I was trying to find out something about my family history, and I’ve been recommended to go to the LDS church, because they do that sort of thing. So my questions are:
Why is the LDS church so interested in genealogy?
Would they, in fact, have info on my family history, even if I am not Mormon?
If so, why?
I mean, I couldn’t care less if they did (I’d be grateful to have the information, in fact), but I am curious as to whether there is something in the tenets of their faith that leads to this interest, or whether it just sort of happened.
They’re primarily interested in their own genealogy – as explained here, they believe family ties formed within the church are maintained beyond the grave, and so want to retroactively confirm the marriages, etc. of ancestors so that they get the same benefits.
BUT, in doing so, they’ve assembled a really vast system of records - so yes, it’s a good place to look for your family’s history, too.
The Mormons have piles and piles of records, are more than happy to let anyone use them, and have a worldwide network of Family Research Centers with tons of resources (including the ability to order microfilms from the main library in Salt Lake City). Some things are searchable online at www.familysearch.org. And they don’t proselytize to people using their centers; I’ve been there myself.
The world’s largest genealogy library is the LDS Church’s Family History Library, in Salt Lake City. And the LDS Church’s International Genealogical Index is the world’s largest vital records index.
I’ve used the LDS Geneaology Kibrary in SLC to look up my family’s history (I found the records of both grandmothers coming to America). The Library is free, and they have a very helpful staff. I also did some historical research there, and am in awe of their holdings. Items that I had to go around to a lot of small local historical societies in New Jersey were there -=- even copies of what I thought we one-of-a-kind things.
One of the most impressive things was the time Alex Haley (author of Roots ) was a guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show back in the 1980s, and he came in with a geneaology of Carson that was put togethe with very short notice by folks who used the resouirces of the LDS Library. (It turns out that Carson was related to Kit Carson.)
My friend is a semi-professional, non-Mormon genealogist who has been using LDS resources for many years. Through her I can vouch for the fact that non-Mormons have “equal access” to resources, and are not subject to proselytizing. She even volunteers as one of the helpful staff to whom CalMeacham refers – her way of expressing thanks and support.
And you don’t have to go to Salt Lake City to benefit from all this. Local LDS libraries have directories of the central Salt Lake City archives on CD-ROM (on perhaps on-line, by now). You locate the source you wish to see, and the central library sends a microfilm copy to the branch library. It is yours to examine for a few weeks before it has to go back. Overall it is a very well-organized system.
I just want to point out that a large percentage of material in the LDS archives, esp. what you find on familysearch, is collected by amateurs. That is, it’s garbage. Parents born after their children, people with more than one father listed, etc. Don’t trust anything but the original records that you look up yourself. Don’t even trust transcriptions. You can use it to get a “guess” about who/what/when and then use that to find the originals.
I have ordered microfilm via my local “Family History Center” at a nearby church for a quite reasonable fee.
Personally, I find baptising dead people in a religon that they didn’t elect in life to be unethical.
My grandfather is such a person, no descendents were members of the Church. His name was submitted by one of his nephew’s who converted and whom, by his choice, had little to do with our family after the conversion.
I can understand how some may feel based upon their religion – I don’t happen to be offended in that way. But this matter was offensve to me. What if the shoe was on the other foot, and some religion did something similar to members of the LDS?
I’m personally not offended by the practice on my ancestors further back, as I had no knowledge of them in life. Actually gratefull for research purposes.
In regard to the accuracy of the records, they can be correct, incorrect, doctored or worthless. But it’s correct what has been said about the volume of these records and to the credit of the Church, it does not usually attempt to pressure users on religious matters.
They have the option of rejecting the baptism even though they are dead, so if somebody gets baptized by proxy they can say no and it doesn’t actually count, at least that’s how it goes by my understanding. Of course they will be in heaven when they deny it and the general thought is they know the truth and thus wouldn’t want to refuse it, but they can if they so choose.
So your grandfather, if he doesn’t want to be baptized, dead and gone or not, can’t be, sure his descendants on earth can go through the motions, but it won’t count unless he accepts it.
Well, then the said LDS person’s descendant would have a choice, most wouldn’t fret over it because they ‘know’ there beloved ancestors now know the truth and wouldn’t be tempted by a incorrect religion in heaven, and thus would accept a LDS baptism for the dead and refuse one from another church.
Thank you for the explanation on this. I was aware of that notion of choice, but forget that aspect. I certainly respect your religious views.
But to illustrate how non Mormons may feel about the practice, consider how you would feel, seeing that your grandmother had been baptized into the Satanic church.
I am not at all implying the Mormon Church is satanic, only trying to point out some with strong religious convictions find other religious views and practices very offensive.
Like I said, it wouldn’t matter, I trust my Grandmother not to adhere to something that she knows is false (she’s in heaven, she knows the truth presumably). The same angle of attack would apply to any other religion, a good dead catholic woman wouldn’t accept such an ordinance from an incorrect church (LDS), or the ordinance doesn’t even ‘get to her’ because it is false in the first place. And if you don’t believe in god in the first place then what should one care what a bunch of wackos claim happened?
Think of a baptism for the dead as a request to join the church and not an order and it may sit better with you, nobody is forced to convert sitting in heaven or not. It’s more akin to missionaries knocking at your door (whom you can rebuff) then grabbing small children and baptizing them or baptizing adults at weapon point or something
I see where you are getting from, but I don’t see the offensive.
Let me disagree, as a professional genealogist who has used the LDS Family History Library’s materials for a couple of decades now.
The FHL has the world’s largest collection of primary genealogical research materials, meaning facsimiles of original documents: vital records, probate records, census records, immigration records, naturalization records, military records, land records, tax records, church records (all denominations), and more. These have been microfilmed, and the microfilms are available for rent via your nearest LDS Family History Center. These primary documents form the bulk of the FHL collection.
The LDS Church’s International Genealogical Index (IGI), which is available online at the LDS web site (familysearch.org), is an organized program of records extractions of births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths/burials. Quality control measures are used, including using double-entry extraction (two different people working from the same records, with any discrepancies looked into more carefully). Although the scope of the IGI is worldwide, not surprisingly it is mostly composed of records from Europe, the British Isles, Ireland, and North America.
I have used the IGI for many years, and have found it to be reliably accurate in its extractions from the original records. What ftg is probably referring to are two other separate collections of data that the LDS Church maintains: the Ancestral File, and the Pedigree Resource File. Those two are collections of genealogy data that are indeed submitted by outsiders, mostly amateur genealogists, and the work is not fact checked the LDS Church, but presented “as is”, user beware.
When you use main search engine at familysearch.org, you will get results from all of their major database collections: the IGI, Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource Finder, the U.S. Social Security Death Index (SSDI).
The results you get from your search will be grouped by which collection it comes from. The IGI and the SSDI, while not perfect, have high degrees of accuracy. Data from other collections may be suspect. But in any case, a good genealogist will not use an index or abstract as a final source; instead, he or she should then proceed to the original underlying record.
aahala, I’m LDS. My husband is not. We have two children. When one was a toddler he had leukemia. Both our children had been given children’s blessings and were on the membership records of the LDS church. LDS youth are not permitted to be baptized until they are at least 8. However, at the time our older son was attending a Lutheran private school. The Lutheran minister wanted to baptized our ill child. I obviously do not think an infant/toddler needs to be baptized. But hubby permitted it, because he liked the minister and wanted him to do the funeral, if there was going to be one. Hubby feared his parents would not attend if it was conducted by an LDS person.
I’m telling all this to point out that we wouldn’t find your scenario, as offensive as you might think (excluding some sort of ritual live sacrifice, of course). It comes down to doing what you believe, and letting others do what they believe. It’s on of our basic articles of faith. “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”
The Mormons will baptize their dead ancestors, so geneology is important. I think they got into trouble for baptizing Jewish people killed in WW2 a while back.
I subscribe to several Jewish geneaology lists (check out www.jewishgen.org), and my memory of the situation is that the Mormons were doing this at one point, but when the Jewish community went to them and told them how offensive it was, they stopped. The Jewish geneaological comunity now actually cooperates frequently with the LDS on projects to share their respective expertise, and to gather, abstract, and disseminate geneaological information on communities of mutual interest, such as Eastern European archives which have only become available reecently.
Well, thanks for the responses. I’ve been a bit busy, so it took me a while to read this.
It sounds like a circular effect, in that the LDS church began doing genealogy for their own reasons, and then as they developed a study center, it became useful to everyone, attracting questions from people who were unaffiliated with the church, thereby increasing the general info they had on everyone. Is that about it?
I had no idea about the baptism after death thing – interesting. What would happen to a person condemned to hell if he or she got baptised? Would it be enough to redeem that person (theoretically, of course)?
