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SALT LAKE CITY — For more than six decades, Carol B. Moss had one unanswered question that kept her wondering: Where did I come from?
“My parents always told me from the time we were really little that we were adopted,” Moss said. “My mother just told us we took the place of the little spirits she had lost in her pregnancies.”
It wasn’t until after her adoptive mother passed away that she finally began her genealogy search to answer that lingering question.
“I think as you get older and people say ‘you don’t look like your mother,' you start to wonder," she said.
After years of persistent phone calls to the district courts in Pittsburgh, she finally received her biological parents’ paperwork when she was in her 60s.
With those details, Moss learned she had three sisters and one brother, who were also trying to find her.
After more than five decades apart, Moss finally met her two sisters.
“It just seemed like we cared about the same things," she said. "We immediately loved each other. There was instant love for one another. I had not had that naturalness, that innateness that has come from this experience.”
Although her mother passed away before she could meet her, Moss says she feels empathy, love and a powerful connection to her.
“I was so happy to find this out (that my mother) had been married for 50 years," she said. "She was active in her community and in her church. She was just a great lady. Apparently she was very outgoing (and) talked to everybody. I have children and grandchildren like that; it’s in the genes.”
Moss calls her home here in Salt Lake City “the mecca” for all genealogists. The LDS Church is capitalizing on that reputation with a brand new interactive center for family research.
Inside the so-called “museum of me” in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Family Search Center, people can learn about their nationality percentages, see countless photos of their relatives and even enter into a time machine.
Family Search worker Randy Hoffman says he sees these experiences change people’s paradigms every day.
“Just to be able to see people learn more about, and in a sense fall in love with their ancestors," he said. "It gives a lot of strength to individuals and helps them see… if they made it through what they had to go through, I can make it through what I have to get through.”
Creators hope people will come back at least once a year to record memories and keep family genealogy a big part of their lives.
“There’s a lot of identity and satisfaction that comes from knowing who these ancestors are. I’ve done it when it’s hard,” said Moss. “The fact that anyone can find out something if they learn the technology… (it) is such a gift, and it strengthens families.” E: jjacobson@ksl.com W: Jen-Jacobson.com
