Read about Lori Steadman’s lecture series on the importance of finding and sharing family stories.
Education Week at BYU lasted from August 21–25, 2023. Adjunct Faculty Member Lori Steadman (English, Rhetoric and Composition) gave a series of lectures on how family stories can strengthen families and bring people closer to God.
Hearts Before Charts
By Rylin Green
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” This quote from the musical Les Misérables has a special place in Lori Steadman’s heart. She opened her August 25 Education Week presentation with an explanation of how this quote describes the transcending power of family history and temple work, and continued to explain how sharing family stories and how sacrificing time to take ancestors’ names to the temple increases our love for them.
The phrase “hearts before charts” describes Steadman’s approach to family history work. She explained how we need to learn family stories before we turn to family history charts. When we learn more about the ancestors for whom we perform sacred ordinances, we feel deeper love and greater desire to keep doing work for them. We can turn away preconceived notions about ancestors and learn of the things they sacrificed for us. This helps us perform ordinances out of love, rather than obligation.
Although temple work adds value to our lives, Steadman acknowledged that it requires a sacrifice, mainly of time. Concerning this sacrifice, Steadman quoted Wendy Watson Nelson, who offered a challenge: “Invite the sisters to make a sacrifice of time to the Lord by increasing their time in family history and in temple work.” Steadman shared many experiences of people who took the challenge and felt more peace and happiness. Steadman testified that if we sacrifice our time to learn about our ancestors and do temple work for them, we will feel an increase in joy and love for them.
Steadman invited us to “vigilantly seek those who need the ordinances” and testified that we will “understand and see how God loves His children as we serve others through temple work.”
Finding Family Stories
By Lydia Hall
Stumped on your family history search or not sure where to start? Lori Steadman can help. In her Education Week address on August 23, 2023, Steadman shared tips for where to start or continue your family search.
Steadman began by sharing her testimony that “family stories can help families be resilient.” She offered the example of Nephi, when he tried to convince his brothers to go after the plates of brass, even though they had failed before. Faced with impossibility, Nephi related the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. “What does he do?” Steadman asked. “He uses a family story.”
If family stories are so important, how can we find them? Where do we look? Steadman offered a few suggestions for places to find our own family stories:
- Go to the source
- Interview family members
- Read journals
- Send letters to family members or family friends
- Location-specific resources
- Visit your roots
- Utilize county historical societies
- Search local and archived newspapers
- Go to local museums
- Technology is your friend
- Google everything
- Use Family Search
As we search for our family members and their stories, it’s important to keep the Lord involved. Steadman said, “I really think we can find a lot of stories at the temple if we listen carefully.” Steadman reminded the audience that God will help us find the strength and connection we need as we search for family stories.
Learn more about Education Week.