Could someone please enlighten me?

Question

I have a lady in my family tree who was born 1797 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. She was christened in Gloucestershire, and died in Gloucestershire. However, after checking her information out with and merging info with someone elses information, I find out that the LDS have registered a Baptism of the same person on the 15th November 1898, 2 years after she had died, and also Have Endowment listed below the LDS Baptism dated 30 NOV 1898.

Can anyone tell me what the LDS is up to please, since I doubt in my ancestors time she never had even heard of Latter Day Saints, let alone know that she had been baptised in Death, nor been endowed. What are they up to.

Answer 1

Baptism after death is common with the LDS

It is not a physical baptism as we know it, but is a ceremony conducted in their church.

The same being the case of sealing to spouse or parents.

Also, do not be concerned about going to one of their family history centres to view their records.

The staff will help you if they can, but they will not try to convert you.  In fact, they will not mention their religion at all, unless you ask.

Answer 2

They are not up to anything. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints(LDS) have a program that is called Endowments and Baptism for the dead. This is where living members of the church can have their deceased relatives baptised,or sealed to spouses into the church. This program started in the mid 1800's. Somewhere along the line you have a relative who joined the church and had this work done in 1898 . It is not a bad thing,just they way they believe. It is nothing to worry about they are not out to do anyone any harm. Just a bit of a strange idea . Just look at it this way; All religions have beliefs about how things are done that we don't all see a reason for but we accept them(hopefully). By the way LDS people are Christians and believe in Jesus Christ. I am not LDS but have relatives who are and they do their thing and I do mine and we get along great.

Answer 3

The LDS has the most up-to-date, state-of-the art genealogical resource library in the world. They pull records of all faiths and creeds in all countries and offer their services free of charge. I don't think they are "up to" anything.  I believe the registered baptism is either an error or the baptism of someone with the same name. You cannot baptize a person after that person is dead. Furthermore, there would be no motivation whatsoever for a falsification of records. If you want to pursue it further, visit one of the library and ask someone there to assist you in getting to the bottom of it. They surely will.

Answer 4

OK, I will try.  Almost everything on the web, especially in genealogy, is "user-submitted". That means if I want, I can submit my family tree to www.ancestry.com, the LDS, etc.  These organizations/companies do NOT verify any submissions.

Hence, in my own research, one person will claim that one of my ancestors died before he was born; another claims that an ancestor born in England and others will claim that he was born in New York in 1587!

That is what I do not like about genealogy programs: there is nothing wrong with listing all ancestors you can find, but you need to some how mark ancestors as being from a reliable source or a very unreliable source.

I will not go into detail re the LDS: many of my ancestors have that "endowed", "christening", etc. Basically, there are 3 different types of submission to the LDS:

The first is you must be a member of the LDS (I do not know of anyone in my family who is LDS!) The second is to have an ancestor "converted". The third, and probably the most common, is for simple "user-submitted" entries.

The Mormons believe, like the Jew, that ancestors are very important; they realize that their ancestors are also everyone elses ancestors, so they do the best they can to work up family trees all over the world. The last I knew, they had agents in more than 30 countries doing genealogical research.

If you have documentation, or a trustworthy paper trail, don't worry about what the LDS (or any other source) says.

Remeber: even today with computer (or especially since they have computers?) records are not completely accurate.

Answer 5

This issue is related to the beliefs of the LDS in that they strongly believe in the baptism of the dead - indeed, their church members are encouraged to build up large family trees and have all their antecedents 'baptised'.

Research that some LDS members undertake can be a bit 'questionable' and can mislead those who are trying to get the records 'right'.

Assuming you do not follow their beliefs then you can just ignore any records that you believe to be incorrect and, on the up side, if it wasn't for the beliefs of the LDS, we genealogists would not have access to their wonderful resources!

Answer 6

Possible Typing Error, easy done.

Answer 7

You have to watch LDS  When do research... they accept info from any one.... I had to contact them last year as they had two of my rels.... (LIVING) down as deceased... So Now I know that they allow people to upload info and they accept it without too much delving... I dont rely on what they say... but reading your info  is a little confusing.....

born 1797 cheltenham christned and died in gloucestershire... okay

  registered 1898  12 years later?!?!? this needs checking as to whether you read details wrong or it is a slip of the fingers.............

the whole reason for there ancestory ' / ' searching and detailing needs examination....as far as i am concerned   i wonder why they are so keen to have all these records.....?!?!?!?!?

Answer 8

The Mormons baptise their dead ancestors. Most of us non-Mormon genealogists think that is odd. However, given the huge amount of data they have accumulated and given to the world for free, most of us feel that commneting on their theology would be rude; a little like complaining about farmers with your mouth full.

It sounds to me like one of the lady from Gloucestershire's descendants (perhaps an emmigrant to the USA) converted, traced the family tree, and did whatever one does to dead ancestors. One of their terms is "Endowed" and one is "Sealed". I have no idea what they mean, but you see them here and there.

Again, I am not a Mormon. My description of their theology is crude. My description of anyone's theology is crude. Catholics bridle when you say communion sounds like cannibalism, I've found.

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Added:

There is reglar baptism and dead ancestor baptism. If you mean a regular baptism, it is a mistake. Only 75% of the LDS "Ancestral Family" is correct, I've been told by the volunteers at my FHC. A common problem is that they merge two people with identical names, usually a father and son or uncle and nephew, and get VERY odd results.

If you go to

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/f...

and look for

Jacob Blankenbaker, born in 1725

AFN: FX0M-QR

you'll see what happens. He "died" in 1753 and has seven children afterwards, two of them a pair of twins born 6 months apart.