My paternal grandmother, Matilda Stagg Christiansen, was born Jan. 4, 1874, in Pleasant Grove, Utah. She died Feb. 25, 1964, just three months after I returned from my mission.

To my knowledge, she didn't accumulate much of what the world would call valuable prior to her death. I do know that she left something to her family more valuable than gold. My grandmother had the spirit of Elijah and spent many years of her life doing genealogical research on her family and her husband's family.A few years after Grandma Christiansen's death, I became interested in continuing her research on the Stagg family line. Now accessible to me were microfilms of many records from England. In possession of the bulk of her original research, I was able to verify from these microfilms the information that she had obtained. However, in the final analysis I was left in the same position as she had been when she concluded her research with John Stagg, who was born in 1749.

I had acquainted myself with the Church's International Genealogical Index (IGI) when it was on microfilm well enough to teach others about its use and had even helped others to have success in finding family connections on the IGI. However, I questioned its usefulness for me.

In 1994, I turned again to the Stagg family line and reviewed the correspondence obtained from my grandmother. One of the English researchers suggested in a letter to my grandmother that the name Pittman Stagg, which had become common from father to son, perhaps represented a maiden surname. I decided to look in the IGI, now accessible on computer CD-ROM, for a marriage between a Stagg and Pittman. I was amazed to find the marriage of Christian Pittman and William Stagg in 1636. In a matter of a few weeks I extended the Stagg family line six generations to 1580 by using the IGI.

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The Staggs had moved from parish to parish, so it was difficult for the English researchers to trace the line prior to the year 1749. I was filled with gratitude for those who had microfilmed those English parish records of my Stagg family and for the Saints who had extracted the names from those microfilms and had done the temple work. I have developed a new respect for the International Genealogical Index in doing my family history research.

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