I would like to express gratitude to those involved in Indexing at FamilySearch. Your quiet service often goes unrecognized, but it makes such a difference!
Recently I was working to identify the members of a devout Catholic family. The family had 10 children, but not much was known about what became of most of them. I ran across a newspaper photo of the mother with all six of her daughters. All of the daughters had become nuns and were assigned to fields of labor all around the Midwest. Part of the process of becoming a nun involves choosing a new religious name and so this is why they seemed to vanish from records. The caption under the photo identified the daughters only as Sister Laura or Sister Madeline, but it also noted the hospital, orphanage or care center where they were assigned. The new challenge became trying to match each daughters’ birth name with their Sister name. With the help of an index to social security claims, and using the parents’ names as my search criteria, I was able to see a list of the daughters’ religious names with their respective birth dates and then match the birth dates to the birth names to make the connection. Having that index was such a timesaver! It paved the way for me to go on and find the daughters in census records, also because of indexing. It’s a happy thought to know that the legacy of these devoted Sisters, who spent their lives in service to the poor and needy, can now be shared in the Family Tree and their temple work completed.
--Diane Demars
Stake Family History Consultant
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