Finding names for the temple is now easier than ever by viewing your family tree from a different angle.
Visit the Descendancy view of Family Tree to see which of your cousins are ready for temple work. Then reserve names today.
With the new “descendancy view” on FamilySearch, it’s now easier than ever to find a name to submit for temple work. You can find your cousins using these 5 easy steps:
- Sign in to FamilySearch.org and go to the Family Tree.
- Change the tree view to the fan chart.
- Select a family member from the outer ring on the fan and place that person in the home position.
- Change the tree view to descendancy, and then click to show 4 generations.
- Look for green temple tags that indicate that ordinances may be needed for the displayed cousins. Work your way around the outer ring of the fan, and when finished, move back one generation and repeat steps 3-5.
You can also fill out a My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together booklet and add photos and stories to FamilySearch.org.
Watch the video below about how this tool can help you expand the branches of your family tree to find cousins that need saving temple ordinances.
I CAN’T STAND how this new descendancy view shows the spouse indented “under” the person. It looks like a child. Then the children are indented another level, making them look like grandchildren. This mistake repeats with every generation down and every spouse.
Why not show the spouse off to the right?
Unfortunately, descendancy views are difficult to interpret. I have never been a fan of them myself. However, it takes some patience to understand how it is portrayed. The descendancy view as shown is in the correct format. I just need to try harder to continue to use this format when looking for temple work to be done. It is a great way for us to find our cousins needing temple work. I was excited about having something to help in finding them quicker.
I’ve found many of my ancestors. However, a lot of them have been reserved for years, at least 2 to 7 in my case, and there is no contact information for the original submitter. Why are we being told to “Hasten the Work” when many of us cannot get the “powers that be” in the FamilySearch department to release those ordinances to those of us who would love to complete the work???????
What a contridiction in instructions for those actively doing temple ordinances.
Contact Family Search at 1-866-406-1830 or under the “Help” button on the top right of your screen and they will look to see if the person can be contacted &/or released to you.
If you find someone who has been reserved for years, contact the temple. They have ways to get a person unreserved. I did it, with the questuin being “what if the person who reserved names is now dead?” It works.
Beatrice…if you call FamilySearch with the ID’s of the persons who have been reserved for 5 years or longer, they can possibly release those names. Decisions are made on a case by case basis.
Some just people feel like if they did the research they should be able to do the temple work too, even if they only go to the temple once in a while. They might be saving the names for grandchildren to do baptisms once they turn 12, or the higher ordinances when the grandkids are endowed. I am encouraging my friend’s son to reserve enough names he finds so he can do the baptisms now and then do the endowments when he is at the MTC in a couple years. I see nothing wrong with that. But maybe there should be limits, like automatically unreserving names after 10 years of no work. (But if the cards were printed, then it would result in work being duplicated.) This would solve one problem which may be a culprit however. If someone dies before doing the work, is there a way for those names to be unreserved?
Here is a simple solution to your problem. If the cards have not been printed, you can create a duplicate record in FamilySearch using the exact same info. Ignore the duplicate check option, reserve the name, print the card, do the work, then merge the records.
Do we really want to make duplicates??? I don’t believe that is the best way to handle the problem. This is part of the problem with Family Tree. So many of the names are duplicated over and over. We should be patient and work with Family Search to obtain permission to do the work ourselves. When there is no contact information Family Search will evaluate and make the determination. There will always be issues with duplication of work when records have been printed and the person who reserved and printed the records has died. But hopefully, by working with Family Search we can try to do our best in getting the work completed.
Also, I don’t believe we should be reserving more names than we can reasonably do in a reasonable amount of time ourselves – a year or two at the most. We shouldn’t be hoarding family names and keeping other ancestors from receiving blessings of being able to help in the work.
There will just be times when we won’t like the answer. I agree that we should not duplicate.
My grandmother’s work needs to be done. My cousin (my grandmother’s sister’s child) had reserved her ordinances and has had them reserved for 3 years. Family Search will not release them to me AND has said that my cousin is closer to her. I don’t like this answer and I believe it is wrong. I will not fight or create duplicates over it though because I have done what has been asked of me. It no longer rests on my shoulders. I have; however, written my cousin several letters begging her to get the work done. 🙂
I reserved names so the information sent to Family Search will be correct. Family Tree is so horrible because anyone can change whatever they want on my tree, even when it is horribly wrong information.
Family tree is about reducing duplicates, not creating more. By creating a duplicate just to do the name of someone who is locked is actually not being honest, especially if you know that it is for sure the same person. If saving names for family to perform at a later time is the desire, it would be better to print the cards and hold onto the cards than it would be to create a duplicate or leave the name locked. By creating a duplicate you are also jumping a head of someone who choose to reserve that name for whatever reason. There does need to be a level of respect, on both sides, that maybe the person who printed or reserved a name is more closely related than you are, even if it’s generations back. Anything within the 110 year time window should be respected and left for living descendants to decide if the work is time to be done or not.
Beatrice,
Some of us have had to reserve names out of necessity and cannot do the work at this time. My husband and his family are not members and would be highly upset if the work was done for his parents and two deceased sisters. I have an aunt who thinks it is her job to submit every name to the temple and I HAD to block her for the sake of family harmony. Also, this is Church policy – the work should not be done except by consenting family members if possible. If the person submitting is not actually related, they could be making someone very upset. Just remember the huge upset over the Holocaust victims a few years ago.
It’s not FamilySeach department that has the “power” to release the names. The Temple Department has but as yet will not. However, in the “near or far” future, I have been assured, there will be a limit on the amount of time names can be reserved. Some of the those who have reserved names may now be the other side looking down at us!!!!
Taggart & Beatrice,
Thanks for your comments.
I’d suggest you go to FamilySearch.org and submit your suggestions using their Feedback link at the bottom of the page.
Larry
I suggest that you send you email to Ron Tanner to project manager for Family Search Here is his email tannerr@familysearch.org He promised me three years ago they would clean all the reserved ordinance by 2013 and that then Track reserves for 6 months. If the work was not done it would be cleared so others could do the work.
Gordon Taylor, President of the National Taylor family Association
The new descendancy view in FamilySearch is great, although it is sometimes very slow. It is a great way to locate persons who MAY need temple work. The keyword is MAY. It is important to look for duplicates. There are often multiple records for the same person and the ordinance information is attached to one of these records. Also, records that were incorrectly merged during new.familysearch.org often loose their temple records. Everyone should check for duplicates before submitting persons for temple work. If not, it will turn the system into something worse than the old Ancestral File, many hours will be wasted and cause those who really do need ordinances to wait even longer. This is part of the reason LB35’s suggestion to just make a duplicate record is not wise and those that do this could loose their ability to submit names in the future. Thanks again FamilySearch for this great tool that I hope will be a blessing to everyone and will not be misused.
Most of the time, those names that have been reserved for a long time have been done by those who have lost the cards or some other reason. It might be of interest, however, to know that one reason a name may be reserved is because his or her temple work has been done and FamilySearch recommends that these names be reserved until the system is refined enough to add the ordinance dates. This is why it is best to contact FamilySearch about these situations.
How would the cards getting lost after the work is done keep the names reserved for years? Doesn’t the temple enter the ordinance at the temple recorder’s office before the card is given back to the patron? At least that is the way they do it at my local temple.
On the subject of duplicates, it seems to me that the indexing work creates duplicates every time someone enters info from a record on someone. I have come across several ancestors with over 100 duplicates. Same exact info on them. And I see several of them are reserved by multiple people. Talk about a potential waste of time.
The first thing that hit me about the check for cousins and their family so their work can be done is that we are supposed to looking after our direct line. Michele rightly stated that sideways lines should only be done by family consent or if there is no posterity.
I agree with Denise (Nov. 5) above. I also thought that we were suppose to be looking after our own direct line unless there was family consent of no posterity. I know of recently endowed members that would like to do work for a direct ancestor and then find that the names have been turned over to be shared with the temple system. Someone did the same with the sealing of my own grandparents whom I was waiting to do myself with my family present. I had reserved all but the sealing, was the closest member relative and have no idea who shared the name with temple system.
I had trouble with this back in the days when you had to do all the ordinances or none of them. There was not the option of just doing the baptisms/confirmations without also reserving the rest of the work. Kids in our stake were asked to bring ten family file names each when they went to the temple. I had four teens who took their ancestors names to do the baptisms. I also had four to six nieces and nephews that I also printed up cards for. That left me with 80 to 100 names to do all the endowments etc for. With four temple trips a year, there were just too many names for me to do alone. I passed the rest of the work on to other family members to help with. Finally, years later, we are just about through all the family file cards. I love how now I can just print out the ordinances that the kids can do and assign the rest of the ordinances to the temple file.
There should be a time limit for how long someone can reserve or block a name. I have some blocked for years, I did contact the person who blocked it, and he told me he would release it, but it’s still not done. If we had like a 3 months or even 6 months period then it the work is not done it releases itself, someone else that CAN go to the Temple. can actually do the work. And how strict is this “consent from close family members”? The deceased person still chooses to accept the ordinances or not. Are we taking away that person’s free agency to choose by not doing their work just because some non-member family thinks we shouldn’t do the work?
Ladyacquarius,
These are great questions that you should ask your ward family history consultant, or you can contact FamilySearch. Just go to https://familysearch.org/ and click “Get Help” at the top right of the page.
Larry
Lets remember, these are living people, whether living with us on earth in mortality or not. Who has the right to make them wait years so “we can do the work”. It is not about us. It is about the Lord’s work and people waiting on the ordinances. It would be no different than holding up a new convert so our son could progress and have the experience to baptize them. I have to say that I wonder how we could so miss the point. It is not a spiritual experience to hold up people’s baptism and endowments so “we can do them”. It is a hindrance to the salvation of souls
This is a great way to find a name, but once you have the name, you need to find records and look for duplicates before you request the ordinances. Do you have parents, spouses, children? You may find other people who’s ordinances have never been done.