Family History
Jeff Westover

Signs, Wonders and Miracles

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So I’ve been teaching a Family History class in our ward.

The emphasis on teaching in the Church right now is interesting. And the Family History efforts have been no different. A week before I started the class I looked online for some direction and found a manual. I read the first lesson from the manual, put it down and looked at the scriptures I had jotted down. I left it alone until the day before my lesson and then went back online to retrieve the manual again.

It was gone.

In a panic I called my contact in Salt Lake and she told me they didn’t want us teaching Family History from a manual.

So my lessons have been structured week to week by feedback I have received from our class members. I’ve been pleased, having better than 20 plus people every single week. I make sure that I’m assessing their skill levels and that we’re setting goals each week to accomplish something.

The results in just over a two month period of classes have been astounding.

Of course, we have a wide spread of skill and knowledge in the class. Many have plenty of experience in this work. Some have none.

But there are miracles for all. Even me.

Last week I was demonstrating in class how to attach records to names in Family Search.

As my example I showed them a name I was working on from my mother’s Carson family line. We had all his genealogical data — we just needed to provide the records to make his name temple ready. I was just trying to show them how to do that.

While in the process of doing this I caught my eye on something — this particular individual’s mother experienced a name change from the 1900 census to a state census in New York from 1905. I made a mental note to check that when I got home. When I got to it I couldn’t believe where it led me. I learned that her husband died somehow in the spring of 1900 and that she remarried. Two of her children that were in later records named Carson were not actually Carsons — they were Lindermans! This led to a whole new family line I never knew about — and within about 2 hours time I had more than 60 additional names to go to the temple.

This may not seem a miracle to some. But to me it is a small example of the kind of revelation there is behind this work.

I’ve seen it in class students these past two weeks. One, an admitted slacker when it came to family history, finally approached his father after a class challenge on an activity we came up with for old family photos. This led to a fruitful conversation between this brother and his father — and it unleashed a fountain of information he never knew his father had. When he asked his Dad why he never shared any of this precious family history with him the answer was plain — “I didn’t think you were interested”.

Last night I ran into another brother at the grocery store who had just returned from seeing his parents in Massachusetts. In class he asked for advise about what to do when he saw his Mom and Dad. I advised him to first make a list of his most important questions and to pack a computer, a scanner, and a camera to take with him. I haven’t seen him for several weeks until last night. And he was a bit of a different man. He returned enthused and fired up — talking to everyone he can about the family history discoveries he made. He came home, he told me, with suitcases full of journals, photos and documents.

Miracles? Maybe not to some. To those on the outside, those who are disengaged from this great work I find a real lack of relatability to what I’m saying here. They just don’t get it.

But what I’m seeing happen with others and with myself is that family connections heal and inspire. They teach and humble. They influence for good, no matter what the stories are. And they restore love between family members. This brother told me that he couldn’t talk to his family about the Church but he could talk to them about family. And that’s what he did and is doing. He can feel the “restoration” — as he put it — of relationships and love as a result of these conversations.

Tell me again this isn’t a work of miracles.

October is Family History month. I encourage you to do something — anything — related to family history this month. Pull out a picture and have a conversation. Share a memory. Call a senior member of the family and just talk.

Get a little miracle going in your life.

Jeff Westover

Using Family History to Make Family History

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Way out from the land of California comes word that Kirk and Daena Westover will soon be leaving for the Georgia Atlanta Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a period of two years. That will be an experience for them that no doubt will add to their family history in a significant way.

As is the custom they spoke in Church before their local ward in advance of their departure. Kirk, one of our great family historians, shared a memorable message of testimony that included a fair bit of Westover family history.

In blending these tales of family experience with the words of scripture backed by testimony Kirk is doing a great service to family near and far. He is showing how relevant the past lives of our ancestors are in our present day. He acknowledges their influence and applies the lessons of their successes and challenges. This is one of the real blessings of knowing our family from as far back as we can learn about them.

I especially appreciated Kirk’s comments about his father and my grandfather — brothers who like Kirk served as missionaries while both young men and later in life with their spouses. Both of these great men are gone now and I knew them both well and love them tremendously. But Kirk’s shared insight provides yet even one more delicious bit of detail that I never had before and I greatly appreciate that.

Instead of copying his talk word for word I am merely including his notes that showcase his stories of family history as well as quotes and scriptures he used in his address. Click here to download and read.

We will miss Kirk and Daena while they serve. Kirk is a steady source of great family history and we’ll miss that for the next couple of years as he makes new family history. We wish them the best.

(By the way, for those who can see the photo at the top — that’s a photo of Kirk and his brothers — each of them missionaries at one time — taken from another period of service from their parents in New Zealand when they were boys)

Our-five-Sons-New-Zealand-1

Jeff Westover

You Don’t Have to Know What You’re Doing

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Over the course of the past several months as a new family history consultant in my ward I have engaged in a lot of conversations with my neighbors about the state of their family history and how they feel about doing it. Almost without exception I hear “If I only knew what I was doing I’m sure the work would be further ahead.”

I can certainly understand that sentiment. When I took it up a little more than four years ago our family history seemed an impossible hill to climb. And, to be honest, as I’ve worked on it I have come to the conclusion that it is work that will never truly be done. It’s just so much.

But as members of the Church we have expanded understanding thanks to both ancient and modern revelation. As I’ve considered my experience these past four years I have to admit that I’ve felt that “Spirit of Elijah” to the extent that my fears of doing family history work have all but vanished and the miracles I experience just keep happening.

That hasn’t happened because I know what I’m doing. It’s happened because I simply have tried, at last, to be obedient in this area of my life.

Perhaps Elder Bednar explains it better —

“These four words—‘Receive the Holy Ghost’—are not a passive pronouncement; rather, they constitute a priesthood injunction—an authoritative admonition to act and not simply to be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:26). The Holy Ghost does not become operative in our lives merely because hands are placed upon our heads and those four important words are spoken. As we receive this ordinance, each of us accepts a sacred and ongoing responsibility to desire, to seek, to work, and to so live that we indeed ‘receive the Holy Ghost’ and its attendant spiritual gifts.

I feel the Holy Ghost as I work on my family history. Doing my best is enough when I have the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Doing family history work is an act of obedience. And obedience unlocks the intelligence, revelation and miracles you need to get the work done.

In studying the loving doctrine of redeeming the dead which is our real reason for these efforts I have come to study the life and mission of Elijah more in order to understand this “Spirit of Elijah” that we speak about.

I found this curious exchange between Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kings Chapter 2: “And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me…And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.”

Scholars describe the “mantle” of Elijah like a coat. Today we understand it as a calling, most closely associated with that of a prophet.

Elijah never tasted of death. And there is a very real reason for that.

He was the key holder of the sealing power through the Melchizdek Priesthood. Malachi the Prophet said that Elijah would return to “turn the hearts” and that happened in 1836 when he appeared to Joseph Smith in the Kirkland temple. Since no one could be resurrected until Christ came forth from the tomb Elijah was translated — meaning that he kept his body in a suspended state that left him protected from sickness and harm — so that he could physically lay his hands upon the Prophet’s head in 1836 and restore the keys of sealing.

Since that time you can mark the interest and the progress in the field of family history.

I’m sure Joseph Smith was overwhelmed by not only his experiences but also the scope of the work in front of him. His nephew, Joseph F. Smith, was given a revelation that we now know as Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants. It sheds light on the spirit world that awaits us all after we die. It also lovingly explains even better the doctrine of redeeming our kindred dead through the work we do in temples.

All of this is beyond our abilities in a singular sense. But given that its foundation is pure love — and given that we only require an obedient act of work — we have all the qualifications we need to get the work started and to get it done. Family History work is an act of faith, an action of love, and a way for us to prove our obedience. Nowhere in that does it say anything about expertise.

Of course, the more you work it the more expertise you will gather. That is just one of its many blessings.

For me, the lessons of revelation and the reality that we have others on the other side working these things with us and beside us are powerful enough evidences for me to work to qualify myself. I don’t know what I’m doing…but I’m getting there. And I’m being greatly blessed in the process.

Jeff Westover

Scouring the History of Others to Tell the Story of William and Ruth

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We’re soon to release a new video telling the story of William and Ruth Westover.

In truth, all of our other efforts have led us to this point.

William and Ruth are kind of a focal point for the many modern generations of Westovers due to the Westover Ranch in Rexburg, Idaho. The ranch was the homestead for William and Ruth and became central to the lives of their children.

Researching William and Ruth has been frustrating.

Although their history is relatively recent as compared to others we have profiled in the videos we produce there is actually very little left or recorded to share of their story.

In many ways they led tragic lives. William as the eldest son of Edwin and Ann was called upon to perform a long family service from around the age of 8.

He stayed in Mendon until he was well beyond the age of being an adult and I am certain it was to support the Findley family property and that of his mother in Mendon.

He delayed his marriage to Ruth by seven long years. Ruth was a local girl, herself a child of pioneer parents. Ruth and William were close to the same age.

While they did forge a life together and grew a large family they didn’t live long enough to see most of their children mature.

William died at the age of 42 of cancer and Ruth died 10 years later – far younger than most of their parents and grandparents.

All this has been known about William and Ruth. I’ve wanted to know more.

I’ve searched everything I can think of. The Church has no record of patriarchal blessings for them. The Rexburg ward records and those in Mendon don’t even mention them. Court and probate records are silent. Other than the few written histories about them that have existed for years and the few pictures we have of them I can find nothing more.

But where I have found some information that I didn’t know before came from indirect sources – through the histories of others who knew them and who associated with them.

I will save it for the video to showcase. But there is one bit of information I want to get out there now about William in particular.

He felt very, very strongly about the land that the Westover Ranch sits on.

How he came to acquire it, what he had to do to work it, and how long it took to happen is a real story that we’re yet to fully uncover.

But what we do know is that he desperately worked to complete his claim and put the property in the name of his family before he died. He filed the last of the paperwork just 8 days before he passed.

Perhaps this is why I heard my grandfather speak with such passion about the ranch.

I never understood it as a kid.

After all, I grew up in California. The ranch was a place from the imagination of my grandfather – a place where his memories had huge significance to him. He mentioned to us many, many times how much he wanted us to go to the ranch and make it a part of our lives.

My Uncle Darrell was no less passionate about it.

I can understand why for them it was important.

The children of William and Ruth – the parents and uncles and aunts to my grandfather and my great uncle – had to stay and fight for that place after their father died.

The family all invested many years and lots of sacrifice for that piece of property – and in the process they became beloved to each other.

I don’t know the history of that land completely since the days of that generation of the children of William and Ruth. I know the property that we call the ranch is now just a part of what it once was to William.

But I know that a later generation of Westovers came together in the 1970s to preserve it as a family gathering place where the legacy of the family could be celebrated and remembered.

I find it inspiring that the great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren of William and Ruth on many sides work to continue to keep the ranch in the family.

I often wonder what William thinks of all this.

Many of his grandchildren and great grandchildren have now passed over and they can no doubt converse. He knows what they did. He is likely aware of what we are doing now in relation to the ranch.

To me, these generations of William and Ruth’s posterity have been wise. Their efforts to keep that piece of dirt in a remote place as a means of remembering who we are and where we come from resonates loudly with me. In many ways, what they have done there is what we’ve tried to do here on this little website.

The ranch helps us to remember who they were. It bears testimony of their goodness, their service and their sacrifice. It is a witness to all that they believed.

Rexburg is an area rich with history of families who staked a place of love and devotion. Many families have their stories rooted there. The Westovers are just one of many.

We have had to delve a little into the histories of others to find more of the story of William and Ruth. They didn’t have the time and they died too young to write much of their story themselves.

But their story has survived, just as the ranch has somehow survived.

We’re finishing that video soon. If you have anything we can add to it – pictures, old letters, journals, any kind of memory of record – I plead with you to contact me so that we can include it.

I think William and Ruth’s story is important to know and to share.

Jeff Westover

Memorial Day and Family History

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What a gratifying thing it was to experience the things we did in the week leading up to Mother’s Day. My thanks to all family members who could participate. We asked a lot of people and actually the response we got was better than we anticipated. I know I put many on the spot and even took them out of their comfort zone by asking. I know for many the request just came too late for you to act.

And for that I apologize. But guess what? We’re going to do it again for Father’s Day. Now that we’ve done this once you get the idea of what we were trying to do.

What was accomplished was family history. As the pictures and the videos and now the audio stories attest to is that family history is so much more than names and dates.

But before we get to Father’s Day we want to encourage all families to make some serious family history plans for Memorial Day.

Memorial Day is, by design, meant to remember our dead. I know for some folks it has instead become the first great weekend of summer. And that’s fine as a means for gathering the family. But we advocate putting some thought into this weekend and not only visiting the graves of loved ones lost but also sharing their stories.

The Prophet Joseph, in attempting to teach “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to their fathers” described the doctrine as a “welding link”. Nothing brings us closer to our kindred dead than contemplating the message and missions of their lives. If possible, we hear their testimonies through the record of what they left behind. We learn their lessons.

These things have an impact not because we archive these stories on a website. This things have an impact when — just like the scriptures — we tell those stories over and over again.

My goal for my family this Memorial Day is to challenge my children to tell a favorite story of a family member, past or present. Let’s make Memorial Day more than a BBQ and flowers. Let’s make it a genuine memorial.

Perhaps this will give you some inspiration for when we ask for, share and tell the stories of our fathers and grandfathers next month. We hope you will participate!