This year, are you looking for meaningful Christmas gifts — something beyond the latest gadget or trend? Consider giving the gift of family history. It may take a little more planning, but family history gifts offer eternal value as they connect us to our loved ones both here and beyond the veil.

Here are some possibilities:

• Interview a parent, grandparent, or other family member and record his or her life story. You can write the story or make an audio recording. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated. It has been said that when someone passes away, a library of knowledge is lost. Don’t wait until it’s too late to capture experiences that only that person can share.

• Plan a family temple session, doing family names if possible. Previous columns have explained how to find valid names. If you don’t have your family own names at present, check with other family members to see if they could use help.

• Do a batch of indexing. Some families give service as a gift to other family members; indexing is a great option for that type of gift.

• Plan a family reunion. It doesn’t have to take place over the holidays, but it’s a great gift regardless of when it’s held.

• Give a calendar that includes family photographs. Copy shops or office supply stores may offer this service.

• Arrange to take family history classes together.

• Print a large-size fan chart showing your family. (A caution here — if you print the chart from an online site such as Family Tree rather than your own verified database, verify the information to be sure it’s accurate before printing the chart.)

• Give a subscription to a genealogy site.

Start now so you have plenty of time to plan.

Wilford Woodruff said, “Oh, I wish many times that the veil were lifted off the face of the Latter-day Saints. I wish we could see and know the things of God as they do who are laboring for the salvation of the human family who are in the spirit world; for if this were so, this whole people, with very few, if any, exceptions, would lose all interest in the riches of the world, and instead thereof their whole desires and labors would be directed to redeem their dead.” (Quoted in the Family History Student Manual, 2012).

The gift of family history is one that endures eternally.