Joseph Blake Everett

Joseph Blake Everett passed away from heart failure on August 26, 2026 after a joyful afternoon at Deer Creek Reservoir.

Joe was born to Rebecca and Dennis Everett on March 22, 1973, on the US military base in Augsburg, Germany. He lived in Utah and Maryland, and as an older child returned to Germany, where he attended a German school in order to learn to speak the language. He graduated from Anne Arundel High School in Maryland and attended BYU for a year before serving an LDS mission to St. Petersburg, Russia.

When he returned to BYU, he was chased hard by Judith Hale, and after about a month, realized he was in love. They were married on December 28, 1994 and moved to Provo, packing all their belongings into the back of a Toyota Corolla. While he finished college, they started their family, and after he graduated in Family History and Russian in 1996, he took a job as a Russian cataloger at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Joe worked in many capacities at Family Search and Ancestry, supervising records collections and improving services for patrons. He showed an early aptitude for leadership and created strong relationships with his colleagues. Joe was instrumental in digitizing the Hamburg Passenger Lists and in retiring Family Search microfilm in favor of digital records. His work made genealogy records readily available to a far wider audience.

In 2018, Joe finally landed his dream job as the Family History Librarian at BYU. There he immediately began to revolutionize services, focusing on bringing the blessings of family history to the students as well as the wider community. He worked extensively with Family History faculty to enrich student experiences, and promoted library tours and other classes to bring thousands of students into the Family History Center each semester.

Joe was active on various genealogical committees, serving as chair on many. He published several peer-reviewed articles, taught multiple classes involving Russian and German paleography and Eastern and Central European research, and pioneered the Aims of My Ancestry student experience at BYU. His great joy was helping everyone, especially young people, find belonging through connecting personally with their ancestors.

Joe loved spending time with his family. He was a fantastic skier. He often took his kids and their friends skiing, earning the nickname Joe Mantana for his daredevil stunts and intrepid style. He had some hair-breadth escapes, but only once ended up in the emergency room, with a broken hand. After that he at least started wearing a helmet.

One of Joe’s favorite pastimes was watching BYU football or basketball. He loved to go to the games, in fair or foul weather, and added to the amazing energy of the crowd with his own foot stomping, yelling, chanting, singing, and doing the wave. When he couldn’t go to a game, he liked to watch it on TV, either at his brother Denny’s house or at home, where he would text comments back and forth with Denny. His second favorite team was the Utah Jazz.

Joe enjoyed the outdoors, hiking, watersports, camping, and taking long, scenic drives. He had favorite music he would play on drives, and the kids grew up to classical guitar, Enya, Owl City, One Republic, and Bastille, among others. He loved to travel, especially with family, going many times to Europe and twice to Korea, and he was careful to highlight all his travels in a US and World Atlas.

Joe also loved to sing, participating in the Utah Baroque Ensemble and the Mapleton Chorale for several years. He began taking voice lessons in 2024, improving his vocal range to span E flat 2 to C sharp 5, and won Mapleton’s Got Talent for his rendition of “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton. Joe sang whenever he could: while exercising, puttering around the house, driving, and of course, in the shower.

Joe was a faithful and dedicated disciple of Christ, serving in many callings in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and attending the temple regularly to do work for his ancestors. He especially loved serving in the Young Men’s organization, where he spent a lot of time with his four sons, but his favorite calling was as Sunday School teacher with his wife, Judith.

Joe was kind, caring, energetic, loving, goofy, fun-loving, curious, intelligent, diplomatic, hard-working, thoughtful, sensitive, and loyal. He will be sorely missed every day, but we have faith he is nearby, on his Father’s business.

Joe is survived by his wife, Judith; his six children, Rachel (Noah Allen), Callan, Blake (‘Ailana Everett), Brigham, John, and James; his granddaughter ‘Ewalani; his mother, Rebecca; and his siblings, Dennis, Chad, and Carly.

Funeral services will be held Friday, September 4, at 11 am at the Legacy Chapel, 1050 N 300 W, Mapleton, Utah. A viewing for friends and family will be held Thursday evening from 6 to 8 at the Mapleton Wheeler Mortuary located at 82 W 400 N Mapleton, and on Friday just prior to the service from 9:30 to 10:30 am at the Legacy Chapel. Burial will be in the Springville Evergreen Cemetery.

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