
I appreciate that someone wanted to help Mernie out as I am sure everyone does, but it is a bit odd that someone was even aware of her and I wonder what other ordinances have been done for our close family members that didn’t need to be done. (I haven’t found anything else like this though but it makes one wonder.)
I am sorry for the long email but thought that all the details needed to be included. Just so you all know as well, I have tons of great information I plan to share with everyone. I am working on compiling stories and photos of people so that they are just random names you hear growing up and know nothing about them.
Maybe I will start writing a monthly newsletter with these stories…hhhmmm maybe. ;)
As we come to the end of our tale, I hope you all take some time to reflect on Mernie and what she was to you in your life. Hehehe
Love
Michele
