Every spring and fall, leaders of our Theodore Turley Family Organization meet in Salt Lake to plan and discuss family matters.  I’ve been meeting with this great group of relatives for many years now, as the representative of the Charlotte Turley branch of the family.

This year we are planning a virtual reunion on May 15, which is World Family Day.  Descendants of Theodore Turley (there are about 20,000 of us!) will be encouraged to share a memory of a family member or ancestor on FamilySearch.  This might be a story, a document, or a photo.  Imagine the history we can share and preserve if we all did this!

These are our family organization leaders:

Top photograph: Back row (L to R): Ted Roy, Monita Robison, Natalie Tanner, Ann Lewis, Steve Turley, Jane Turley, Mary Ann Clements. Front row: Kay Lovell, Richard E. Turley, Sr., Janet Packham, Luana Rogers. Not pictured: Dan Rogers, Adrienne Williams, Diana Glissmeyer, Ted Pyper (Skype), Tony Turley (Skype).

A week later, on Saturday 13 April, we had another family meeting in Salt Lake at the Family History Library.  David Turley gave an excellent overview of the last family field trip taken to San Bernardino last October.  Theodore Turley and his family helped to settle that area in the 1850s.  Then Rick Turley spoke to the group.  He and David and I are working on 3 volumes about Theodore Turley’s life and papers.  Rick calls us “the Three Musketeers.”  It’s been a great opportunity to work with him.  He’s one of the finest historians I know.

Ann Lewis, Rick Turley, David Turley

Rick told us a bit about his assignments and projects and the work he’s done on the series of books called SAINTS.  It is the single most-read history of the Church ever printed, an open and  honest narrative of our church history.

We also talked about our Theodore Turley books project and answered questions about how it’s coming together.  We hope the first volume will be published this year.Rick said that about 2.5% of church members are involved in family history work.  He encouraged us to do the 3 things the church historians do, but on an individual level:  Collect, Preserve, and Share.

Collect:  Do I have any records related to my family?  We all have family history records like certificates, letters, journals, photos, or documents.  Gather them.  Put them in a shoe box or a safe place.

Preserve:  Take your shoebox to a scanning machine and digitize the things you have.   Save the digitized images in more than one place.  Label photos with names, dates and places.

Share:  Upload your digitized records to safe repositories online like FamilySearch.  Put them into the public domain so others who are searching can find them.  Donate and share your treasures with libraries who can keep them safe and make them accessible to others.  Get children to help you transcribe records so they can be shared.

After the program, we had some good visiting time.  It was a really fun morning.

I grew up not knowing a thing about the Theodore Turley family.  When I started searching for my ancestors, I found them.  Oh happy day!  It’s a great blessing to belong to such a great family!