As promised (or threatened!) some weeks ago, here's a look at what's behind the Mormon obsession with genealogy. After that, I'll append a few words about my own philosophy as a family history geek. Finally, in the comments, I'll try to answer any questions you might have.
Anyone seriously engaged in genealogy research will very quickly find herself interacting with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whether through websites like Ancestry/RootsWeb and FamilySearch, or by accessing microfilmed records available from over 4500 Family History Centers throughout the world. It's not unnatural to wonder what these people are up to.
Genealogy & Family History Community
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Leave the blood feuds at home
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There's no getting around wading into a Great Salt Lake of theology here, but I'll try as best I can to distill it down into a manageable cupful, told from a (former) insider's point of view.
One of several (many?) things that strikes people who "know" a few things about Mormons as weird is their practice of baptism for the dead, a rite that is frequently misunderstood by outsiders. This lack of understanding is highlighted by a facetious anecdote told by a friend of mine about a telephone conversation that historian Jan Shipps (one of the most perceptive outside observers of all things Mormon) had with a curious man:
He asked about baptism for the dead. Specifically, “What do they do with the coffins while they’re baptizing the dead?”
Jan swears that’s what he asked. Honest.
Well, I hope no real person is quite that dense; but to Mormons (who as you can see sometimes joke about it amongst themselves), some of the ways outsiders seem to grab the wrong end of the stick are nearly as obtuse. It all goes back to this passage in the New Testament:
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:29)
Mormons cite this as evidence that baptisms-by-proxy were practiced in early Christianity, as a way of providing that sacrament to those who died without having the chance to be baptized while living. (Along with most of the Christian world, Mormons believe that baptism is a Christian requirement.)
What escapes many people, however, is that Mormons don't see it as imposing their rite of baptism on anyone's great-greats; they believe that our ancestors who have passed from this life have the same freedom to make up their own minds, where they now are, that we enjoy here in mortality. "Free agency," as they call it, applies to all of God's children, living and dead. As an official statement from Salt Lake City put it in 2003:
No one will be coerced into accepting ordinances performed on his or her behalf by another. Baptism for the dead offers an opportunity, but it does not override a person’s agency. But if this ordinance is not performed for them, deceased persons are robbed of the choice to accept or reject baptism.
There is more, however, to LDS genealogy than just finding dead people to baptize. One essay on genealogy, from a Mormon radical's point of view [yes, such creatures do exist], sets up the framework:
Genealogy has (almost) always been a pillar of Mormon theology. Because most Mormons understand themselves as part of infinitely-long lineages stretching from earliest ancestor to never-ending eventual descendants, genealogy is the concept that most concretely places Mormons in reality, answering the questions “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”
And with that, we segué to another thing many people think is weird: what goes on in those temples, anyway?
For Mormons, the chain of lineage that connects family past, present and future is forged in their temples (which serve a quite different purpose than the chapels where they worship on Sundays). It is in the temples that couples are married "for time and all eternity." Any children born after temple marriages are automatically "sealed" to their parents ("born under the covenant"); but for those who, for whatever reason, marry in the temple after they already have children, the kids are then sealed to the parents in a ceremony immediately following the wedding. (This was the case with my own parents.)
These sealings, like baptisms, are also performed for the dead by proxy, in the temples. So one might say that Mormons have an understanding of parallel genealogies, interconnected but not necessarily identical (e.g., in cases of adoption): a physical or genetic heritage and a spiritual lineage which, by virtue of sealing family members (living or dead) to one another, is a cementing of family ties beyond the confines of this mortal life, with the ultimate goal being to connect us all as one eternal human family.
Another biblical passage Mormons love in connection with genealogy, from the Book of Malachi in the Old Testament (and echoed by the Gospel of Luke), is a prophecy that they believe looked ahead to our era:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers...
One LDS authority explains this passage as follows:
So what does this mean? To turn our hearts to our fathers is to search out the names of our deceased ancestors and to perform the saving ordinances in the temple for them. This will forge a continuous chain between us and our forefathers eventually all the way back to Father Adam and Mother Eve.
This deeply held belief, then, is why Mormons spend so much time and effort tracing their roots. They consider it both an act of love and a sacred obligation.
Now a few words about where I stand as regards all of this. I'm no longer a believer; I have no interest in the notion that my ancestors need "saving ordinances." My Mormon aunt, the real genealogist in our family, sincerely believes that her family group sheets, ahnentafels and pedigrees are part and parcel of God's plan of salvation: that we cannot be saved without our dead, nor they without us. My own focus is different: I am passionate about unearthing and recording the experiences and (where possible) the feelings of individual family members who happen to be dead. "I see dead people" — dead people — and I want to honor their lives. (But as I write, it strikes me that this is also a "salvation" of sorts.)
So for me, the religious motive that animates and inspires Mormon genealogists is not a factor; however, I readily admit that there are some aspects of LDS beliefs about family and kinship that still appeal to me as symbol or metaphor for human-ness. The Mormon radical website I quoted above offers some thoughts that parallel my own:
I have started to understand that my ancestors aren’t just those people whose genetics I share, but the people who tried to do what I try to do, and the people that have the same fears and hopes for justice that keep me awake today. And, let’s not fool ourselves: most of those ancestors failed. We grow up hearing stories of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Joseph Smith or Harriet Tubman or Jesus as if they won, but if that’s true (and in some cases, I hope it is), we still can’t get around the fact that they were murdered and imprisoned and beaten by police and expelled and shamed and, by and large, society trundled on. But winning isn’t what genealogy is about for me anymore. It’s about sharing the same pain that our sisters did before us, and fighting the battles that they began. I’m beginning to believe that it’s about learning from them, and sometimes I feel silly for saying it but I don’t know how it could be better described than trying to “turn the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
~ Mormon Radicals and Kinship
I do believe that we are all family (get up ev'rybody and sing!); that we have, in the words of an old Mormon saying, "an hundredfold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters." I believe that we have multiple genealogies, of blood kinship, of philosopy, of learning — my first piano teacher could trace her pedagogical lineage back to Franz Liszt and beyond — that are worth exploring, celebrating, honoring, and transmitting.
And, for me, getting to know them as complex human individuals has indeed turned my heart to my fathers (and mothers), and in the process has given me some insight into how I came to be who I am.
To thank you for getting all the way through this post (and because I know you people!), I can't end without at least one (semi-relevant) family history pic:
Headstone of John Johnson, my fifth-great-grandfather. In the background is the first Mormon temple (in Kirtland, Ohio), which he and his family helped build in the 1830s.