Hannah Sims, age 12, spends a lot of her free time at the Family History Centre of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ancestoral research is a hobby she is learning from her grandmother, Ruth Pryor, who has been a genealogist for forty years.
The two Latter-day Saints take seriously the Church's admonition to seek out our predecessors, determine what ordinances they did not participate in while living, and see that those ordinances are performed by proxy in the temple.
"Linking our family together is a religious responsibility we love," explains Grandmother Pryor. Hannah will tell you that climbing (family) trees with her grandmother on the week-ends is something she also loves.
Ruth has conveyed to Hannah a love of the leaves on her family tree. "Finding out about an ancestor's life and times—that's the leaves," says Ruth.
Hannah has a collection of photos of her ancestors, and a growing collection of story leaves.
One of those leaves explains how the family came to live in Australia. According to Ruth, "One ancestor left Sweden heading to the States, but mysteriously ended up here."