No genealogical researcher is immune from the work of the Mormon Church. Pretty much ALL records that are available to family researchers have been provided by the Mormons, who have always been rabid genealogists.
Why is this so? Well, one of the tenets of the Church is to keep track of as much of the dead of mankind, in order to have their records available for their frequent "Baptism of the Dead" rituals.
I'm not kidding.
Mormons of today can apply to have a deceased ancestor of theirs "sealed" to the Church, so they will find Jesus in their afterlives. And of course, their ancestors wouldn't otherwise have done so if they weren't Mormon. And Mormonism didn't start until the mid 1800's...so there's a "whole lotta sealing to do!" in the eyes of the Church.
Two of Arthur Fuller's ancestors, Jedediah Osborn (1721-1786) and his father Josiah Osborn (1697-1754) from East Hampton, NY, were "sealed" by the Church to their spouses on 16 Feb 1972, by a descendant of theirs in Manti, Utah.
According to Church doctrine, these two individuals and their spouses can now find the love of Christ in the afterlife.
This process of Mormon Baptism has caused a great deal of conflict within other religions. In 2008, a directive from the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy directed Catholic dioceses to prevent the LDS Church from "microfilming and digitizing information" contained in Catholic sacramental registers so that those whose names were contained therein would not be subjected to vicarious Mormon baptism, even though the Vatican had previously declared that Mormon baptism was invalid. Too late, Pope John Paul II was sealed just after his death, by a proven descendant who had converted to Mormonism.
Even Adolf Hitler has been sealed!
This explains why the Mormon Church is so passionate about genealogy. They want to get the lineages right, so they can seal as many people as possible.
While it's simultaneously strange and laughable, this is indeed a religion taken seriously by about 14 million people. And, they are very generous about letting anyone and everyone use their family history centers to do their own family research, regardless of creed. I've used their ever growing searchable database many times, myself. And I was never spammed by the Church for doing so.
But, come to think of it, maybe I'll be sealed one day...
One thing to be aware of: The Mormon church accepts just about every kind of record imaginable. They accept everything and apparently do not check for accuracy. While you can find some really good information in their databases, you will also find a lot of stuff that is completely wrong. I have found things like a person's birth date being after their death date, a woman giving birth ten years after her own death, etc., etc. It is often very difficult to tell which information is right and which is wrong, because people have similar names, dates can be questionable, and so on.
ReplyDeleteI have used researched, studied records of all manner from multiple sources. It is extremely important to verify material before uploading. Birth, marriage, census, death records are a must. Also any hand written record should be viewed as having possible mis-spelled as the writer did not have spell check.
ReplyDeleteGeorge