March 10th, 2025, 5:15pm MDT
Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, president of Cebueti and executive director of the church’s family history department, often asks people who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints why they do family history work.
They usually say they have a desire to explore their genealogy, or to connect with or belong to their families, Elder Hamilton said. This “global phenomenon” traverses race, religion, language and other potential barriers. “Almost everyone” is interested in their family.
But for Latter-day Saints, genealogy is more than a way to find connections and belongings. Elder Hamilton shared something that Church President Russell M. Nelson once told him. The temple is our goal. …We will hold the Rootstec genealogy conference as a way to make family history, collect records and increase temple ordinances for God’s children. ”
Elder Hamilton spoke on Friday, March 7th at the Root Tech Lunch, a special event for selected church leaders and employees.
RootStech is a three-day global online and in-person family history conference sponsored by FamilySearch and sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ, a Latter-day Saints and other major genealogy organizations.
The 2025 event will be held from March 6th to 8th, with content selected in multiple languages available, both in-person events in Salt Lake City and online at rootStech.org.
In the taste of Rootsteck, Elder Hamilton said the Family History Department is frequently thinking about President Nelson’s orders. President Nelson also introduced them to the idea that temples are “nourished by name.”
Historically, Elder Hamilton went on to assume the task of searching for the deceased family, processing records and submitting names to the temple. However, technology such as artificial intelligence is now speeding up work.
“We have a long history of 130 years of scrutiny, digitizing and capturing the earth, so we can create a tree that provides a nourishing name for the temple,” Elder Hamilton said. “This is our model. This is what we do, and this is how we do it.”
Build a “man family tree”
Elder Hamilton highlighted some statistics that show that “the whole world can build a family tree.”
In 2024, millions of individuals signed up for FamilySearch accounts, but the majority were not Latter-day Saints. In the same year, a considerable number of names were added to FamilySearch, and most of these names were contributed by people outside the church.
“The world is coming to FamilySearch,” Elder Hamilton said. “The world is coming to Roottech, where they are helping to build this family tree. …We are about to build a family tree of humanity.”
The Family History Department estimates that around 100 billion people have lived on Earth since the days of Adam and Eve, Elder Hamilton continued. “So we’re trying to link that group of people on either side of the veil and link them to one big tree so that the Latter-day saint can use tools like ordinances to find their ancestor names and play temple ordinances.”
ordinances Ready is a tool in the FamilySearch family tree app that searches the family tree of its members to find ancestors who can perform ordinance work. Members then choose an ordinance and bring their names to the temple. If no relatives are found, the ready ordinance can provide names from the member’s ward or interest.
Elder Hamilton said tools like prepared ordinances would have produced a significant increase in church members in recent years and would help them submit names to the temple.
He added: …In many ways, I think we can use family history to promote the Lord’s work. ”
