A common desire to connect families together brought over 200 people to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Invercargill, New Zealand Saturday and Sunday (6-7 June) to participate in a "Global Family Reunion."
The event was organised by Douglas and Linda Harding, missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
They became interested in the idea after hearing A.J. Jacobs present his goal to have a global family reunion in cities throughout the world.
“When we heard about the idea of a global family reunion,” Elder Harding says, “we decided we ought to see if we could do that in New Zealand.
"A global family is something that most of us can relate to and for us to be a part of a global family reunion is a real honour.”
The Saturday festivities began with a welcome address by Invercargill deputy mayor, Darren Ludlow. After his remarks Mr Ludlow was able to trace back ten generations of his family tree, helped by Latter-day Saint family history volunteers at the event.
“The concept behind the global family reunion is that we are all cousins,” he said.