FamilySearch Featured at Smithsonian Folklife Festival

“There’s just a lot of joy in sharing family history and learning about our ancestry,” said Elder Eric Baxter, an Area Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Baxter was in Washington, D.C., this week to participate in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. For two weeks in the summer, hundreds of thousands of people gather on the National Mall in the nation’s capital for the annual festival. The festival coincides with Fourth of July celebrations, including a parade on Constitution Avenue and fireworks on the Mall.

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“It's a wonderful place. People are here to celebrate our nation's birthday,” he said.

This year’s event explores the Ozarks and the many ways Americans express their spirituality. The Smithsonian extended a special invitation to FamilySearch International, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to participate in the festival.

“This is a way for everybody to understand that the greatest strength of a nation is its diverse culture,” said Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III of the Smithsonian Institution.

Bunch came by the FamilySearch booth to visit with volunteers on Monday, July 3, 2023.

FamilySearch began its relationship with the Smithsonian when Secretary Bunch was the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National African American Museum of History and Culture. The Church donated an indexed database of the historic Freedmen’s Bureau Records to the museum in 2016.

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“Working with FamilySearch and others, we were able to sort of make the thousands of records of the Freedmen’s Bureau accessible through the research center,” Bunch said. “It’s really that kind of thing that says history is too important just to be in the hands of historians. It ought to be in the hands of all of our families, and that’s why I love FamilySearch.”

The Freedmen’s Bureau database contains genealogical information about African Americans who were freed after the Civil War.

FamilySearch volunteers are staffing a booth with interactive displays during the festival to show others how to find information about their ancestors online.

“We have people that want to know about religion, (who) want and are intrigued by what we’re sharing,” said Frances Seay, director of the FamilySearch Center in Washington, D.C.

Seay helped to organize the Church’s participation in the national festival. “We are going to impact up to maybe half a million people in 10 days,” Seay said.

“I saw that I have a few more late great-great-aunts and uncles than I had anticipated,” said Richard Ruvelson of Rockville, Maryland, who came by the FamilySearch booth on Monday to see what he could find on FamilySearch.org, a free website available to the public.

Ruvelson said his children have been encouraging him to participate in family history work. “It’s great information. It’s wonderful and it’s appreciated.”

“We’re really excited to be here where there are so many people who are so interested in learning about their family. And we’ve had a lot of people and a lot of interest so far,” said Elder Baxter, who volunteered at the FamilySearch booth on Monday with his wife SaraLyn and three daughters.

“My hope is that everybody will catch that feeling of joy that comes from sharing the gospel through family history,” concluded Seay.