Have you ever been in a gathering of people and brought out your cell phone and used the “Relatives around Me” feature of Family Tree? (See link) I love finding that many of my neighbors and friends are actually cousins as well! That knowledge brings a whole new level of connection.

While attending RootsTech six years ago, I used a similar feature called Relative Finder that allows all attendees to see their relationships. Relative Finder lets you drill down to see your relatives from a specific ancestor. I was astonished to find that ALL the relatives it found were from my mother’s side. None of the attendees were related to me through my father, who was the first convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his family. My father had researched his ancestors back many generations and all that information was in Family Tree. Why were none of them attending RootsTech?

I’ve since learned that my father does have cousins attending RootsTech! None showed up that first year because even though his direct line ancestors were in Family Tree, his cousin’s information wasn’t complete and linked to their families! This experience fueled my desire to do descendancy research on my father’s family line, especially his Norwegian ancestors.

It has been incredibly rewarding to find and link cousins together with their families on Family Tree. Being able to offer them Temple Ordinances is such a blessing! Thanks to the many faithful Temple attenders in our stake, many of these ordinances have been completed on behalf of my cousins. Thank you!

– Julie Lofgreen, Consultant, Granite FamilySearch Center