I Can Better Know Who I Am

Being a teenage convert to the church Family History was a completely foreign concept to me. I had never thought about family members that I had never met, much less about those hundreds of years before my time. Unfortunately, it wasn't until I had kids of my own that I actually started thinking about these family members. But once I did, I couldn't stop thinking about them. I knew nothing about any of my ancestors. How was I supposed to know who I was if I didn't know who they were? And being the only member of the church in my family I was feeling the pressure to get the temple work done for my ancestors. However, I was completely overwhelmed and at a loss as to where to start. Fortunately, Heavenly Father knew that I would need help once I got started on this project and blessed me with a wonderful sister in our local family history center and a family history class provided by our ward.

Family history wasn't always easy and though there were times of frustration I kept trying. A couple of years later through FamilySearch and Ancestry, I was able to find a distant cousin of my mother's who, though not a member of the church, had been doing family history for my mother's family. This was an amazing blessing to me since at that point I had been having no luck finding any of this information. Then just recently I found out that my great grandma, who also wasn't a member of the church, had been doing family history for her side of the family for years. After she passed away my uncles decided that since I was doing family history now they would pass on all of her things to me. Within these things were some old Family Ledgers. For the last 3 days, pretty much straight from 7am to midnight, I have been sorting through these precious treasures unable to put them down! I have been putting all the names into digital family group sheets. 82 group sheets and 142 family names later I finally got it all done! The entries ranged from the oldest one, who born in 1782, all the way down to my father.

When I look at all these family names I now feel that I know these individuals even though I have never met them. I feel a deep love for them and look forward to taking their names to the temple so that we can all be sealed into our family chain throughout the eternities. Through the years I have come to love family history and the sense of connection and love it gives me. I'm so thankful for those who have preceded me who have worked so hard on our family history and the blessing that I have to carry on where they left off. Family history has helped me discover who my ancestors are so I can better know who I am.

-Jessi Eberle
Ellicott City Ward