AT SOLICITATION OF SAINTS IN UTAH, ENGAGED IN GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH WHILE SERVING AS A MISSIONARY--TAKES A SPECIAL MISSION FOR SUCH WORK--IMPRESSION THAT HE WAS RECEIVING HELP FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD--SEARCH FOR WILLIAMS' GENEALOGIES--A SIGN AND A MUTUAL IMPRESSION--VALUABLE DATA OBTAINED FROM A STRANGER, WHO WAS EVIDENTLY INSPIRED--RESEARCH OF CHAMBERLAIN FAMILY RECORD HELPED BY A STRANGER WHO WAS ALSO EVIDENTLY INSPIRED TO DO SO--VALUABLE RECORDS PROVIDENTIALLY FOUND IN UNEXPECTED PLACE. When I was twenty years of age I went on a mission to New England, and was laboring there when the St. George Temple was dedicated. The completion and dedication of this sacred structure greatly stimulated among the Latter-day Saints in the Stakes of Zion a desire to procure records necessary for Temple work, and a number of brethren and sisters, who had migrated from New England to Utah, wrote to me and asked me to procure genealogical data for them. I was kept too busy at missionary work to do very much record searching, but I complied with such requests in a number of instances, and soon came to feel an intense interest in genealogical work, a sentiment that influenced my course of life for many years, and still remains with me. I returned from this mission in September, 1877, and soon after reaching my home, which was in Salt Lake City, I had a conversation with Elder Wilford Woodruff, who was then one of the Twelve Apostles, in which I told him that I felt that it was my duty to return to New England for the purpose of procuring genealogies for such of the Saints as might desire to employ me in that work. He approved my sentiments, and introduced me to President John Taylor, who likewise approved them. At the April conference, 1878, I was set apart by Elder Orson Pratt to go on a mission to New England and the Eastern states to preach the Gospel to the living, but more especially to procure the records of the dead kindred of Latter-day Saints. I was profoundly impressed by the blessing Elder Pratt gave me. Immediately after conference I started on this mission, and was soon engrossed with my labors in the interest of the dead, labors that consumed much of my time for many years. Although I was but a youth of limited education and at the outset of my genealogical work was almost totally ignorant of those branches of knowledge that are commonly considered absolutely essential to success in such work, such as local history, local laws and usages, systems of records in towns, cities and states, etc. I often met with a degree of success which surprised me. Many a time I was made to believe that I was receiving assistance from the other side of the veil, and my faith to this effect has always been unshaken; and it is my present purpose to relate a few incidents that tended to create this faith within me.