Janelle Page Misbach has not been particularly interested in the pursuit of family history — until now. A few weeks ago, I, along with the other members of the Kaysville Willow Pines Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popped up our hands to sustain her in her new calling as a family history instructor.
If enthusiasm will do the job, the whole ward will soon be delving into genealogy in a big way. Janelle's reputation as a personable, knowledgeable Gospel Doctrine teacher goes before her. When I decided to use her as an example of the thousands of church members who now take on this assignment, I expected her to tell me she has been a genealogist since she was 3 years old and that she is busily adding to her family's store of ancestors who have been recipients of temple blessings, by proxy, through her efforts.
Not so. In her lifetime, she has been a teacher in every level from elementary school to university. She has been a copy writer and a marketer with two successful businesses currently under her busy thumbs, but she hasn't been a genealogist.
"I thought that was what widowed grandmothers did. I thought our family genealogy was all done," she said.
It isn't as if Janelle hasn't had plenty of opportunities right under her nose to get on the family history bandwagon. Her husband, Matt, designed a popular fan chart that was available through tree.seek.com. His concept now is one of the tools available to researchers on FamilySearch.org. It's a highly useful way to present a family pedigree that is simple to search. Many church members add a colorful fan chart to their home decor to keep the issue always before their families.
Matt, now a software engineer for Family Search, grew up with his father, Grant Misbach, who also is an avid family researcher, and caught the bug early. The five-generation and 15-generation charts Grant designed are available on Amazon.
With all that sort of thing going on around her, how did Janelle avoid being caught up herself? Easy peasy. I've used the excuse myself. When so many already are doing family searches, there really is no need for another one. It won't work, Janelle.
Having received the call, she is operating on the Old Testament wisdom that "to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven" (see Ecclesiastes 3:1) She is diving into the assignment like the human dynamo she is.
First item on her agenda is to develop a curriculum. Although thousands of church members now have assignments as family history instructors, there is no curriculum as such. She has until May 3, her first actual class, to put her thought on the assignment into some logical order to fill up the class periods.
One thing Janelle has in her favor is a firm grasp on the technology tools that have moved family research out of the back bedroom and into the wherever you happen to be when you decide to put some time into family research. The number of special programs available to researchers is amazing and she knows them all.
Having Janelle at the front of a classroom armed with the technologic know-how to maneuver the system will be very helpful for those in our ward who grew up before the computer came to rule (i.e. me).
Interestingly, though, her classes are not likely to be peopled entirely with the elderly. When Bishop Craig Payne extended her a call, he told her he intends to assign whole families to attend the course. Good plan, Bishop Payne. It fits nicely into predictions that the youths of the church, all of whom came out of the delivery room texting, will rapidly enhance and expand the work of seeking out and ensuring proxy temple rites to millions of those who have gone before.
Janelle wants to do more than teach fellow ward members to dig names of their ancestors out of the massive resources. She hopes she can stimulate interest in looking beyond the name to the person who bore that name in life. While preparing names for temple work "is the greatest service we can do for those who have gone before, there is more to it than that. The turning of the hearts of the children to their fathers means, I think, coming to know what that person was like when he or she was taking a turn at mortality."
She wants her students to "develop a relationship on both sides of the veil. I'm sure that sentiment goes both ways, that those on the other side are interested in us and how our mortal experience is going."
At the outset (ending this column where it might logically have been started) is the first advice that Janelle intends to give her students: "Start now. Wherever you are in the process, begin from there. It may look overwhelming, but it can be done."
See? That's enthusiasm Janelle style.
Twila Van Leer is a former Deseret News editor and staff writer who serves as a family history missionary.