At age 13, Susan Easton Black embarked on a quest for "great joy," one of the promises in a patriarchal blessing she received at that age.

As promised in the blessing, she found it via genealogy. But it has been for her not just a destination, but a lifelong journey.

A professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University, Black recounted that journey in the keynote address Friday, March 13, of the annual Conference on Computerized Family History, describing herself in the topic of her address as "A Novice in a Computer World."

"So as a result [of the blessing], when I was 13 I said goodbye to my piano teacher," she said. She persuaded her father to buy her a long-carriage typewriter suitable for producing legal-size documents and enrolled in a typing class.



"Suddenly, I and technology united," she said. She persuaded her typing teacher to allow her, instead of doing the rote exercises, to type the handwritten genealogical records her grandmother had accumulated. As she would type the records, her grandmother would relate stories of their ancestors.

"Nothing matched the joy of sitting with my grandmother and typing in what she had saved from years and years," Black said. "As I did so, I began to notice that many of my ancestors had multiple baptism dates. Adding to that, it was amazing how many different times they had been born."

With the money saved from no longer taking piano lessons, her father allowed her to send away for certificates to verify and correct the information.

"These people had become the heroes and heroines in my life," she said of her ancestors. While still in her youth, with $5,000 provided by her father, she published her first book of family history, containing the certificates she had obtained so no one in her family would ever have to send for them again. One of the genealogical lines in the book she had traced back to the 12th century.

"The book was published, and as far as I was concerned, for the rest of my life, 'great joy' was gone," she said.

She went on to a career in academia, eventually being tapped by then-BYU Dallin H. Oaks as the only female faculty member in the school's religion department -- the only one in 150 years.

She responded to a meeting invitation given to LDS Church history scholars from Earl Olsen, then assistant church historian, who wanted someone to compile a list of early church members from the beginning of the church in 1830 through Joseph Smith's time. Being the "new kid on the block" and the only one at a meeting not occupied with other major projects, she took on the challenge.

Later, she met a developer of the WordCruncher software, who freely shared his time and expertise to help her digitize and format the voluminous information she was compiling.

"Now I have the system, I'm really going to go, and guess what's happening to me: I have great joy," she recalled. The result: 48,000 pages in 50 volumes listing the membership of the church from 1830 to 1848.

Later, an interest in church members who did not follow Brigham Young to the West prompted her to contact officials of the RLDS Church and offer to organize and compile seven volumes of the early membership of that church. The First Presidency of that church was so appreciative that they offered to baptize her into their church and then immediately ordain her an elder. She declined the offer.

Regarding her genealogical research, Black posed the question "Why would I do this?"

"It comes back to great joy," she said.

Speaking of the LDS doctrine of ordinances and covenants pertaining for salvation, Black said the answer to the question is, "It's the covenant; you want the covenant for your kindred dead. My hope is that I made sure that everybody that's related to me received their covenants."

She told her audience of family history enthusiasts, most of them with Mormon ancestors who crossed the plains to Utah, that she hoped her efforts "will make it possible for you not to have to do some of the original research."

In closing, she said, "Let us suppose that the patriarch wasn't just telling me that I could find great joy, but let us suppose that great joy was already hidden for you there" in family history work.