Ordinary families are using FamilySearch, Ancestry and AI helpers like Claude to find ancestors and cousins still waiting for temple work. Here's what they found, and how you can do the same for your family.
Counts from lines whose search has finished. Only people who have died are counted.
5 lines · Updated October 20, 2026
We asked Claude to search each grandparent's line in our own FamilySearch account, back about eleven generations and then down through the cousin branches, checking records on Ancestry along the way. Thousands of names turned up that nobody in the family knew were waiting.
4 lines · Updated October 20, 2026
Rory signed in to his own FamilySearch and free Church Ancestry account, and Claude searched his four lines at a gentle pace, first up through his ancestors and then down into the cousin branches.
4 lines · Updated October 20, 2026
Sara's four lines started with a first pass of direct ancestors and their families. The cousin branches are being searched now, one line at a time.
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1. Start with your own FamilySearch account
Everything happens in your own free FamilySearch account. Church members can also add a free Ancestry membership through familysearch.org/access.
2. Give an AI helper the search
Open TempleKit's AI tasks to hand Claude (or another AI helper) the search, one ancestor at a time, in your own signed-in browser.
3. Work down, not up
The direct line is usually done. The names still waiting are in the cousin branches, so search down from every ancestor, not only up. More on that below.
In a family that's been researched for generations, the direct line of grandparents and great-grandparents is usually finished. The work that's still waiting sits off to the side: the brothers and sisters of those ancestors, their children, and their grandchildren, the cousin branches nobody followed all the way down.
So each line is searched in two directions. First we climb from the grandparent to about eight to ten generations of ancestors. Then from every one of those ancestors we come back down two to four generations, going further for the older ones, whose families have had more time to spread. Every person found who has died gets their temple work checked. One couple from the 1700s can lead to hundreds of relatives, which is why the numbers on this page grow as the search goes deeper.
Some names that FamilySearch shows as ready turn out to be duplicates, such as a second set of parents for someone already sealed. Those are counted as waiting until they're checked, not as ready.