Genealogists owe much to the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). The Church collects millions of records of interest to genealogists and then makes the records available to all, regardless of religious affiliation. One of the "friends" of non-Mormon genealogists over the years has been the president of the LDS Church, Gordon B. Hinckley. He has now passed away. Hinckley was 97 years old and served as church president since 1995 - and was very active in the acceleration of the genealogy work.
Under Hinckley's management, the Family History Library developed and went live with the now familiar www.familysearch.org site. That site is now the most popular genealogy site on the World Wide Web and even one of the most popular sites ever, regardless of topic. Most web ratings list www.familysearch.org in the top fifty or so web sites in terms of popularity. The result was more genealogy-related records available to more people than ever before.
Details of Gordon B. Hinckley death and his long career may be found at: http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/
and in the Salt Lake paper at: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695247765,00.html.
He was a great man and will be missed by all who knew him and by the LDS people. His leadership inspired a accelerated interest in doing family history work, both for the LDS folks and those other folks who love to find out about their ancestors and for free access to information that many could not afford to find.We owe him a debt of thanks..best regards, karen
Posted by: Karen L. Wofford | January 30, 2008 at 02:17 AM
President Gordon B. Hinkley:
God be with you 'til we meet again.
Happy Dae.
Posted by: Happy Dae | January 30, 2008 at 10:07 AM
What a honor to have opportunity to even read the history of such a devoted person, to life, as well ascaring for millions of people his contributions to others will certainky be rememberd.
Eastman your richer for knowing him I am sure,
Posted by: Martha Beamon | January 30, 2008 at 12:09 PM
I had the honor of meeting this great man when he was an Apostle. Before taking his place on the stand to address the adults, he spent some time speaking to the children in the Junior Sunday School room. He wasn't scheduled to do this, but he had a reputation of making sure that everyone knew that God has a personal interest in him or her from the very young to the very old!
Posted by: Marilynn B | February 08, 2008 at 02:03 AM