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My husband has pioneer ancestry. My parents are converts so I do not. In my home ward, almost nobody had any pioneer ancestry except one family, and one year they made a huge push to celebrate Pioneer Day which seemed like a weird thing to the rest of us (“Hey, let’s have a parade for our important famous ancestors so that you can all hear how important my family tree is!”). But she was the Primary President, and so the ward did it (nobody had the day off work since it’s not a holiday outside Utah, so it was on a different day). Anyway, the pioneer worship in church has always bugged me because as someone with no pioneer ancestors, my own family tree is basically persona non grata, and it often seems as though people get up to share their pedigrees with a real air of superiority and self-importance. Our stake is doing a trek in 10 days which they’ve never done before. I don’t really have a huge beef with that in and of itself since it’s basically just a themed youth conference, but when the stake did the kickoff meeting they made a huge point to have everyone with pioneer ancestors stand up (probably 60% or more of the kids) and then those in the Martin Willey handcart company were kind of the creme de la creme or whatever, and they were specifically recognized. The stake then said that one of the reasons to do trek was to connect with their pioneer ancestors so they could become as spiritually strong as those people through sacrifice (which can apparently happen hiking in a circle around a cell phone tower within sight of the freeway). Each kid is supposed to research a pioneer ancestor and bring the name and story with them. If they don’t have any, they can just be assigned one.
To me, that’s the same old hierarchy I’ve always seen from the pedigreed ones, this vicarious superiority based on one’s blood. And of course, we know one justification for polygamy was to preserve the best blood (the believing blood) by making sure the top leaders had lots of kids vs. the regular (less valiant) members. There is an elitism that I don’t like in this thinking.
So, whenever I think about pioneers, I think of people asking us to throw a party for how awesome they think their family is compared to my less than / outsider family. That’s a perception I formed as a young teen, one that has stayed with me, but perhaps that’s just because I was young. Is that being Sensitive Sally?
It’s worse in the corridor. The pioneers are almost worshiped. It will be interesting to see how this will play out in Ghana. Trek is a sore point with me since for years it was not spoken about purposely because of the mistakes in the handcart program that caused so much hardship and loss of life. Especially the promise to the Willy and Martin companies that if they had faith and left when they did they’d be ok. The only thing that I see close to the pioneer heritage thing is whether you went to a foreign especially foreign speaking mission vs one here in the states but that’s for another rant. hawkgrrrl wrote:So, whenever I think about pioneers, I think of people asking us to throw a party for how awesome they think their family is compared to my less than / outsider family. That’s a perception I formed as a young teen, one that has stayed with me, but perhaps that’s just because I was young. Is that being Sensitive Sally?
My parents are converts, too, but the wards I lived in weren’t much into commemorations. When I was younger I was envious of people with pioneer ancestors. My parents’ families didn’t have strong family identities and roots – or else they couldn’t have made the leap – and that made Mormon blue-bloods all the more exotic to me. I’ve wondered if that was a small part of what attracted me to my husband – marrying into a family that goes all the way back. That sounds silly now. But as a group, I admired them. I still do, because after they went west they trickled back east and befriended my parents.It’s my husband with the pioneer ancestry who thinks treks should go away and never come back. He thinks they’re becoming a fetish, which is further than I would go in describing my objections to them.
Ann wrote:It’s my husband with the pioneer ancestry who thinks treks should go away and never come back. He thinks they’re becoming a fetish, which is further than I would go in describing my objections to them.
That is about where I am at. And being like Hawkgrrrl and having a spouse with pioneer background, I have started noticing the worship just the last few years. I went on a stake pioneer trek a few years ago as a leader. It was OK. They are having another one I think next year. I have to admit I am not totally excited about it. If I do go and they get to praising of the Martin Willey company, I am probably going to get myself in trouble by the quote from Brigham Young saying that if anybody did that again they would get excommunicated.I wouldn’t describe them as a fetish, either, Ann, but I do wish they’d go away. I think they’re silly, especially outside Utah. We have had a few Utah transplants in our ward in the past, but we currently have no one with pioneer ancestry that I’m aware of (and you know we would know). Our stake does the trek thing every other year, partly on a hiking trail and mostly on roads. In actuality the number and percentage of pioneers who came by handcart is small (about 10%), and the vast majority of the companies were mixed handcart and wagon companies. It has also been postulated that the casualty rate of Mormon pioneers was actually a bit less than that of other pioneer groups – even counting the Willie and Martin companies. That said, I don’t have a problem with recognizing that the pioneers made a sacrifice that had they not made would have left us without the church. Our ward has never been big on celebrating pioneers or pioneer day and I’m good with that. Of our current bishopric, two are converts and the third was inactive as a youth and his parents were converts – little chance of any over the top thing with these guys.
I would love to build a time machine and go back and ask the pioneers what they think of our youth pioneer trekking for fun. Especially the Martin and Willie pioneers. Double especially the Martin and Willie pioneers who turned around and headed back east as soon as the weather cleared. 
I don’t see a reason why people should do research on someone that they don’t share a close connection with. Maybe an answer would be to do the research on the pioneer in the individual’s own family. For some it would be the blessed, honored pioneer from days of legend. For others it would be their mothers. This is often the interpretation of the word “pioneer” in our area, the first people in our families that joined the church, be it Martin Harris or ourselves. I wouldn’t even ask permission on that one. I’d just show up with a report on whoever, I doubt people would raise a stink. Though rare I’ve even heard an occasional interpretation that we are all pioneers for future generations regardless of whether we were the first to join the church. “Pioneer” does usually refer to the swashbuckling stalwarts of yore.
I think we like the pioneers so much because they help us form a connection with the Israelites during the exodus. See? We’re just like those guys. They have become almost equal in legend and legends, the ideal of sacrifice to live up to.
Another example of a good thing (honoring people who sacrificed greatly for a cause in which they believed) taken to a bad extreme (recognizing the pure bloods among us and subtly devaluing the muggles and mud bloods). This is no different than Israel honoring Moses and their pioneer ancestors (while ignoring the actual description of them as rebellious louts) and then the Jews telling Jesus they had Abraham for their father and fighting against accepting Gentile converts as equals.
I honor and respect my pioneer ancestors and those of my wife, deeply, but I would object strongly to what you described, Hawk. It’s a form of Rameumpton-ism.
This is another reason that whenever my family starts pressuring me to apply to firms in Utah, I have this feeling that I want to run like the devil. Another expectation I’ve had to drop — that somehow a church with a divine commission, inspired leadership etctera, would drop all references to class structure. And if you stand up about it, I’m sure the privileged pioneer class would claim jealousy.
I’d like to see the numbers. If the only influx of new membership was from pioneer stock since the saints stopped migrating to Utah, what would our worldwide membership be?
I joined the church as an adult. I thought I was the only member of the church for a long time. I’ve been doing Family History for the past 5 years. I was very surprised about the connections my family has with Church History.
(We’re from the midwest.)
There is an APP through BYU that looks at your family tree in Family Search then shows you connections with people in history.
This is the link:
https://familysearch.org/products/relative-finder There is a button at the bottom titled: Use the Product.
You press it & you sign into Family Search.
It not only shows who you are related to but the link back to that person. You can then follow it back.
Some of the connections are questionable (IMO)
The most fascinating thing about Family History is my 4 or 5 generations.
I get more out of discovering my immediate family.
Everything else is ancient history.
My wife’s family is all converts within the last 50 years. My family had pioneers in Brigham Young’s company and there are several things in Utah named after them. I’m proud of both lineages and both are full of pioneers in my opinion. My ancestors gave up everything to cross the plains – but so did my wife’s grandfather who also left everything in the Philippines to come to the US. If anything, leaving everything *and* having to learn a new language and culture is more difficult. First generation members are pioneers in a very real way and sacrifice an awful lot to become members of the church. That is short sighted of stake leadership to not recognize that every family has pioneer ancestry, whether or not they crossed the plains.
I am a complete anomaly – I had pioneer ancestors. So valiant were they that they crossed the plains 3 times. I never heard word one about them all the time I grew up.I heard tons of stories of the Mormon people who lived in the town our family settled but no pioneers. I didn’t even know we had settled said town either, just knew this group of people’s stories. Not the faith promoting, bring a tear to your eye stories. No the “Do you remember when Heber blew up the well?” or “What was the kids name that stuck on the fireman’s ladder?” Not until I was a very married adult did I know anything pioneery about my family. It’s kind of cool stuff. But I just never had the pioneer thing drummed into me.
As for Trek – my gripe – which mirrors my large church gripe
“This isn’t the full story. The idea of pulling some carts, or riding some horses, having a square dance with fiddler in the evening – I get, but telling only the most dire tale, and creating some false idea that every pioneer endured such suffering is disrespectful to many other travelers on the journey – like my forebearers who crossed back and forth again and again, driving themselves, then others and cattle across the land. NO frozen limbs, NO dead babies, NO lack of provisions. Their testimonies were just as strong, their commitments just as deep. So do a Trek – And be the the first three companies. Frozen Free.
Again – Nobody ever lets me be in charge. Annoying.
I’m one that has a rich LDS Pioneer ancestry, and I love to learn about them and their lives. But I think it is completely wrong to glorify the saints who crossed the plains above others who did not. We all have pioneer ancestors – men and women who were valiant and stood up for what they believed in and made great sacrifices for their posterity. We should honor and respect them for the great people they were. And we likely all have some ancestors who we weren’t so proud of too. One of my pioneer ancestors was a participant in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, for example. There are so many modern-day pioneers as well that sacrifice so much to do what they believe is right. The article below (published in the August 2011 Ensign) compares the experiences of a living Taiwanese girl with my LDS pioneer ancestor, Ebenezer Bryce. It’s a good read:
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/08/two-pioneers-across-two-centuries?lang=eng FaithfulSkeptic wrote:I’m one that has a rich LDS Pioneer ancestry, and I love to learn about them and their lives. But I think it is completely wrong to glorify the saints who crossed the plains above others who did not. We all have pioneer ancestors – men and women who were valiant and stood up for what they believed in and made great sacrifices for their posterity. We should honor and respect them for the great people they were. And we likely all have some ancestors who we weren’t so proud of too.
I agree with this too. My ancestors were in the Martin Handcart company, the father froze to death and the mother was sick. Young Heber was 13 years old when he burried his dad and led the family the rest of the way (hence my username). It is amazing to see what they went through.But it should not be a source of ETB-warned pride.
Life is hard. I’m glad I live now, and not back then. But whether in pioneer wagons across the plains, or the coal mines, or crossing the oceans, or living in Africa…people go through amazing hardships in life. Pioneers are one example of many, not better or holier.
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