Hastening the Work in Family History

Christoffersen Cousins from Denmark and the United States Meet in Slagelse, Soro, Denmark, in 1973.

Cousins from Denmark with Grant and Mildred Rasband, John and Kathryn Ann Rogers and their children Katrina and Michael John. -- 1973

                It is amazing to see how family history work has changed in my life time.  I vividly remember my mother, Mildred Whitlock Rasband, filling her fountain pen from a bottle of ink, so she could write in her special black book the sacred and important family events such as patriarchal blessings, family history, etc.  This was one of my earliest memories in Mayfield, Utah, so it would have been about 1948.

                When our family lived at 518 West Center from 1952 to 1957 I remember Sunday afternoons reading names from pedigree sheets or family group sheets to my mother so she could write the information on a large pedigree sheet or on family group sheets to be submitted to Salt Lake for approval for temple work.  Particularly memorable were the special trips our family made to stay with my Whitlock grandparents in Mayfield, Utah, which involved temple work.  The Manti Temple was only twelve miles away and my mother and grandmother would go together for endowment sessions.  I remember a couple of times that my brother George and I were allowed to do baptisms for the dead.  In those years children didn’t have to be twelve to participate.  I still have some of the sheets on which Mom noted that George and I performed the baptisms for the dead.  These were Grandma Herdis’ close family members.  

                Mother would go into Salt Lake City to the Genealogy Library to do research on the microfilms there.  I remember one trip that she took us children when we were very young and when the library was in a former department store.  She was looking to see if Soren Christoffersen, her great grandfather, had any siblings.  I remember distinctly the joy we felt when we found three other babies who had died who had been missed by the professionals who had been hired to research the family.  

                When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requested that the members submit their five generation pedigrees which would eventually become the basis for a computerized program, my parents were very involved.  Both of my parents came from genealogically minded families and they took the charge seriously. They made many, many trips to visit people to obtain records as well as searching microfilms.  The original ward records from Heber and Mayfield became very familiar to me.  My father, Grant Thomas Rasband, enjoyed visits and traveling but he didn’t care much for searching the microfilms.  He knew the history of Heber and how everyone was related very well.  He was the oldest grandchild and married late and had an excellent memory.   He was an excellent guide to Heber and was welcomed into the homes of his family as they worked on family history. He was more than happy to tend the children while Mom and I went to the library.  My parents carefully did the research and collected the documents but I was tasked with typing up the family group records for submission on a manual typewriter.  

                In 1973 I was living in Germany while my husband, John, was serving in the United States Army.  A sister in Relief Society, Juanita Brady, taught a class in genealogy and suggested that since we lived close to Denmark that we should write to the communities where our ancestors lived and see if there were any distant cousins still living there.  I wrote letters and was surprised that we received specific answers.  My parents came to Germany to visit us in 1973 and my parents, John and I, and our two small children Katrina and Michael, drove to Denmark from Frankfurt am Main, West Germany.  We stayed in Slagelse, Soro, Denmark and with the help of the local Chamber of Commerce visited the homes and farms of many of our relatives.  We had a lovely reception in the hotel where we stayed.  Later we went to Copenhagen where we visited with Brithe Lundkjaer, my mother’s second cousin, and her mother in their home.  Brithe was working on her doctorate degree but had taken off a year to do genealogy.  We had an amazing time trading information.  We continue to be in contact with our distant family in Denmark and Brithe came to the United States for a month to visit us.  

                In addition to her personal research, Mildred was called to do extraction work.  In the 1980’s she would extract the names from paper copies onto cards then the information from those cards would be tabulated on a primitive computer.  In 1986, computers were set up in stake centers and the data was put directly into the computers.  The names that were extracted had temple ordinances done for them.  Mildred spent hundreds of hours doing extraction work.  One of her favorite projects was computerizing the names which had been done in the Manti Temple.  She did this work as long as she was physically able to do it.  In fact, after she was diagnosed with ALS, the stake put a computer in her home so that she could finish up the work that she had begun without having to leave her home.  

I realized that I need a computer to keep do genealogy so in 1989 we purchased our  first computer, an AT Samsung computer with a color moniter and a Panasonic 27-pin printer.  I continued to do family history work and developed an extensive PAF (Personal Ancestral File) file for the Rogers and Rasband families.  On the Rasband side, Joan and Keith Glade spent much time and money doing family history work but the information had not been put into a computer file.  I typed the names into a file, Eldon Rasband worked at the Jordan River Temple and facilitated the temple ordinances.     We formed a Rasband Genealogical Society which included the Rasband cousins including  Rulon Rasband,  father of  Ronald Rasband, the general authority, and we met regularly at one another’s homes to update the progress.  I was the secretary/treasurer of this group.  It was eventually disbanded and the money left was donated to the Family History Department.  

                From Collector to Corrector:  

                When John and I were called as full time missionaries to the Church and Family History Mission in 2009, we both had a combined file of over 10,000 names.  John had exceptional computer expertise because of his career as a software engineer and I had a lot of experience in collecting family history information, histories, and pictures.  The first day there I realized that I had never documented my work and provided sources for evidence for dates, places, and events and realized that I had much to learn.  We learned how to document using digital images and searching the internet.  Various programs became available.   We went through the experience  of finally getting new.familysearch online which was the first time that all the family history related programs were put into a single place online which included LDS membership records, temple records,  extracted records, indexed records, etc.  The major software companies said it was an impossibility but the Church programmers did it.  It took years with lots of stumbling but miraculously, it happened.  There was a lot of clean-up needed in new.familysearch and eventually familysearch.org became the parent program for all of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family history programs.  This resource is growing by millions of names weekly and is open to the entire world, free of charge.  It isn’t perfect but it is changing and getting better every day.  Marvelous new programs are being developed quickly to facilitate family history.  It is the second most popular hobby in the world behind gardening. 

                These past few days I have felt very close to my mother, Mildred Whitlock Rasband, as well as other family members.  It is Memorial Day week-end, 2014.  I have been searching census and parish records from Denmark online and finding my family.  I clicked on the name of Soren Christoffersen and his christening and marriage records appeared on the monitor in a neatly indexed form.  I was able to easily attach the evidence to him and to other people listed in the record. Pictures, stories, documents, and URL addresses can easily be attached.  This is information is now found easily online which we obtained by a trip to Denmark and searching the microfilms over 50 years ago.  Now information is available to all of the hundreds of his descendants any place in the world.       

I am filled with gratitude to the many, many people who have done their part through the centuries to preserve the records and make them available to us today.  I am amazed at the advances I have seen in my lifetime and particularly in the last five years as a missionary in the Family and Church History Mission.  I know that my experiences have not been random, but have been part of the carefully prepared sequence of learning from a loving Heavenly Father.  I have had many experiences with help from the other side which let me know for certain that family history is an important part of His plan.  I am excited that I get to be part of the hastening process.  It is a challenge because things change quickly and I am thankful that I get to have a small part and especially that I can share this remarkable time with my husband.