Discovering family history is a passion for Trudy and Guy Neddo, directors of the Colorado Springs North Family History Center.

They’re intrigued by their own ancestors’ stories, sure, but they also really love watching the excitement in others when they’ve helped them uncover a piece of their past.

During Family History Day Saturday, the couple excitedly showed off the resource center they helped renovate about a year ago, where anyone can come and work with a consultant to start documenting their family history – for free.

The Family History Center here is one of roughly 4,500 such centers operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But help creating a family tree is open to anyone. Volunteers from the church keep it open Tuesday through Saturday so the public can have free access to resources like Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.com, which carry monthly subscription fees. Volunteers also guide people through FamilySearch.org, the church’s online database of records it’s digitizing.

“The first time you find someone, it’s just a joy for us,” Guy Neddo said. They love witnessing those tender moments they call the “Spirit of Elijah,” or the spirit of kinship and family unity.

“The church just really wants people to return to our families,” Trudy Neddo said.

A new feature at the Family History Center is The Story Booth, a pilot program being tested at 15 of the 4,500 centers the church runs. People sit in front of a mounted iPad and answer questions on video as prompted by the app. The questions are tailored by age group, and at the end of the experience, people get a link where they can download a video that can be shared with friends and family.

There’s also the Record My Story Room, where people have access to a video camera and a webcam to record such things as retelling a story about an ancestor, or interviewing a grandmother about her childhood, or recounting the best day of their lives.

Every Saturday, the center offers classes in its computer room from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Classes are different each week, but are geared toward helping people figure out how to find the information they’re looking for – and even what they might not have known existed.

The Oct. 24 workshop is about researching with newspapers, for example. The Nov. 14 the class is about using Ancestry.com.

Above all, the center’s leaders want to help people discover where they came from and teach their children about the ups and downs in their family’s history. And they want to record living history now, before it’s too late.

“Those opportunities are perishable,” said Tom Nixon, director of the Record My Story Room. “When you miss that window,” it’s gone.

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Contact Kassondra Cloos: 636-0362

Twitter: @Kassondra Cloos