Business

     LDSAFA started in 2016 and is an all-volunteer association of LDS ancestral family organizations.  It has no monetary assets and uses free and gifted services.

     The present officers of LDSAFA are: R. Shane Brough, President; Scott S. Heiner, Vice-President; Harold H. Hendricks, Secretary; and R. Clayton Brough, Ambassador.

How and why LDSAFA was formed

     In mid 2016, while working in the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, Shane Brough, president of the Brough Family Organization met with Brent Belnap, then president of the Belnap Family Organization. During that conversation, they talked of various challenges facing large ancestral family organizations and what some solutions might be.  At one point, the thought came that other large ancestral family organizations would likely be facing similar issues.  They came up with the idea of forming an association of these large family organizations in order to bring them together to discuss in a group setting these challenges and any successes they might want to share.  Shane took the ideas from that discussion and shared them with Clayton Brough, chief genealogist of the Brough Family Organization, and Rich Braegger, president of the Braithwaite Family Organization.  Over the next few months these individuals pondered on and discussed what this association might look like, what it should be called, how to include other family organizations, the creation of a website, and many other organizational decisions.  Once they felt comfortable with what this new association would look like and how it would operate, they named it "Latter Day Saint Ancestral Families Association" (LDSAFA) and this new association was launched.