
The Mormon Church Is Building a Family Tree of the Entire Human Race - luu
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119785/extensive-mormon-genealogy-offers-limited-vision-history
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austenallred
For those that are curious, here is an image of the vault the article refers
to, taken by my uncle earlier today:
[http://imgur.com/w6Jqku4](http://imgur.com/w6Jqku4) As you can see, it's
currently under construction. The vault was created to withstand earthquakes,
nuclear strikes, and various other sorts of natural disasters.

My uncle works for a company that creates archives of newspapers and licenses
them to libraries, universities, etc. They had purchased the rights to
millions of newspapers dating back to the civil war, but lacked the manpower
to convert all of the microfiche into digital copies, and in turn have those
digital copies indexed. The Mormon Church provides a massive labor force of
people who are now digitizing the content for free, simultaneously making
those records available to the public who hold subscriptions to that
particular service and making them available for free to members of the Mormon
Church. Through deals like this and over hundreds of years the Church has
built the most impressive family history library known to mankind.

As a Mormon, I was required to know and research family history growing up,
and am encouraged frequently to do so now. I just finished beta testing an iOS
app called "family search" that the Church is building, allowing anyone to add
pictures, video, stories, etc. of their ancestors. In doing so you run into
people you are related to who are doing the same work, and learn thing about
your roots you never would have known. It's fascinating, though I'm by no
means a family history buff.

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cb18
Hundreds of years? Do you know when mormonism was started?

~~~
ljoshua
I would guess austenallred was probably referring to the hundreds of years of
records being recorded. And for the record, the LDS Church was officially
founded in 1830, making it 184 years old.

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kristopolous
I am really curious if they are going to try to bridge the biblical narrative
to the historical record somehow. I imagine a lot of acrobatics would have to
be done to tie the two together ... since um, you know ...

~~~
tfinniga
Yeah, all that's been done for a long time, way before the Mormons.

I think it's mostly been done by eager genealogists paid by rich noblemen and
kings to trace their lineage back to Adam. If you can find your relationship
to royalty, then you can usually find a path back to Adam.

~~~
joshdance
People try to bridge the narratives all the time. The Church doesn't try to,
the just provide as many records as they can. I was exploring the
FamilySearch.org site one day and kept going as far back as I could. I got to
Adam which means that someone had linked everything back. A lot of time
individuals will find themselves on a royal line which goes back pretty far,
and then jump to the Bible somehow. And it seems like everything goes thru
Charlemagne. :)

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thret
It all sounds good until you get to the part where they don't include same sex
couples. This is why a non-religious entity should oversee the project.

I imagine a family tree for our entire species that also included DNA would be
medically quite useful. Some day, perhaps.

~~~
patio11
Much like criticisms of the Catholic healthcare system for choices involved
with starting and ending lives, I'd imagine the Mormons think "I can't help
but noticing that we had to put in a hundred years of work before we had
something impressive enough to justify your criticism, but if you want to
replicate it to nose tweak us, I suppose that's going to be an educational
experience all around."

~~~
ggreer
At some point, a set of beliefs is so harmful that it would be borderline-
unethical not to criticize them. Would you have made a similar comment if the
Church of Latter-day Saints refused to recognize mixed-race marriages? In case
you didn't know, such racism was LDS dogma until 1978.

This project is impressive in its comprehensiveness, and I'm glad an
organization has undertaken it. Still, the discriminatory, homophobic dogmas
of the LDS church cannot be ignored, and criticism of these beliefs should not
be discouraged. Only through discourse can they be challenged and obsoleted.
The sooner that happens, the better.

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IvyMike
Someone here probably knows, but two questions immediately spring to mind.

1) Was there any bowdlerization of the records--any attempt to cover up
scandalous lineages that are or were at one time against Mormon norms? (For
example, interracial relationships prior to 1978)

2) Are they able to handle cyclical family trees, such as described in this
famous stack overflow question:
[http://stackoverflow.com/q/6163683/67591](http://stackoverflow.com/q/6163683/67591)

~~~
rmc
_2) Are they able to handle cyclical family trees, such as described in this
famous stack overflow
question:[http://stackoverflow.com/q/6163683/67591*](http://stackoverflow.com/q/6163683/67591*)

Their current software spec for GEDCOM can't even handle same-sex marriage.

GEDCOM is rapidly becoming a poor choice for reflecting current reality.

~~~
spindritf
It's discussed below[1]. AFAIK people of the same sex cannot have a biological
descendant of both so it's inconsequential here. A more pertinent complaint is
the one you cut out: incest.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8469570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8469570)

~~~
rmc
(a) Lots of family tree software supports non-biological/genetic decendents,
like adoption. Why allow recording of adoption for different sex couples but
not same-sex couples?

(b) In places with gender recognition law, someone can legally have their new
gender recognised, and hence be legally female or male, and be capable of
genetically producing children with someone of the same gender.

~~~
spindritf
I'm guessing they're not big on sex change either.

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lukeholder
The LDS church is doing massive amounts of work in preserving historical
records. Here is a cool video about the process
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFPo5BSS_AA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFPo5BSS_AA)

~~~
djloche
The preservation of and digitization of records is probably more important
than the family tree project.

So many records are completely lost/destroyed during wars over the years,
hopefully having proper copies/backups made during this relative lull will
prove effective.

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tokenadult
The correction at the bottom of the article doesn't inspire confidence in the
author's fact-checking. I wonder what an expert reviewer would think of the
rest of the book. The last book I encountered with such a broad theme about
human genetics was panned by all expert reviewers.

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72deluxe
Interesting. Did you know that the Mormons baptise people multiple times in
the name of dead people? It's based on a misinterpretation of 1 Cor 15:29 I
believe (that verse is referring to being spiritually dead). They buy up
records of dead people and baptise new members multiple times using the names
of the people on the registers. I often wonder if this contributes to the
count of members? Can anyone enlighten me?

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tfinniga
> I often wonder if this contributes to the count of members? Can anyone
> enlighten me?

No, the baptisms for the dead are not included in the count of members. You
have to be living and baptised to be counted, and either die or formally
request name removal to be removed.

As far as inaccuracy goes, there are lots of people who don't attend and many
who don't self-identify as Mormon counted in the membership rolls. I'd guess
active mormons are probably somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of what's reported.

~~~
72deluxe
Ah OK thanks.

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1ris
And now just image a world where these records where forgotten or never
created: The holocaust could not have happened. I really don't like collection
of data, and especially not this kind of data.

