One of the blessings I've received as a genealogist is the opportunity to make new friends who are actually relatives. Thirty years ago I was teaching the ward genealogy class in Sunday School (this was so long ago that it wasn't even called family history yet.) The class decided to meet on a week night at the local genealogy library which at that time was a combined LDS branch library and the Idaho State Genealogy Library though the two groups have since split into their own domains.
One of the sisters in the class brought out her family group sheets and pedigree charts to have me look at them. Imagine my surprise to see one of my lines on her chart. We discovered that our great grandmothers were sisters - both daughters of John Alma Lewis. We'd been together in the ward for a couple of years and had no idea we were related.
This was my first encounter with the idea that it's not my lines but our lines. In fact an instructor at the BYU family history conference in July, 2010 pointed out that if we want to get technical, they're all Adam's lines.
As I studied my new-found relative's charts, I noticed several places where names and dates that she had were slightly different from what I had. Of course, my immediate assumption was that my information was correct and that somehow the sources she'd copied from had typos or other transcription errors.
I suspect that my somewhat arrogant assumption is pretty common. Get a group of family historians together discussing newFamilySearch and you will invariably get a few rants about the errors that sombody is perpetuating on someone else's lines. While it is true, as we all know much too well, that there are errors and incorrect information and incorrect combinings in newFamilySearch, a lot of what people are ranting about doesn't matter. I had to chuckle when I opened a name on nFS to find dozens of disputes over a name spelling - the disputer was unhappy that the surname of all the individuals in the family was spelled with an A instead of the O that the disputer preferred.
We will probably never have complete agreement on some of the information on the JSL lines until the millennium when the people themselves can tell us who was whose parents. Nevertheless, there is much work that can be done and for which we can locate the necessary records. And Grandfather James himself gave us the example that what really matters is not neat rows of data on a pedigree chart or family group sheet - or even perfection on newFamilySearch - but the performance of saving ordinances that will allow these families to have eternity together if they wish.
If you live in the Salt Lake City area, we are going to have a JSL sharing session at the Family History Library on Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m. We have classroom B2 in the second lower level reserved for our use. I hope you can join us to share what you've found out about our lines.
