Genealogy from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS)

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Ancestors Remembered on the FamilySearch Family Tree


In conjunction with the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, the FamilySearch.org Family Tree has a special feature added called "Genealogy: Ancestors Remembered." I thought their official position was that genealogy was no longer necessary, but here it is prominently displayed on the startup page. Now, the nature of these startup features is that they are context sensitive so that what I see, you may not see.

When I sign in to the website, I got another lead to the feature.


This is the page that I got when I clicked on the view page link.


The page features a photo of a grave marker and a link to the person's photos and stories in the Memories section. This is a nice feature and calculated to draw people into the Memories that are already in the program. There is no obvious connection to the Memorial Day holiday but the feature in relevant to a holiday that is better known now for the beginning of summer activities than its original purpose to remember our ancestors who fought in wars. Here in Utah, the holiday is called "Decoration Day" and it is common for people to spend some time visiting local cemeteries and putting flowers on the graves of their relatives and ancestors.

Historically, Memorial Day is an official Federal holiday set aside to remember those who died in the armed forces in service to their country. It was originally called "Decoration Day"  after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the Union war dead with flowers. See Wikipedia: Memorial Day.

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