“What Is the Four-Generation Program?”
From Ensign, March 1972:
“In 1965, the Priesthood Genealogy Committee announced the three-generation program. Each family in the Church was asked to prepare documented family group record forms for the first three generations: one form for you and your spouse and your children; one form for your parents, with you appearing as a child on the form; and two forms on your two sets of grandparents, with your father appearing as a child on one form and your mother appearing as a child on the other form.
“Later this program was expanded to include the fourth generation—families of great-grandparents with each of the four grandparents appearing as a child on one of the four forms.
“Each adult member of the Church is to document (not just copy) a family group record form for each family in the first four generations of his ancestry—seven sheets for each individual plus one for the immediate family of the husband (or wife) and children, making fifteen sheets per family (seven sheets only for single individuals).
“The forms are to be submitted to the ward, where they will be checked by the ward records examiners, and then sent to the stake, where they are alphabetized for the stake and submitted at the end of each year to the Genealogical Society. These forms are microfilmed and filed in the patrons section, and microfilm copies are sent to branch genealogical libraries.
“To the question, ‘Should everyone submit the forms when they have already been submitted?’ the answer is yes. Each adult should submit the sheets on his or her family. Once an individual has submitted them, he need not do so again.”
From Ensign, February 1992:
“Are Church members still asked to submit their four-generation family group sheets to the Church’s Family History Department?”
“Yes—and no. Yes, members are still encouraged to contribute family history information to the Family History Department. But we are asking for this information on floppy disks, not on paper, and we are asking for information not on four generations but on as many generations as members have recorded. If members work together to contribute their collected family history information, they will be able to realize their own hopes of providing temple ordinances for their ancestors.”
The new family history program is in the works. It is Web based and the church did a beta test of it. The promise is huge, but the bugs still are too. here is a link http://planet.kzion.com/?cat=3419
Thanks for the link.
I think the new family history program is going to be a wonderful thing. I engaged in a great deal of effort on something related back in the dot com era, but it never went anywhere. I am pleased to see the Church involved in making Internet genealogy a truly collaborative endeavor. That is what we wanted to do for family organizations.
I should mention one thing though - a pedigree is not a proper family tree. A proper family tree starts with roots (ancestors) and extends out to branches (descendants), a fact than can easily be verified from a cursory examination of the scriptures, and also a pretty important principle to recognize if one wants to make sense of them.
In any case, I hope that there will be lots of descendancy oriented features. There are lots of reasons for this, but the most basic is that a descendancy is the same when looked at from any perspective, where pedigrees are not. If one were to make a Wikipedia style family history encyclopedia, it would generally have to be descendancy, not pedigree oriented, to the degree it makes sense to do it at all. Descendancies (including family group sheets) are a rather more natural mode of family representation.
Mark, I guess I miss your point: I am to pick out a name from a hundred years ago, someone I don’t know, and find out who his Grandkids are? Sorry, I am too selfish for that. I will start with me, and work backwards.
Note: Comment # 1 should follow the one of Mark Butler, but it does show how doing things backwards..is messy.
Bob R., No you should not pick a name at random, you should trace one of your lines, with priority to your patrilineal line, back some reasonable number of generations, and then trace a descendancy from one of your grandfathers, to all of your cousins down to the present generation if possible, but again with a focus on patrilineal descendants (those who generally share the same last name).
Now that patrilineal priority regime sounds discriminatory, but there is wisdom in that sort of division of labor - all else being equal it guarantees that all families will be researched on a relatively equal basis instead of some famous lines being pursued predominantly for ease of research and other reasons.
A practical reason for the scheme I just described is that patrilineal descendants and others who are interested can work together much better that way, because they are working on a common project with a common documentation base for a common purpose.
Pedigrees don’t work that way - every person’s pedigree is different, and the charts do not even line up with those who share the same ancestry, even one generation removed. A descendancy can easily be split up into projects and sub projects ad infinitum that are easily indexible according to the patriarchal (family) order of the priesthood.
Pedigrees cannot be sorted or indexed that way, and lead to endless repetitition of research that would not occur if collaboration was organized along descendancy lines, instead of ancestral lines, which are virtually impossible to organize.
If all the records were available we would naturally start with Adam and Eve, and work down from there, organizing the records by patrilineal descendancy - or in more traditional terms clan, tribe, etc. according to the manner of government in the beginning of this world, which was patriarchal.
Now that is not to discount the law of adoption, or the great blessings and influence that come through non-patrilineal lines. It is simply the system that the Lord has set up as a matter of order, a order of the priesthood that is the backbone of the plan of salvation.
Of course if sisters feel that is discriminatory, they are more than welcome to trace matrilineal descendancies, and provide some balance to the patrilineal project. That seems to be one of the primary purposes of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage in the first place - tribalism has its limits - hence the long term precedence of the gospel of Christ over the gospel of Abraham, and Melchizedek priesthood over patriarchy, notwithstanding the vital purpose of the former.
Mark, I am guessing you do some Family History. Most good Mormons do it right after their VT. But other than a Family Work Sheet, where are you finding ‘descendances’listed? I think you also must read something other than the Bible to see where babies come from, and who claims them. It is usually the Mom or the Clan.
Bob R.,
Practically every allegory of a plant, or a vine, or a vineyard in the scriptures is referring to descendancies. For example, Lehi (and all his posterity) was spliced out of original vineyard (which had become corrupted) and spliced in to another section, where (if genetics is any indication) they intermarried with the existing branches, raising up a new posterity that was a mixture of both cultures, according to the promise made unto Abraham. Branches grow up from the roots, not down from the leaves.
I quote from the book of Abraham:
Verse 11 has three definitions for Abraham:
1. Abraham : an individual invested with a name
2. Abraham : an individual and his natural posterity
3. Abraham : an individual and all those who receive the gospel
Definition two is a descendancy, according to the patriarchal, or patrilineal order of the priesthood. As lineal or adopted descendants or heirs of Abraham we may be worthy of the blessings given unto all his (righteous) children, which is to be called by his name - not Abraham’s own name, but the name which the Lord gave unto him. So we become Abraham and become worthy of the same blessings.
But our blessings are dependent upon the fulfilment of his blessings, and his upon ours. So the Lord has called us, as children of Abraham to into the work of the ministry unto his children, our brothers and sisters. And through that ministry, we shall be worthy of the name, and the blessings given unto Abraham, and all those who follow after him.
Now no one can turn his heart to his fathers without turning his heart to his mothers, and brothers, and sisters, and cousins. The name father is a synecdochical, pars pro toto symbol not only for an individual, but for he and all his natural posterity, and ultimately for all those who receive the gospel.
To be left without root nor branch is to be left without parents (ancestors) nor children (descendants). IF we do not engage in the work of preserving these relationships, according to the patriarchal (family) order of the priesthood, the purpose of this second estate will have been wasted, which purpose was and is to link or seal all mankind into one great family, a body of Christ whose backbone is the patriarchal order, the means whereby the Lord shall say unto Israel, Stand up and be a people!
[I might mention that neither the father nor the mother claims a child only unto themselves in righteousness. Neither the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord, notwithstanding a child receives the name of his father, and a wife of her husband, until all are worthy to bear the same name, the name of Christ, in righteousness, through the order the Lord has provided for that blessing, which is the gospel of Abraham, and also the gospel of Melchizedek.]
Here is a better article about the familysearch and the indexing program:
The first test program was greatly improved in its search capacity. For example, our family had looked for the temple marriage of a Samuel Holt for many years to an Annie Hansen, to no avail. The new search engine found it instantly, because it takes all the information you have, such as birth place and year into account, as well as the name. The marriage was under Samuel Colt and Anna Jensen (she’d apparently followed traditional Danish naming style at that time, rather than just using her father’s surname as she did later.) However, at that time, the family tree building part was a nightmare with the automatic match and merge. I’d fix one family and then find that the changes had ruined another part of the family. I tried for hours to get it straight, but it just didn’t work.
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650194998,00.html
If the blog article is correct, and Beta 2 testing hasn’t started yet, they are about 9 months behind schedule as of last year. I was in the first beta test and the next one was supposed to start in January. I was told that I would be asked back as a tester for that program, but since I hadn’t ever been contacted, I thought they must have gotten tired of all the errors I was reporting.
I’m a family history consultant, and #4, Bob R, you’ve got it right. Start from yourself, work back and document everything.
Sorry Mark, I have to withdraw my invite to you for Xmas Eve. You were going to come and tell my Grandkids about baby Jesus, but you are just too scarey!
Paula, I hope it does get fixed, and I have been there with ‘match and merge’. Much time undoing the mistake, no way to tell if you have fixed everything on the database.