The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full report, CLICK HERE.
A family history project for the Denton, Texas, community has taught Joe Price of Brigham Young University’s Record Linking Lab that when youth have a purpose, “they can really do amazing work,” he said.
Youth from two stakes in Springville, Utah, are teaming up with the Denton Texas Stake to link residents of 1900-1940 census records from the Denton area to the FamilySearch Family Tree.
“The goal is to make sure that everyone that lived in Denton, Texas, up until 1940, has a profile on the family tree,” said Price. “And then we’re working to find photographs for as many people as possible so that it can be a really rich discovery experience for people that discover their families.”
Price, who oversees the BYU Recording Linking Lab, is a high councilor in the Springville Utah Spring Creek Stake and organized the project to help youth connect family history to missionary work.
The project is being done in honor of Elder Luke Carter, one of two missionaries who died in a car accident in May while serving in Denton, Texas. The Carter family lives in Springville.
During two weeknight activities in September and November, youth from the Springville Utah Spring Creek South Stake and Springville Utah Spring Creek Stake added more than 4,000 families from Denton census records to the family tree.
Price explained how it works: “We have the census records, so we know who was living there at 10-year intervals, and that’s kind of our target group. … We can check to see who’s already on the tree, and if they’re not on the tree, then we look for a record hint that might help add them.”
To read the full report, CLICK HERE.
