PROVO, Utah — Spiritual guidance is essential in family history research, said David E. Rencher, director of the Records and Information Division of the Family and Church History Department.

Photo by John Hart

Donna and Reid Johnson of Salt Lake City attend fall fireside, which was part of workshop sponsored by BYU's Center for Family History and Genealogy. About 350 people participated.

Photo by John Hart

David E. Rencher

"All of my research skills don't compensate for what goes on on the other side of the veil — that's the only way to explain it," he told a gathering at the annual BYU Family History Fireside, held at the Wilkinson Student Center Nov. 12.

Rather than discussing research skills, Brother Rencher told of research situations in which spiritual promptings brought miraculous results.

He explained that "while I have adequate genealogical skills, and while I try to use those, there are times, when no matter how good my skills, I could not connect to the sources. . . ."

Once, he said, he had a "haunting feeling that one daughter was missing" in a family. He happened to visit friends in the East who were aware of his interest in family history research.

"I do have an unusual surname, and she remembered it," he said. A few months after the visit he received a note from one of the friends whose job was to receive donations to the Annandale Public Library in Virginia. A family Bible had been donated, and "the surname is Rencher, and I thought you might be interested," she wrote in a note.

"I immediately recognized the family Bible of Abraham Rencher," he said. "It contained the entry I had been looking for."

Abraham Rencher was a five-term Congressman, and it turned out that one of his daughters had been taken with scarlet fever, died in Washington D.C., and was not buried with the rest of the family.

"I set off to do the temple work, believing that she was the only family member for whom work had not been done. But I found that work had not been done for any members of that family.

"How many public libraries are there in Virginia or the United States? Is it a coincidence that the person who goes through gift boxes in Annandale Virginia is the one person who knows me? . . .

"I would submit that councils are held on the other side of the veil in this important work," he said.

He told of not being able to find any source material on a family for whom he was searching until he traveled to Atlanta, Ga., for a conference. He went a few days early and stayed in Montgomery, Ala., in order to visit a cemetery near where he thought this family once lived.

"One of the things I have noted frequently is that the promptings of the Spirit are not only very subtle, but very pleading," he said. "While some can be very strong, others are just very brief."

Such a brief prompting came during this trip.

"The (Utah professional basketball) Jazz were doing exceptionally well in the playoffs, and when I checked into my hotel. . . and turned on the TV, the game had just started." As he held the remote and contemplated what he should do, "I was impressed to put the remote down."

"I headed for a cemetery and on the way, passed another cemetery near where I was headed. Being a good genealogist, no way could I pass that cemetery and go on down the road."

In this cemetery he found the grave of a family member he hadn't known about and while he was there a noisy, speeding pickup truck passed, skidded to a halt and a man climbed out. This man took him to the cemetery he'd started out to visit — where he found the graves of the family for whom he was searching — introduced him to relatives living near by, who introduced him to other relatives, took him to the family homestead, gave him copies of their family history and pictures and invited him to family reunions.

"There, in a couple of days, the wealth of material that came. . . was overwhelming. I think, many times, of how I stood there with the remote in hand. Had I not gone that very moment, I would not have been in the cemetery when the truck drove by. Instead, I would have been in Montgomery, Ala., watching the Jazz lose a playoff game."

He told of an associate who took a temple trip from Oregon to the Oakland California Temple. During free time afterward, he headed to the family history library. Another member noticed and asked if he could accompany him.

"My friend admits that he was crestfallen," said Brother Rencher, explaining that he didn't want to spend his valuable research time helping a beginner. But he took the man along, and as they entered the library, he pointed to one of three women at the reference desk. "Tell her what you want to find and she will help you," he said, and then disappeared in the library's aisles to do his own research.

"So he walked over to the woman, and said, 'I really don't know why I am here. I don't know what I am going to work on.' "

She asked what he knew about his family and he responded, "Well, we have a family tradition that my second great-grandfather rode into a town (in Nebraska) on an old white plow horse at about age 10 and would never, never talk about where he came from."

She replied, "We have a family tradition in our family, that when he was 10 years old, our second great-uncle took the old, white plow horse and was never seen again."

Brother Rencher said, "My friend found absolutely nothing in the library, which was poetic justice, but this man and this woman indeed were cousins; they had extended that line considerably and it was a great find for him."

He emphasized, "We cannot overcome the promptings of the Spirit and expect to find what we are looking for. We must not build systems in today's age that take the Spirit out of this work.

"I love my computer," he said, "I love it for everything it can do, but. . . the computer is not what turned my heart; what turns my heart are the experiences and impressions I have from the Spirit, and from the things I know and understand."

After observing that the words of Malachi that Elijah the prophet shall "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers" (Malachi 4:5-6) appear in all four of the Standard Works, he said, "As we do this work, we do perfect the saints and we do missionary work on the other side. And those who are prepared and those who are ready to receive the blessings of the gospel, I think, see to it that events are orchestrated and things come into play, and if we will listen to those promptings, and sometimes they are very slight, the Spirit will lead us and we will know.

"And someday, we will meet these people."

E-mail to: jhart@desnews.com