In Remembrance From Generation to Generation

I enjoy browsing FamilyTree and trying to learn more about my ancestors.  This morning, for example, I found that I could follow one line back to someone named Guillaume de Cailly born around 1045 in Normandy, France and who fought in the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066.  There is even a poem written about his participation in the battle and supposedly he was with William the Conqueror when the French entered London on Christmas Day in 1066.  It was fun to find a story about someone who lived so long ago and to whom I am directly related.  What saddens me sometimes, though, is that often there are people in my family tree just a few generations back about whom I know almost nothing and, so far, very little about them has been preserved in FamilyTree.  For example, in that same family line, my great-grandmother who died about 50 years ago has less information preserved about her than I can find about this Guillaume de Cailly born 8½ centuries before her.  It is a reminder to me that if we don’t record and preserve the events of our lives, they will be eventually completely forgotten to the world.  And if we have information about our ancestors who have passed on, we should upload it to FamilyTree so that it might be preserved forever there and be part of that great “book containing the records of our dead” that we will one day as a church “offer unto the Lord” as “an offering in righteousness” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:24). 

               As a part of the Restoration, the Lord indeed commanded that records should be kept.  In 1831 He said in a revelation to John Whitmer, “And again, I say unto you that it shall be appointed unto him to keep the church record and history continually” (Doctrine and Covenants 47:3).  Concerning Zion the Lord said in the next year, “It is the duty of the Lord’s clerk, whom he has appointed, to keep a history, and a general church record of all things that transpire in Zion” (Doctrine and Covenants 85:1).  When the principle of baptisms for the dead was revealed, Joseph Smith made it clear that proper records had to be kept: “When any of you are baptized for your dead, let there be a recorder, and let him be eye-witness of your baptisms; let him hear with his ears, that he may testify of a truth, saith the Lord; That in all your recordings it may be recorded in heaven; whatsoever you bind on earth, may be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth, may be loosed in heaven…. And again, let all the records be had in order, that they may be put in the archives of my holy temple, to be held in remembrance from generation to generation, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Doctrine and Covenants 127:6-9).  The Lord has made it clear that careful records must be kept and especially as it concerns the work of the temple.

We may not be able to appreciate now what impact the records we keep might have for future generations.  For example, we owe a great deal to Wilford Woodruff for the detailed journal he kept and which has brought us so much information about the Restoration.  A snippet of his journal—which constitutes 31 volumes—can be seen here.  Truman G. Madsen summarized, “Wilford Woodruff is the man who wrote in a journal almost every day for sixty-three years, thereby producing perhaps the most important single historical treasure we have in the Church. Why did he keep the journal? Because the Prophet admonished him to. By my estimate, more than two-thirds of what we have of firsthand records of Joseph Smith’s discourses and counsels to his brethren would have been lost had it not been for Wilford Woodruff’s makeshift shorthand and then staying awake, often till past midnight, transcribing his notes into readable English.”  What an incredible testament to his devotion to following the prophet and keeping a record as the Lord commanded.  His example should serve as an inspiration for all of us as we seek to find ways to preserve a record of our lives for those who come after us “to be held in remembrance from generation to generation.”