A couple years before I was born, President Spencer W. Kimball said, “I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse” (“When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, Oct. 1974, 10).
How true that is today! In the palm of our hands, we have the entire standard works, thousands of conference talks, and the Family Tree app. As we know, there is a wealth of information about our ancestors in that app, including a seemingly inconspicuous Map My Ancestor feature.
My wife Heather and I recently went on a trip down to Sevier County (Richfield) to drop off our daughter at a high school volleyball camp/tournament. While down there I remembered I had ancestors who settled in that part of Utah. Heather and I decided to take a detour and visit the thriving metropolis of Glenwood, UT…population of maybe 100. We found the general store that my great-great grandfather, Jens Heilesen, owned. It was amazing to look out over the town from the steps of that store and think of what life was like for them in the late 1800’s. He and my great-great grandmother were converted in Denmark. They crossed the Atlantic (losing their four year old daughter Ane Marie to sickness on the voyage), settled in Utah, and lived the remainder of their days on earth in that little town. I felt an immense sense of gratitude for them, for that little town, and my opportunities in 2020 because of their sacrifice. We continued to head back home and I used the Map My Ancestors feature to see and read about other relatives that settled in different parts of Sevier and Sanpete counties.
Last year I had another experience with the Map My Ancestor feature. I had the opportunity to go to England on a work trip. We visited with a company that was located about an hour west of London. I pulled up the Map My Ancestors feature in the Family Tree app and found 9 different ancestors that were from the very part of England I was passing through, including my third great grandfather Charles Wilkins. I was amazed that they left this beautiful place (England) to go into the unknown. What remarkable courage they had. Would I have left an area like this? Would my testimony be strong enough to leave everything and go across the world because of my faith?
I am grateful for this inspired tool of Map My Ancestors. It has been a blessing to me to be in the lands where my ancestors lived, see the landscapes, look upon their buildings, and simply connect a little more to what they went through. On your next adventure, try taking out your phone, log into the Family Tree app, and select the Map My Ancestor feature….you never know what you’ll find.
Mark Sheffield, Granite Stake