Regarding how many members do temple work--in a talk at our regional FH conference about a year ago, the rep from Salt Lake (sorry I can't remember the name) said about 3% of the membership does family history, and about 1% submits names. That amount doubles when nFS is introduced unless there's been a local emergency, like a flood or fire (he was referring to San Diego at the time). The one that really spiked was St. Louis, above 9% at the time he spoke. Much of the an area's success seems to depend on regular priesthood support--over the pulpit--for programs like family history or member missionary participation. I wonder how they compare? It seems to me that male leaders might be more familiar/comfortable with one than the other. Several years ago, when I was introduced to computer indexing, the leaders said that about 80% of the temple names came from extraction and about 20% from the members. (Member submissions ran about 30% duplication at the time.) The goal was to reverse those numbers in ten years. That time is about here. Now they are putting the sources and documents online after they are indexed, so we can work on it during the hours we have free, not just the hours the FHC is open. But no matter how much goes online, it's not all there yet and we need the Family History Centers. Extraction leaves gaps and doesn't assemble families. If someone is extracting a marriage record, only the marriage work can be done, so sealings were permitted out of order in the old TempleReady. There's not enough other information on the record to do all ordinances. That's why we find isolated records for couples sealed, and their childrens' work, but not the parents'. (Extraction may also duplicate members' work.) Useful as it is, and it kept the temples in business for years, extraction doesn't relieve us of our responsibilities, nor does the computer of the need to attend the FHC from time to time. nFS doesn't allow sealings done out of order because assembling the entire family is the priority. And has been referred to, the documenting we do to finish the work discovers yet more names to be done. Family history is recursive, like missionary work. I've nearly finished checking the names I have gathered but whose work I don't have recorded. I'm finding about 30% for the names already completed. Now some of these names I'd checked under the old system and some I hadn't yet, but the figure rang a bell. nFS finds and presents variations I didn't think of, with given names reversed, initials, variant dates, variant spellings such as Judy, Judith, Judea, and Iudea and Mrs. Smith. nFS also has deceased member records and the extracted names. Two of those databases we didn't have access to check before, but the temples may have, I believe. So we'd check and not find them with the tools available to us, but if the temple checked, they found duplication. Certainly not all the duplication was deliberate, despite stories otherwise. Duplication wasn't considered to be a problem until Pres. Hinckley said it was. Whenever the prophet speaks (priesthood leader over the pulpit), we get more tools, and more impetus. Participation doubles. Jerry Cowley