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Okay, this is going to be long because that’s how I write. I’m long-winded. I was raised LDS and, though often a doubter, have always been active. I have only one sibling, a sister, who has not been active at all for roughly 45 years. She’s the one who is into genealogy these days. I’ve never really been able to get excited about it. Since we were born in the Church (we’re both in our 60s now), a lot of our genealogy work has been done for years, on both our paternal and maternal sides.
A couple of years ago, my sister called me, all excited. She said she had confirmed that we are the 30th great-granddaughters of William the Conqueror (on my material grand-father’s side). She had been using ancestry.com and said she had verified everything. I was pretty excited, despite the fact that I know that probably 50 million other Americans can also say they are among his direct descendants. I didn’t even think about doing any of the temple work for these people, since I pretty much knew it would have been done for the first few generations back, and assumed that once it tied into one of William’s lines, it would probably have been done back to him.
Anyway, I teach the fourth Sunday lesson in Relief Society. On Sunday, I’m supposed to be teaching a lesson based on Quentin L. Cook’s April, 2014 Conference talk called, “Roots and Branches.” Obviously, that’s a genealogy or family history lesson. This morning, I read something he said in that talk: “Fifty-one percent of adults [in the Church] do not have all four grandparents listed [in the Family Tree section of the Church’s FamilySearch Internet site. Sixty-five percent of adults do not have all four grandparents listed.” I decided, just for the heck of it, to see if I did. I went into the site and printed out a “fan-chart” for myself. I was kind of excited to see that the first screen that popped up showed me plus six past generations; in other words, it included all 64 of my 6th great-grandparents. When I realized that I could click on any of their names to go even further back, I tried doing so using my 5th great grandfather (the one supposedly descended from William the Conqueror). The result was that he was born to two completely different parents than is shown on ancestry.com’s records. So much for the William the Conqueror ties (assuming FamilySearch’s records are the correct ones).
Talked about being bummed out! My first reaction was disappointment. The disappointment, however, was followed by confusion and then by frustration. I’ve always thought that both ancestory.com and FamilySearch.com were considered to be about as reputable as any genealogy sites around. Now, a couple of hours after my discovery of the discrepancy, my relationship (or lack thereof) to William the Conqueror is the least of my concerns. I went back to working on my lesson and found that my attitude had completely changed, and the little bit of enthusiasm I’d worked up was entirely lost. So here’s how this all becomes a crisis of faith…
We as Latter-day Saints are supposed to be driven to find our ancestors and provide the saving ordinances for them, uniting us as eternal families. How in the world are we supposed to know when we’ve got it right and what if, despite our best efforts, we never do get it right? I know it’s necessary to go back to the original documents, but in my case, I’m almost certain I could find original documents to support both ancestry.com’s records and FamilySearch’s records. How does one know who John Smith’s parents really were? Were they Richard Smith and Sarah Jones or Robert Smith and Sara James? Both couples had a son named John, and both sons were born in about the same year, in English villages 5 miles apart.
As I said before, I’ve never really been all that excited about family history, but this incident actually turns me off to wanting to do it. We are told that our ancestors are depending on us and that our work is essential to our being united as families in the next life, and yet for me, within six generations back, everything falls apart. I’m not really worried about anybody’s eternal relationship being affected. I can hardly see God saying, “Well, John. It looks like somebody messed up. You’re now the eternal son of Richard and Sarah, even though Robert and Sara were your actual birth parents.” What’s bothering me is the whole purpose of all this genealogy research and temple work. I mean this involves literally thousands of hours of some people’s lives, and for what? To be sealed to the wrong people, ultimately back thirty or forty generations. It makes me feel as if there are a lot better things to be doing with my time than family history, and it makes me feel like a kind of a fraud giving a lesson that’s supposed to pump everybody up about doing theirs.
How do you all see this? Do you think family history and temple work are important or a waste of time? And why? Why is it so important to do this, if God will ultimately make sure that everybody ends up where he’s supposed to be? (Or, if you think that human errors in research will prevail, despite what’s really accurate, I’d still like to hear from you.)
Hi Katzpur! Good to see you! Katzpur wrote:How do you all see this? Do you think familyhistory and temple work is important or a waste of time? And why? Why is it so important to do this, if God will ultimately make sure that everybody ends up where he’s supposed to be? (Or, if you think that human errors in research will prevail, despite what’s really accurate, I’d still like to hear from you.)
To answer your question I will point to funerals. I imagine that the human population spends considerable resources on prepairing the body, obtaining a casket, purchasing a plot and a headstone, and then having many people travel to pay their “last respects.”
Why do we do this as it arguably does not benefit the deceased one iota.
I believe we do it for the living. It is a ritual that aids us in the process of grieving, honoring, remembering, and moving forward.
I believe the same about temple work for the dead. (I believe that temple work for the living has similar but different purposes… more analogous to weddings and other life milestone rituals.)
Roy wrote:Hi Katzpur! Good to see you!
Katzpur wrote:How do you all see this? Do you think familyhistory and temple work is important or a waste of time? And why? Why is it so important to do this, if God will ultimately make sure that everybody ends up where he’s supposed to be? (Or, if you think that human errors in research will prevail, despite what’s really accurate, I’d still like to hear from you.)
To answer your question I will point to funerals. I imagine that the human population spends considerable resources on prepairing the body, obtaining a casket, purchasing a plot and a headstone, and then having many people travel to pay their “last respects.”
Why do we do this as it arguably does not benefit the deceased one iota.
I believe we do it for the living. It is a ritual that aids us in the process of grieving, honoring, remembering, and moving forward.
I believe the same about temple work for the dead. (I believe that temple work for the living has similar but different purposes… more analogous to weddings and other life milestone rituals.)
You know, it’s interesting that you should say that. Yesterday, before I discovered the discrepancy between FamilySearch’s and ancestry.com’s records, I was thinking something along the same lines. I ran into an article I was going to quote from in my lesson. It was from, “The New Republic,” a non-LDS source, which made it even more interesting to me. Here’s the paragraph that struck me…
Over the last ten years Marshall Duke, a psychologist from Emory University, has explored the value of family history in the lives of children. He developed a list of twenty questions such as “Do you know where your parents met?” “Do you know which person in your family you most look like?” and “Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?” Duke found that the higher children scored on the family-history test, the higher they also scored on measures of self-esteem and self-control and the lower they scored on anxiety, among other measures. Duke even looked at children who experienced the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. Even in this extreme case, knowledge of family history appeared to indicate how resilient the children were in the months that followed. Duke explains that it’s not necessarily the facts of the family that give children these qualities but the fact that, if children can answer these questions, it usually means that they have strong connections with mothers and grandmothers and that significant amounts of time have been spent communicating at family dinners and on family vacations. All the stories of a family add up to what Duke calls an intergenerational self, which he associates with personal strength.It occured to me that maybe what’s really important is the connection we feel to humanity as a whole. It’s not so much about names, birthdates and deathdates as it is about unity, about the idea that, in God’s eyes, we’re all brothers and sisters. He wants us to realize that and realize that every one of us is as important to Him as any other. When people do family history and then temple work, they feel as if they’ve done something worthwhile for the deceased — kind of like having a beautiful funeral for someone. They feel as if they’ve honored someone who has been long forgotten and have found him or her a place in the family unit. What they don’t stop and think about, though, is that this is really God’s family unit — His children. No matter how we’re related to one another here on earth, in the eternal scheme of things, we’re brothers and sisters to one Father.
Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t express that opinion in my lesson. I’m getting pretty used to holding back.
Katspur, I’m in the process of doing my family history too. I love it. My wife can take it or leave it. (Mostly leave it.) I concentrate on my 4 generations only at this point. There is one line of my family that goes back to 70BC. My Grand
Daughter thinks it is “cool” because it says we are related to at least 15 kings & queens. I have no idea if this is accurate or not.
What is more important to me is working on my Parents, Grand parent, Great Grand parents & the Great Greats.
This includes my aunts, uncles, cousins & their husbands, wives & children. Most were farmers, soldiers & teachers.
Most of the 4 generations lived within 3 connecting counties in Wisconsin. My wife & I went to the Nauvoo temple to do the work
for my parents. I got a lot out of the experience. My wife, not so much. I went to the temple with the youth from our ward.
It was interesting to tell them during the baptisms & confirmations, this is my Aunt. This is my Grandmother, etc.
Does this have any impact on the other side of the veil for my relatives? I don’t know. It helps me to get a spiritual grip on
eternity & understand that we are connected to everyone.
An interesting sideline is, now the Church policy is to get permission from the closest living relative before you can do the work.
I have never been denied permission from any of my relatives. Including my wife’s relatives. None of them are members.
Mike wrote:Does this have any impact on the other side of the veil for my relatives? I don’t know. It helps me to get a spiritual grip on
eternity & understand that we are connected to everyone.
And I’m starting to think that this — the understanding that we are connected to everyone — is maybe what’s most important.
I found an “amateur” written genealogy from my mother’s side of the family. It was done during a family reunion back in the 1950’s. It included thousands of my mother’s relatives. It talked about everyone’s accomplishments in business, war, education, etc.
I found one person in the list that used only 3 words to describe her life. The words were: “Not quite right”. I think I might use those
words on my tomb stone.
I think a lot of times we may use genealogy to inflate our own self importance or social status.
I think family history is very important – but for different reasons than the traditional ones. It’s the connectedness and the self-understanding (myself, my wife, our families, our kids, etc.) that mean the most to me. For example, it’s FAR easier to be charitable to myself and others when I understand better where we all got so many our characteristics. I pretty much agree with everything that’s been said. It doesn’t seem to tie in very well to the Church’s focus, though, does it? I don’t want to say, “It really doesn’t matter who you end up getting sealed to, because God’s going to sort it all out anyway.” But that’s pretty much what I’ve concluded. I can see the reason behind the our wanting to instill in our children the importance of family and to help them understand the importance of knowing about their roots, but as for the actual need for the research and associated ordinance work, I’m afraid I’m really feeling more and more like it’s a waste of time, and that my time could be a whole lot better spent. That makes me kind of sad. I had hoped that preparing this lesson would result in my finally getting the genealogy bug, and it’s ended up doing the opposite. One of the interesting truths about the gospel is: some members feel inspired to do missionary work & are good doing that work. Others are inspired to do service work, others working with the youth, others performing music, others giving talks, others
doing genealogy. Thank God we are not all the same.
This thread reminds me of the “Second Rescue” effort. Everyone knows about the rescue organized under BY to save the willie & Martin handcart companies. Many less know about the second rescue.
Essentually some stake leaders in the general vicinity of where the first rescue took place (WY) found out that a good number of those pioneers died without temple ordinances. So a big push was organized to find out who these people were and to get the vicarious work done for them. I want to say that this was in the 1980’s. Anyway the whole thing was touted as a success and a feel good moment for the stakes.
The problems enter in because the records were not always very good for these individuals. Because the research was being done by regular members/amateur geneologists and there was some pressure to move the project forward some corner were cut and the results were not great for historical accuracy.
The records created could actually be misleading to people wanting to discover information about these people.
Was the second rescue a waste of time? It seemed to accomplish the purpose at the time. It united the area stakes in a common purpose and got people interested in the history and events that happened in their back yard. It fostered a sense of appreaciation for our heritage and the sacrifices of our forebearers. OTOH, I do not believe that these valiant pioneers that gave everything for the sake of their faith were stuck hanging out in pergatory, Gehenna, or spiritual prison until their temple work was complete.
Who exactly was rescued? It is interesting to ponder.
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