Request Patriarchal Blessings Online

The new LDS.org has a lot of cool new features and tools, some of which we’ve illuminated in the past. One great new feature is the ability to request your personal Patriarchal Blessing—or one of your ancestors’—online. I discovered this great feature recently and decided to give it a try.

I didn’t need a new copy of my blessing, but have been curious about my Great-Grandfather Washburn. He died when my Grandpa was only a boy, and I’ve heard little of him. In order to request a Patriarchal Blessing, all you need to do is visit new.LDS.org (soon to replace the main site at lds.org), then follow these steps:

1. Login using your LDS account
2. Click the “Tools” menu, then select “Patriarchal Blessing” at the bottom
3. Fill out the form (starting with whether its your own, or someone else’s)
4. Check the agreement at the bottom and select “submit”
5. Wait a week or two until the blessing arrives via snail-mail

My Great-Grandfather’s blessing arrived within 2 weeks in the mail. It looks like a print from microfilm. These are not digitized records, so somebody is pulling the requested blessing by hand, printing, and mailing it to you. So if you use this service, and ever meet up with a missionary that works in the records department, make sure you thank them for their service. Oh, and just for the record, your blessing has nothing to do with love of country:

pa·tri·arch·al adj [pay-tree-ARK-all]

of, relating to, or being a patriarch or patriarchy

audio pronunciation of “patriarchal”

Let us know what you think of this great new service, and any great new features you’ve found at new.LDS.org, in the comments.