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The sign on the wall at the Family History Center at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reads: “Genealogy: #1 Hobby.”

That helps explain why the center provides an important service by offering free access to anyone who wants to find ancestors through records and documents housed in the center on N.C. 14.

Ruby Asbury is one of the longest-serving volunteers in the center and is well-known to visitors.

Asbury believes that a genealogy search is more than a hobby.

“It is important to know where we came from to get a sense of who we are,” she said. Knowledge of our past makes us “feel closer to our family.”

Forty years ago, Asbury got an early start connecting with her family. She began as soon as she could write, corresponding with a great-uncle, Walter Wood, who was living with an aunt in Spray and working at Spray Cotton Mill.

A native of Patrick County, Va., Asbury has discovered through family research that many of her family members left Patrick County and migrated to Rockingham County to work in the mills. She is still finding local cousins to write and meet.

Knowing the people of our past “helps us to appreciate our own lives when we understand the sacrifices of the people before us,” Asbury said.

The Family History Center provides the “engines” to search for our past family members.

The center, the only one in the county, is a branch or outreach of the much-larger library operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City .

Newcomers to the center will be guided by a volunteer who will help them  answer the question: “How Do I Start My Family History?” That’s the title of only one of the many computer programs available.

The center will also help locate the unknown through websites with census records, microfilm or microfiche that can be copied. A personal ancestral file online may be downloaded for free to keep track of genealogy records.

Asbury said this program “allows you to quickly and easily collect and organize your family history and general information. However, Asbury cautions website users that “it is not a good idea to take for granted that it is going to be right.”

Some of the many websites the center uses are www.familysearch.org, www.worldvitalrecords.com, www.footnote.com, and www.godfrey.org .

With 40 years of experience behind her, Asbury has compiled data about her ancestors and added family pictures and places to her online site. The information Asbury has gathered is also available for others to use.

Sharing data is an important goal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Asbury and her husband, Dennis, will have a treasure trove of information for their five children to build on in the future.

Rachel Wright, an Eden native, is retired as a teacher at Morehead High School and an instructor at RCC.