The link between Mormons and genealogy

April 27, 2007 7:47 AM

I'm quite ignorant about religion in general, but: Why are Mormons so into genealogy?

This might be a very over-generalized question, but it seems that genealogy websites and Mormons are never far apart? So, my (possibly deceptively) simple question is: what's up with that?

posted by Harry to religion & philosophy (19 comments total)

It's because Mormons believe that when you convert to Mormonism and your soul is saved, you also save the souls of all your ancestors (or at least give them the chance to be saved - I assume that if they went around murdering people in their lives, God might not welcome them into heaven, but I don't really know). I'm not clear on why they feel the need to know the names of people's ancestors - maybe that's part of their being saved. Maybe they want to be able to pray for their souls by name. Anyway, it's connected to people's ability to redeem the souls of their ancestors. Others will know more.
posted by Dasein at 7:55 AM on April 27, 2007

Because they're supposed to. Family, according to them, exists throughout time, and they can baptize their dead ancestors and also 'seal' them into family units, so that those non-Mormon ancestors can get the benefits of the Mormon afterlife.

I'm just paraphrasing Google Hit #5.
posted by cobaltnine at 7:55 AM on April 27, 2007

their beliefs include baptism for the dead... it helps to link their families in the afterlife. (see their video "Famlies Are Forever")
posted by digital-dragonfly at 7:57 AM on April 27, 2007

Mormons conduct posthumous baptisms, not just for relations of church members. Unsurprisingly, this pisses off some non-Mormons.
posted by adamrice at 8:04 AM on April 27, 2007

Actually, the Coptics, an Egyptian Christian sect, practiced baptism of the dead until the fourth century CE. It is referenced in 1 Corinthians 15:29. "Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?"
posted by parmanparman at 8:10 AM on April 27, 2007

[please keep lolmormons discussion out of this question or take it to metatalk]
posted by jessamyn at 8:19 AM on April 27, 2007

You can find out more information by following the links on the Family History info page at mormon.org.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:27 AM on April 27, 2007

Family, according to them, exists throughout time, and they can baptize their dead ancestors and also 'seal' them into family units, so that those non-Mormon ancestors can get the benefits of the Mormon afterlife.

This is the correct answer, along with "legitimizing" and outsider's joining the church.

This is what people are referencing when you hear them say that Mormons "marry" dead people.

Interestingly, years ago, they used to make the premier genealogy software for home usage. I assume that has been supplanted by the Internet now.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:52 AM on April 27, 2007

Just an educated guess but I think that when you have a religion based on a guy like Smith, everyone would want to find some link back to him. Think if Jesus would have had kids and the millions that would now be clamming him as a great great great.... second uncle.
posted by nintendo at 8:52 AM on April 27, 2007

Nintendo, that's not it at all.

It really is about baptizing people and allowing them a chance into heaven. Mormons run the a gigantic genealogy library, with records from all over the world. It's so much bigger then what you're implying.

So many people in Utah are related to founding settlers anyways, it's not all that big a deal (true, something of a deal) to be some quasi-cousin to Brigham Young or anything.
posted by voidcontext at 9:02 AM on April 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sorry if it seems like I'm threadjacking, but are you saying that if I were to have offspring (and therefore the possiblity of other descendants)... down the road one of them could post-humously baptize me?! How strange.
posted by Laura in Canada at 9:03 AM on April 27, 2007

Yes Laura, if one of your decedents converts to Mormonism, they will likely be baptized on your behalf at some point. Mormons believe that baptism is a) required for admission to the highest levels of the afterlife, and b) is a ritual that must be performed on earth. When they undergo "baptism by proxy," or "baptism for the dead," they believe that the subject of the baptism is now offered the choice to accept it in the afterlife.

(I am not a Mormon, but I married one. Which means that most of my deceased immediate relatives have probably been baptized by now.)
posted by Banky_Edwards at 9:18 AM on April 27, 2007

I think this is one of the best design features of Mormonism.

One of the paradoxical features of proselytizing religions, from an evolutionary point of view, is that adherents spend time and energy convincing people unrelated to them of some truth instead of reproducing and taking care of their own children. Judaism avoids this problem by not proselytizing (it grows its own) and by making identity as a Jew contingent on being born to a Jewish mother, thereby guaranteeing that the children they take care of are actually closely related to the larger group, which would not necessarily be the case with fatherhood because of the intrinsic greater uncertainty of paternity.

By emphasizing geneaology, Mormonism refocuses attention on relatives within the context of the whole of humanity, and thereby achieves better alignment with evolutionary forces than other proselytizing religions can.
posted by jamjam at 9:25 AM on April 27, 2007

I question the commitment to genealogy, however. I've turned up some serious errors - and some not-so-serious ones - in their records of my family's various histories. When I pointed them out to people at one of their family life centers, the person "on guard" there shrugged his shoulders.

I asked him if it meant they wouldn't fix it, and he said no, they wouldn't, even though I have two-hundred-year-old original documents to prove their many errors. If you have the wrong names and the wrong dates, what good is the information? If you're baptizing and sealing people who didn't really exist, does that count? I found it very confusing.
posted by clarkstonian at 9:36 AM on April 27, 2007

As a Mormon, I've always suspected that it was at least partly a way for people in Utah to avoid accidentally marrying their cousin. I realize that's not a theological reason for it, but it's a nice side effect.
posted by JekPorkins at 9:57 AM on April 27, 2007

As a random side note, the Church will do a free genealogical search for you (i.e. create your family tree going wayyy back), if you're interested (some prosletyzing is involved in this process). I had two Mormon missionaries come to my door, ask a few questions about my grandparents (date/place of birth), and they delivered a detailed family tree about a month later. It was pretty cool.

The Mormon library in Salt Lake is something like the largest/best-funded genealogical library in the world.
posted by elquien at 10:01 AM on April 27, 2007

I don't have the links on me at the moment, but it's important to note that the Mormon's work has also contributed greatly to genetic research, allowing scientists to backtrack through descendants long since dead.

Also, the Mormon records were a nice sub-plot in an episode of the TV version of "Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century".
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:11 PM on April 27, 2007

A (possibly) interesting tidbit: I once visited a LDS temple visitor center and the guide talked about baptism for the dead. I asked her what happens to the "souls" who were devout members of another religion and didn't want to be baptized or moved to another celestial location. The guide told me that all the baptism does is grant the soul the ability to learn more and make the decision themselves. In other words, the earthly baptism just gets the ball rolling for the soul to be baptized in purgatory or the outer heaven or wherever they are resting. I had never heard that before, so I don't know if it is actually what they believe or if possibly she was trying to avoid a barrage of skeptical questions, but I thought I would pass that along.

Pile-on questions for those in the know: I've never seen a family tree before, do they typically contain information about ancestors' religions? If so, for those who are baptized posthumously, is their religion reflected as LDS? Or are there separate records to reflect the faith to which one subscribed in life and the faith to which one was baptized after death? As an atheist, even though I don't think posthumous baptism will make any difference in my the final destination of my "soul," But if there is no separation, I would be pretty annoyed if I was baptized posthumously and future generations thought religious affiliation was LDS (or any other religion that plays no role in my life).

Also, is there something along the lines of a do not baptize list? I know that they are not supposed to baptize holocaust victims, but can a person put themselves in ancestry.com database and indicate that they are not to be baptized after death?
posted by necessitas at 1:48 PM on April 27, 2007

necessitas, what you were told at the visitor center is correct. Family trees generally only contain names, birth and death dates, and birth and death places. Religious affliation is not included. The do-not-baptize list, as it were, includes large and vocal groups like holocaust victims as well as, shall we say, infamous persons. Hitler being the classic example. Although all of the Founding Fathers were done before the turn of the 20th Century.
posted by ericales at 11:17 PM on April 28, 2007