Family History Moments: Overseas Connection

LDS Church News article, Deseret News newspaper , May 15, 2004 (PDF File)

(Text below)

The e-mail was brief and to the point: "February 8, 2004: My name is Gregory Brough. While researching my family tree, I've hit a brick wall. My great-great-grandfather was a Richard Brough born in 1839. He married an Ann.... How can I identify 'Ann' or take my research further back in time?"

As research chairman for the Richard Brough Family Organization (RBFO), I receive e-mails every week from people around the world searching for their Brough-related ancestors. But Greg's e-mail request was different because I received a strong impression that our volunteer family genealogists needed to put other requests on hold and immediately assist him in finding and documenting his family lineage.

During the subsequent three weeks (Feb. 9-25, 2004), volunteer family genealogists gathered several times at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and researched Greg's lineage. Because of their efforts and the help of the library's British consultants and Brough Family Organization members in England, Gregory Brough's lineage was documented and extended back to the early 1500s. In fact, family genealogists discovered that Greg and I were 13th cousins once removed.

By Feb. 26, 2004, Brough genealogists [had] completed their report on Greg's ancestry. I e-mailed Greg and asked him if he wanted the family group records we were sending him to include LDS ordinance data. He replied: "Please include LDS ordinances in (your) report. I am a member of the Church." He wrote that he was hoping this project would give him the inspiration to further pursue his family genealogy and temple work.

"I now have it by the bucketful," he wrote.

He explained that he lives more than 30 miles from the nearest LDS meetinghouse in Scotland, and had been to the temple in London many times, and had been at the groundbreaking of the Preston England Temple and attended the opening day. "I know how important this work is," he wrote.

He is now preparing family group records on his Brough-related ancestors so their temple work can be done. Also, he and his wife are hoping to attend the international Brough Reunion that will be held in northern Utah in August 2005.

----- [Written by] R. Clayton Brough, West Valley City, Utah.