Patriarchal
Blessings of Ancestors:
The Patriarchal Blessing Desk has moved from the 2nd floor to
the Main Floor of the Church Office Building. On the East side of
the
Main Floor, go through the glass doors to the Security Desk. You
will
be asked to show a picture ID, such as your Driver's License, or your
picture ID if you are a Missionary or Church employee. The
Security
Guard will direct you from there (it is a glassed-in office immediately
to your right--South). There will be a Missionary at a
desk there to help you.
You will be given a form to fill out. We received permission
to scan
and attach the form. Each form has room for 4
blessing requests.
There will be 2 or 3 special computers where you will look up the
name
of your family member or ancestor. If you find that there
is a blessing on file for
that person, fill out the information requested on the form. The
blessing (s) will be
mailed to you within about 2 weeks to several months, depending on how
busy
they are and how many you have ordered.
For those of you unable to visit the Patriarchal Blessing office in
downtown S.L.C., you will have to send the information by mail (the
address is on the form) and have
them look the names up for you (not too many at a time please).
They do not have e-mail service at this time.
*You will be more likely to tell your FHC patrons and ward members
about this service if you have done it yourself and can speak from
personal knowledge and experience. Order a Patriarchal
Blessing for one or more of your ancestors. I
ordered one for our daughter-in-law for her birthday (she had lost
hers). They sent it to her home within 2-3 weeks. If
you are ordering it for a living person, it must be sent directly to
that person, not to you. I ordered 4 blessings of my direct-line
ancestors. I received those photocopies by mail in 3
months. Three of them were hand-written and one was typed.
Also, you could print off copies of the instructions, and have them
available in your FHC,
along with the order
form.
Phone number: 801-240-3581 (How to order a blessing:
a recording)
Announcement from the Family and Church History Department about
Patriarchal Blessings:
Effective March 1, 2007, we will no longer charge a fee for copies of
patriarchal blessings. This applies to both individual and
ancestral
blessings. In order for our staff to efficiently process requests
in a
timely manner, it will be necessary to limit requests to four (4)
blessings per requestor until our digitizing project is complete.
As many of you are aware, we are currently in the process of digitizing
our collection of 3.5 million patriarchal blessings. Once this
project
is
completed in 2008, it will be much easier for members around the world
to receive copies of blessings.
For more information about how to request patriarchal blessings, please
visit the Church History Web site at:
http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/archives/pbinfo