At age 18, Megan Jolley had never thought much about her family history. As a college student, she was busy with her classes and thought that genealogy and indexing were names on papers that didn’t really mean anything.
But that all changed when she decided to look more into indexing. Megan decided to try it, and as she typed the names, she began to feel the Spirit of Elijah and realized that she wanted to learn more about the people whose names she was indexing. She would look on a census, for example, and see a young couple with their four children and realize how young they were with so many children. Megan began to feel the importance of the lives of those she was indexing.
Megan began to look into her own family history, discovering family stories that showed how even today she is still connected with her ancestors.
Megan’s great-grandfather, Cornelius Kleven, was in the Navy in Norway when he immigrated to the United States and settled in Utah. On his way over on the boat, his fiancée died. In the 1920s, he ended up working as a handyman at the Hotel Utah, the building that is now known as the Joseph Smith Building, in downtown Salt Lake City.
Hilda Larsen, her great-grandmother, another immigrant to Utah, also worked at the Hotel Utah in the laundry room. One day, Cornelius came into the laundry room to repair something and met Hilda. He had an impression that this was the woman he was to marry—the one to replace his lost fiancée.
The two began courting and eventually married in 1926. They continued to work at the Hotel Utah. As time went on, Hilda created a book about Cornelius and their lives together. The couple was not wealthy but would often sit in the grand lobby on breaks, pretending they were patrons of the hotel instead of employees. They would sit and gaze up at the beautiful, intricate glass ceiling together in order to “feel fancy.”
Almost 100 years later, Megan often goes to the Joseph Smith Building and looks up at that same ceiling.
Megan said, “Reading this book [of my ancestors], I was so impressed with how they lived their lives. I take lessons from my ancestors and how they were able to deal with struggles in their lives and I can take their strength and their examples, and I can apply that in my life.
“Family history got me to change my perspective. I learn from their mistakes and the trials they went through—it’s kind of like having teachers from your past. "
Wilford Woodruff spoke about how keeping journals could help to turn the hearts of our posterity.
“How pleasing it would be to you, and to your children, thirty, fifty, or eighty years hence, to sit down and read what took place around you in your childhood and youth! Would you not like to read what took place with our fathers, and mothers, and grand parents, while they were young and during their lives?” (Presidents of the Church Teacher Manual, [Church Educational System manual, 2005], 59.
Elder David A. Bednar, in his talk at the October 2011 General Conference, addressed the turning of hearts towards our fathers:
It is no coincidence that FamilySearch and other tools have come forth at a time when young people are so familiar with a wide range of information and communication technologies. Your fingers have been trained to text and tweet to accelerate and advance the work of the Lord—not just to communicate quickly with your friends. The skills and aptitude evident among many young people today are a preparation to contribute to the work of salvation.
I invite the young people of the Church to learn about and experience the Spirit of Elijah. I encourage you to study, to search out your ancestors, and to prepare yourselves to perform proxy baptisms in the house of the Lord for your kindred dead…. And I urge you to help other people identify their family histories.
As you respond in faith to this invitation, your hearts shall turn to the fathers. (“The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2011, 26)
Megan says she feels that genealogy or indexing is important because family is the whole reason we’re here on earth, so it’s important to get to know our ancestors now.
“One day we will see these people again. Wouldn’t it be nice to know our ancestors before we see them again?”
