I have a rabid genealogist family member & just tried to access ancestrydotcom out of curiosity. (incorrectly thought it was free, silly me); had been avoiding it to stay as far off Mo-dar as possible...
Wondering a couple of things...
Why does the corporation *really* collect & keep family history records? Is it mainly to feed the temple proxy machine?
Experience has revealed that all Mo-roads lead back to $ (hence the ancestrydotcom membership fee), but why the obsession reaching historically beyond internet past?
Looking for the Big Picture "Why."
Does anyone have experience with their site as an exmo?
Am I opening an expired, unsavory can o' worms?
I am feeling possessiveness of my own ancestors and resentment for the Mos' group-sheet hoarding monopoly on MY history.

As many of us have shown here, authentic history has a "pronounced anti-Mormon bias." so this functions as a distraction...

Several years ago I had a professional genealogist in the cab and spent some time with her. She was an Italian Catholic, and her gripe about LDS records was "once the work has been done, it's set in stone." She acknowledged she makes mistakes or occasionally comes up with misinformation, and she said it was damn near impossible to correct in the Family History Library.

Hoping some of the COB trolls will see this one...

Yes, it seems reasonable to assume that the main purpose of Mormon family history work is to perform baptisms for the dead and other vicarious ordinances.

Ancestry is a privately-owned site. It is not owned by the Mormon church, although the church has had an agreement to share family history information with the site in exchange for free access for its members. That agreement will eventually run out if it has not already.

Anyone can use the basic features of Ancestry for free. If you want more advanced information, you will need a subscription. It's been a while since I have done family history, but I believe RootsWeb is a free sister site to Ancestry. There are other sites as well.

I agree with Cabbie that Mormon genealogy work is often sloppy. It is very annoying to see wrong information on Family Search, the Mormon church owned genealogy site. The Mormons did baptism for the dead for my great-grandmother on three separate occasions. My great-mother was never a Mormon, and had no Mormon descendants. On each occasion, the person who entered the information managed to get her birth date and death date slightly wrong. Why would they care? She wasn't *their* great grandmother.

Nevermos often enjoy doing genealogy work as well. Genealogy was done long before the Mormon church was ever established. I like to learn about the history of my family. It's like putting together a lot of clues to form a picture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2017 08:42AM by summer.

It is the ONLY true thing about the church- our ancestors who lived and died.

I have a gr. gr. grfather who was never baptized, but has had all his work done, been sealed to numerous relatives, but never dunked for the dead???? Work done in 1926, in SLC temple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2017 01:28PM by cutekitty.

I found a funny comment on a Catholic genealogy site, where people were complaining that Ancestry's close relationship with the mormon church was resulting in Ancestry data being used to dead-dunk people who in life were Catholics:

"I think I'm going to write a letter to the LDS rejecting their baptism though, just to be safe. I'll get a kick out of knowing that it will be kept in the nuclear bomb proof recored vault inside of a mountain so that I can show it to Jesus at the end of time."

:)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I found a funny comment on a Catholic genealogy
> site, where people were complaining that
> Ancestry's close relationship with the mormon
> church was resulting in Ancestry data being used
> to dead-dunk people who in life were Catholics:
>
> "I think I'm going to write a letter to the LDS
> rejecting their baptism though, just to be safe.
> I'll get a kick out of knowing that it will be
> kept in the nuclear bomb proof recored vault
> inside of a mountain so that I can show it to
> Jesus at the end of time."
>
> :)

Maybe that vault could be named at The Vault Cumorah

I would imagine that Catholics would find the idea of needing a second baptism highly offensive.

You would be correct.

There is hoarding and monopoly of family history by SLC archives. If it's made it onto Ancestry.com, then that's available as part of the public domain.

I have loved family history before, during, and after my time as a Mormon. It's fascinating stuff, and the stories one can find are amazing. Plus, if you enjoy research, history, and solving mysteries, the process itself can be very enjoyable (especially if it includes travel). You can connect with relatives you never knew you had and learn about different time periods and cultures.

Mormons do it to gather enough basic info to provide proxy temple ordinances for the dead, since that's the only way dead folks can get out of spirit prison, progress, and be with their families in the afterlife. "Redeeming the dead" is even one of the three parts of TSCC's mission statement. Of course, temple recommends require ongoing payment of full tithes and offerings -- $$$ for TSCC.

The plan has been unraveling for a while now. Few Mormons have any un-templed dead relatives left, so they depend on the temple to provide names (through the extraction program). Volunteers pull info from databases -- often only a last name and "deceased." You end up going through for "Mrs. Smith, who is dead." There aren't enough of even these shadowy beings, so TSCC quietly recycles names of the dead to supply the living proxies -- kind of reverse vampirism.

As Summer noted, Mormons also use slightly different dates or identification to do multiple sets of ordinances for the same person. Who knows if that's accidental or purposeful, but it's definitely annoying.

>>As Summer noted, Mormons also use slightly different dates or identification to do multiple sets of ordinances for the same person. Who knows if that's accidental or purposeful, but it's definitely annoying.

Interesting. I had no idea that they might be changing the dates on purpose. Each date was off by only 1-3 days. And IIRC, all three baptisms had slightly different dates.

I know why, for my case anyway.

My relatives' dates from Germany region, way back, listed their baptism date as their birth date. It could be a couple days or weeks different than the actual birthday.Depending on the weather,then. Also, a lot were just listed by month and year.

So, SLC told me to pick a day for my records. Family bibles had christening dates listed as birthdays. Why? Who knows?

Great information, thank you! I'm glad to that site is not owned by the Mos (yet). Family history is, indeed, fascinating; I love knowing my ancestors' stories, and am working to remove the bad taste left from tha Mos' version, i.e.'History' is pronounced 'antimormon bias.'
The Vault Cumorah, haha!

I forgot to mention this before, but GENI is a very good, free family history site that has nothing to do with the Mormon church. You can create trees, share research, do research, and connect with others working on the same lines.