How do I know what family history needs to be done?

Hello everyone!  Today's question is: How do I know what family history needs to be done?

There are two answers to this question, depending on if you want temple work, or research work.  There are two ways to find the temple work.  If you go onto New FamilySearch, you can look at your family history and if they need to go to the temple, a little green arrow will pop up next to the temple icon.  Or, if you have RootsMagic, there is a button under the FamilySearch tab (the little tree on top), where it has a list of temple ordinances needed.

To look for family work, the best thing to do is to find where the line stops.  If you have some skeleton family history that goes far back, click on the names.  Do we have complete dates for all important lifemarks (birth, death and marriage)?  Do we have complete birthplaces?  How many children are in the family? If there's only one child in the family, get some backup on that, because in the past only-child families were very rare, even if only one child lived to adulthood.

So, look for the unfinished stuff within the known people, or start that the line stops.  Then search using what you do know.  The best way to find a parent is to find the parents' names on the child's records.

Provo YSA 18th Ward Family History Committee Signing Off.  Next week's question:  "What are some of the doctrines behind family history?"  It will be a motivation week.