It is remarkable how, after being dormant
over the centuries, genealogical research activity began to quickly following
the coming of Elijah. People who had never heard of Elijah became interested—almost
overwhelmingly—in searching out their dead, members and nonmembers in the Church
alike.
In nearly every nation in the world,
fascination with genealogical research has grown. Hundreds of societies formed
for the express purpose of finding and preparing human pedigrees have been
organized in recent years. Hundreds of thousands of individuals are engaged in
searches for the records of their ancestors. Patriotic and hereditary societies
in which eligibility for membership is based upon proof of descent from some
honored statesman, soldier, or pioneer have been organized by the score.
Many genealogical magazines are being
published in various nations, and some newspapers of wide circulation run
genealogical columns. Large libraries devoted exclusively to genealogical
material and family history have been established in various nations. Hundreds
of thousands of volumes of such data have been published within the last
century, and so great has been the demand for this kind of printed matter that
public libraries in most cities of the United States have found it necessary to
establish genealogical departments, in many cases under the direction of
trained genealogists.
Through microfilm, additional records in many
countries are being copied and preserved. These microfilm records are now among
the richest sources of genealogical information.
The appearance of numerous books of fiction
with a genealogical or family history theme is another indication of the
reaction of people to this subject. Some of these books have even ben best
sellers.
In England, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, Scotland, and other European countries, governments have required the
preservation of genealogical data and in many cases have set up archives for
this purpose.
Since Elijah, whose coming created this
interest, was destined by prophecy to appear in the latter days, “before the
great and dreadful day of the Lord,” it remains to determine if this vast
genealogical activity is of modern origin.
The Encyclopedia
America says: “In the United States, genealogy was generally neglected
until the latter part of the 19th century, when the organization of patriotic,
State and colonial societies . . . aroused an interest in genealogy.”
The New
Standard Encyclopedia states: “There has been a growing interest,
especially in the United States, in matters pertaining to genealogical research,
and it forms a very important part of history. This is largely due to the
growth of patriotic and hereditary societies which have flourished in the
United States since 1890.”
These two authorities set the latter part of
the nineteenth century as the period when general interest in the subject
appeared.
The formation of patriotic and hereditary
societies stimulated genealogical pursuits. Nelson’s
Encyclopedia describes such societies thus: “In the United States,
organizations in which the members bound together for patriotic work, and in
many cases eligibility is dependent upon descent from an ancestor who
participated in the event which the society commemorates. These societies,
especially in the hereditary ones, publish registers with the pedigree of their
members and the records of their ancestors. They celebrate anniversaries of
important events in history and foster fraternal feeling among the survivors of
wars and their descendants.”
Lists of these societies and their aims,
particularly concerning ancestral studies, may be found in any large encyclopedia.
The organizations include such groups as the Sons of the American Revolution,
the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Society of the Mayflower
Descendants, and the Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors.
Their work reveals that the “hearts of the
children” are being turned to their fathers in more ways than the preparation
of family histories and pedigrees. Interest is shown in the preservation of
historical buildings, erection of monuments on sites where their forefathers
won glory, the marking of graves, and the construction of memorial parks.
Many of these societies were formed about the
year 1890, but some came into being as early as 1850. Since it takes a few
years for the interest of individuals to crystallize into the organization of
societies with a special interest in ancestry, we must look to a year slightly
earlier than 1850 to arrive at a time when such interest began.
In response to a letter asking the date when
genealogical interest began in America, F.A. Virkus, executive director of the
Institute of American Genealogy, wrote: “In 1844 the New England Historical
Genealogical Society was formed in Boston, and genealogy in America really
dates with the founding of this society.”
To show how little was the interest in this
subject in 1844, Josephine E. Rayne, librarian of the New England Historical
Genealogical Society, wrote: “When our society was formed, a single bookcase
was sufficient to hold the entire library, and had the society then possessed
one copy of each American publication devoted wholly to genealogy, a single
shelf would have been ample for that division of its library. However, we now
have in our specialized library some 80,000 volumes and several thousand
pamphlets.”
By way of still further arriving at the
precise time when widespread genealogical interest began in America, we have a
most interesting paragraph from the register of the New England Society for
1847, in which the founders discuss the reasons for the formation of their
organization in 1844: “The period has arrived when an awakening and growing
interest is felt in this country in the pursuit, and especially the result of
historical and genealogical research and when the practical importance, both to
individuals and to society, for the knowledge obtained from such investigations
begins to be appreciated. The existence and activities of the historical,
antiquarian and statistical societies which have arisen within a few years past
in most of the other states of the Union is sufficient evidence of the fact.”
We have shown that international interest was
aroused in genealogy beginning a few years before 1844. According to the
scripture, Elijah was to originate that interest. Then Elijah must have come a
few years before 1844 in order to have started (according to prophecy) a
movement that burst into activity at that time. (Mark E. Petersen, Malachi and the Great and Dreadful Day
[Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1983], 58-61)