Learn more about about the commitment that leaders of this organization had to family history and temple work.

Officers in the family organization valued the importance striving for truth and accuracy in the family records and histories. At a family organization semi-annual meeting, Bion Tolman gave an interesting incident in the life of his Uncle William Tolman in connection with his experience with Diamond Field Jack. The official meeting minutes recorded that “It is Bion’s desire, if possible, to have corrected the errors that have been published in regards to this story, and it is our desire to see that we record true and factual incidents that happen.”

Picture: Bion Tolman, Family Organization President from 17 June 1957 to 7 July 1978.

From the TTFO 100-year history, “Fred and Arlene became a critical link to the cousins living in the New England States. The Tolman family agreed to pay their expenses to travel east and gather records in their camper trailer. Two people could not have been more frugal. The family was rewarded from each trip with hundreds of family group records and wonderful stories and pictures.” Following Fred’s death, Arlene would move to Utah and become the new hostess for the Family Genealogy Center.  She would be instrumental in computerizing thousands of names.

Picture: Fred and Arlene Tolman. Arlene served as the Family Genealogist at Large from 1962 to 1998

From all the names produced by Aunt Myra and later from the records gathered by Fred and Arlene Tolman, there must have been more names for temple ordinances than cousins to perform the ordinances. Loraine Tolman Pace, Family Genealogist from 1996 to the present, noted, “While typing the 1940 records I began to see entries such as, “paid for 200 names $100 Ephraim Tolman,” “Austin Tolman $10 for 20 names, “ “100 male names J.H. Yancy $50,” “$25 Jerry Jones for 50 names.” In her 1943 letter to William Tolman, Myra makes a request for contributions which shed light on this financial puzzle that I was trying to put together.

Loraine Tolman Pace continues, “My first impression of the $.50 per name was it must be needed for processing the names. I made inquiry at our local Family History Library, but did not find any help. A short time later, I happened to share this in a conversation with Arlin Tolman Mecham, who said that he could remember one of his aunts who lived near the Salt Lake Temple going to the temple all day, several days a week, and receiving some money for doing so.” Apparently, this practice was taking place as recent as the 1970s.

Picture: Aunt Myra

From the 100-year history, “Among her many accomplishments, while serving as family genealogist, was the enormous task of completing, for temple work, thousands of names contained in six large moveable files. These files were a collection of family group sheets that evolved from every conceivable source over a period of seventy years. She made several master indexes with cross references so that when the names were separated from the family group sheets, as they were typed onto temple cards and after the ordinance work was done, and the cards returned to her, she then was able to find the individual names and record the data on the original family group sheet. This process ensured that no deceased person was missed.”

Picture: Genevieve Tolman Hofhine, Family Genealogist, 1980 to 1995

To keep up with all the names that needed temple ordinances from the efforts of Genevieve and others, in 1981, the Thomas Tolman Family Organization established a family file at both the Ogden and Salt Lake Temples. At this time, the Church allowed families to set up a family file at the temple where relatives could pick up a temple card for one of their ancestors and perform temple ordinances. By 1994, there was a Tolman Family File in 18 temples and a cousin assigned to be custodian of the family file for each temple. Today, you can reserve names in FamilySearch and print out the temple ordinance cards at home. You can also share names with other family member or you can share them with the temples worldwide.