Family History

Dear Sisters of the Peoria Ward,

Bev Yackley and I staff the family history center every Tuesday morning 9:30AM-1:00PM. We would love to see more members use the family history center. We sometimes sit all morning with no patrons to help.

Even if you have little children, you can still do research. Feel free to bring a friend or two and you can take turns watching the children in the nursery or Primary room while the other sister does research. You can even get a group together and bring lunch! Make it a social time.

If you are a beginner, we can help you learn how to get started with family history. Just bring what you already know about your family and we can sit down for a consultation.

We can help you with instructions on how to use the new familysearch system. If you have your membership number (can obtain from the ward clerk, or look on your temple recommend) or an LDS account we will show you how to register for the system. We will also show you how to use the system. This system is used to prepare names for the temple. It isn't hard to navigate and has plenty of online help guides to answer your questions. We can help you prepare names of your ancestors for the eternal blessings obtained through temple ordinances.


We can also show you how to use the familysearch site (lots of digitized original records here) and how to do familysearch indexing. Indexing is great for people who just want to participate in family history and help others, but don't want to work on their own family lines at this time. This is a great way for us to serve if the temple work has already been completed for many of our own ancestors, or if others in our extended family are already very active in family history research. Indexing can be done in small blocks of time at any time of the day. It can be done from anywhere in the world. You just need a computer that has access to the internet. I like to do it while I'm watching television. I can usually finish indexing a simple batch of records in 20-30 minutes. You can even indexing using the computers in the family history center, if you don't have internet access at home.

If you are a more advanced researcher, the family history center offers you the opportunity to order microfilm for a small fee from the vast microfilm resources located in Utah. We can show you how to access the catalog to determine which films might aid you in your research. We have many microfilm readers available in the family history center and one microfilm printer.

The family history center also has free access to ancestry.com and other premium subscription databases. You can search them for free while in the family history center. I'll show you how it works, teach you search strategies and help you locate information. I have found so many original records through both ancestry.com and the digitized historical records onfamilysearch.org. Original records are the key to accurately linking the generations.

Family history is fun! It doesn't have to take huge blocks of time. Anyone can contribute. Even you.

The family history library is staffed at other times by three other ward members: Wednesday evenings (6:00-8:00PM) by Paula Mason. Tuesday afternoons (1:00-4:30PM) by Marcia Jetton. The 2nd and 4th Saturday (9:30AM-1:00PM) by Sue Stoner. All five of our ward's family history consultants would love to help you learn how to prepare names for the temple and help you find the original records that will aid you in identifying your ancestors. The center is also staffed by consultants from the Morton and Galesburg wards and the Princeton branch. They are also very willing to help you. Our current operating hours are Tuesdays 9:30AM-8:00PM, Wednesdays 6:00-8:00PM and Saturdays 9:30AM-1:00PM.

If you do not have a key to the building you can access the family history center using the door on the far west end of the building. Take the sidewalk all the way to the second door. Enter the small vestibule and ring the buzzer for the family history center. The consultant will then unlock the door remotely. The family history room is located down the hallway a few doors after the primary room and library.

We are ready and willing to help you in your research. Please let us help you.

Ellen Copley
Director, Peoria Illinois Family History Center