That the microfilming was accomplished is invaluable - and I understand
that the typical offer to various records-keepers from the LDS family
history folks was: "We'll pay to microfilm your records, you get a copy
to keep, and the LDS gets a copy to use." Win-win.
The transcription of records for indexing is also valuable, but less so,
given that volunteers were working from projected microfilm copies of
(usually) hand-written records (some in beautiful but dated hands).
OCR in the 1980s was not adequate, but Soundex indexing helps a lot,
and if you need to search a small area exhaustively, you can see
many of the microfilm copies of records through a site like
ancestry.com or from the digital media available for use at
local LDS family history centers.
The LDS was also strong in producing the GEDCOM data standard,
which is widely (almost universally) used for family tree exchanges,
and the PAF software package (which now has many competitors.)
Note that research into ancestry has an interesting network effect -
while people have 2^N N-parents, once N gets over 4 or 5 it can
become challenging to trace individuals - but the chances that some
other active researcher shares some of those 2^N N-parents start to
increase - and ancestry.com has done well at providing links
to other researcher's public trees when they become available.
This pattern has the effect of encouraging subscribers who have
already found most of their ancestors out to level N, for whatever N,
to continue to subscribe in hopes of finding a new link from another
researcher, or perhaps a new clue in a newly digitized document set.
It will be interesting to see how the decreasing cost of genome
analysis affects family history research - perhaps helping find
distant cousins, or perhaps revealing surprising differences between
a presumed history and the biological record.
The LDS was also strong in producing the GEDCOM data standard, which is widely (almost universally) used for family tree exchanges
And of course, since they are bigots, they don't let 2 men be married in their GEDCOM standard, or other non-traditional family structures. Get your politics out of standards.
You are incorrect - GEDCOM supports same-sex marriage, there is nothing that prevents the recording of same-sex partners.
You are confused with Personal Ancestral File, the Church's free genealogy program, which does not allow the entry of same-sex marriage. Many other programs do, and can export these marriages to GEDCOM.
Calling people bigots does nothing to promote civil discourse about important issues such as homosexual marriage.
The standard was drafted in 1984, long before efforts to redefine marriage. It isn't very fair of you to project your 21st century politics back on the creators of a 30 year old standard.
You apply the label of bigotry to exclude from the conversation those who differ in opinion from you. That isn't how democracies are designed to function. Nor does it recognize the complexity of the issue. Religious people can desire a standard of public morality without espousing hatred for those who don't share that standard. Calling that bigotry makes it harder to identify true prejudice.
Aw, that's precious. Defending the Mormons against charges of bigotry by saying it's the gay rights people who were trying to redefine marriage. coughpolygamycough And you're talking as if marriage hasn't been under rolling redefinition since Gutenberg. Women owning property, being allowed to have a profession, and having the right to vote changed marriage way more than allowing two women to get hitched and have babies.
Also, I don't think the campaign against gay marriage can be anything but bigotry. It's exactly analogous to the campaign against interracial marriage: Religious actors try to use the power of the state to stop people from doing something they think is icky. And they're doing it on the basic of intrinsic characteristics, and with absolutely zero demonstration of harm to anybody. Irrational devotion to prejudice against a group is precisely bigotry.
You citing a number of examples of marriage evolving and being redefined only serves to clarify how the process is continuing today and how people of all backgrounds have an interest in those issues.
Your demeaning tone and labels doesn't serve your supposedly tolerant position. I agree that everyone should be treated with respect and decency. But I also believe that there is a standard for morality that should be honored in order to promote the greatest mutual happiness.
Advocating a standard of public morality in marriage is the same as in drug control, pornography, hate speech, or any other area. We might have different opinions on what standard will bring the most happiness. We don't have to agree, but mutual respect smooths the democratic processes around reconciling those differences.
We are a bit off topic here, so I'll stop derailing the conversation.
I believe everybody should be treated with respect and decency. Just as long as they are behaving respectfully and decently, and perhaps a little past. But you know what? Trying to keep loving couples from getting married and having kids is not even vaguely respectful.
The whole, "I'm going do what I can to keep you from having your civil rights, but don't be mean to me" thing is dumbfounding to me. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from having your fee-fees hurt.
Suppose I got a referendum passed that banned the Mormon Church: meetings are forbidden, Mormon marriages are nullified, and the feds start tearing down the churches. Can you honestly say that the appropriate response is a quiet, "Oh, pardon me, perhaps you could reconsider?"
We don't have to agree, but mutual respect smooths the democratic processes around reconciling those differences.
Nope. I do not respect a believe that my love life, and my relationships are some how inferior and "not as good" as different sex relationships. My humanity is not up for debate.
It's important to note that "the priesthood" in the Mormon faith is every adult male[1]; so by not permitting Blacks into the priesthood, they were basically not permitted in the church at all.
The Mormon faith was founded in 1830s New York (shortly after slavery was abolished in that state), long before efforts to redefine racial relations and blacks as humans. It isn't very fair of you to project your 19th century politics back on the creators of a <200 year old religion.
> so by not permitting Blacks into the priesthood, they were basically not permitted in the church at all.
That is a wild and incorrect jump to make. Why do Mormons go to church? What are you referencing the physical buildings used or something else?
The thing is, often people will say that Mormons are racist towards blacks until 1978 and if you ask why they usually don't know. Sometimes, they'll reference the Priesthood and if you ask what that is, they usually don't know.
From your comment, unless your answers to my questions indicate otherwise, I would say you do not understand. There is so much that people do not understand in regards to this topic yet they feel valid to proclaim others as being racist.
"The Lord had cursed Cainβs seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood." - Brigham Young (second LDS prophet, 1847-77).
Note that "the priesthood" is considered a requirement for salvation, so denying blacks the priesthood was quite significant. Various LDS sources seem to disagree as to why this is; Joseph Fielding Smith (10th LDS prophet, 1970-72) claimed it's because blacks didn't fight on God's side in a war during the pre-mortal existence, while Gordon B. Hinkley (15th LDS prophet, 1995-2008) simply says "I don't know".
The official position of the LDS church now is that blacks are fully equal to whites: "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter any more." (Bruce R. McConkie, member of the Quorum of the Twelve -- basically, the lesser prophets one step below the top guy. 1978.) When he says "forget all I said" he's referring to his 1958 comments affirming the view that blacks were less valiant in the pre-mortal war [0].
EDIT: to be totally fair, despite institutionalized LDS racism, they were strongly anti-slavery in the early years; LDS founder Joseph Smith ran for president as an abolitionist in 1850.
This isn't really the place for an in-depth discussion of Mormon doctrine (and I don't really have the time today), so feel free to email me if you would like to continue the conversation.
But I will quickly correct a few of the mistakes in this conversation:
* There were black members of the Church before the lifting of the ban on the priesthood.
* Though Brigham Young characterized the priesthood ban as a "cursing" he was very clear that the priesthood would be available to people of African decent at some point in the future.
* Not being ordained to the priesthood never meant that blacks would be excluded from salvation. Through the practice of proxy ordinances for the dead, Mormon doctrine has always made clear that all would have the chance at salvation even if denied the opportunity to have the priesthood during this life.
* Limiting the priesthood, or even the preaching of the gospel, to a specific family is part of the Biblical pattern in both the Old and New Testaments.
* Though there was clearly some racism in the Mormon Church before 1978 (and probably still is today), the people I know who were part of the church at that time say it was limited. The official position then, as it is now, was of love and acceptance within the limitations they felt the Lord had set.
Conversations such as this one are valuable, but be aware that they tend to oversimplify complex topics.
A great book on the topic written by a black Mormon who joined the Church before 1978 is this one:
While the Bible definitely shows a pattern of preaching to specific groups, as soon as there's an organized religious system, there's a method for outsiders to receive full benefits. Moses allowed foreigners to participate in passover (Ex 12:48) and other sacrificial ordinances (Ex 22:18). While certain rites were only performed by priests, who were from a particular family, the benefits of those rites applied to everyone in the nation (see Num 15:25-26). Likewise, immediately after Jesus' resurrection, both Jewish and non-Jewish believers received the same spiritual gifts (Acts 10:45) and the same salvation (Rom 1:16, Gal 3:28).
Interestingly, the early LDS allowed blacks full membership with no limitations (for example, Elijah Abel was a black LDS priest in 1832.) The Book of Mormon describes blacks as cursed (2 Nephi 5:21) but allowed to come to the Lord just like anyone else (2 Nephi 26:33). And it makes the anti-racism statement "revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins" (Jacob 3:8-9). Joseph Smith himself was an abolitionist (D&C 101:79).
But Brigham Young declared that if Utah received statehood, it wouldn't be Congress' business whether or not they had slaves or how they treated them (Journal of Discourses 4:39-40). He also stated that the penalty for mixed marriage is death on the spot (JoD 10:110), and that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood until after all of the whites did, at which point they would actually turn white (JoD 7:290, 337). Wilford Woodruff (4th LDS prophet) said that the only way someone in a mixed marriage could have salvation was to be beheaded, and for all of his children to be killed as well; there's no "proxy baptism" option present here.
By the 1950s, the common view was that blacks were cursed because they had not behaved valiantly in the pre-mortal existence, but that they would eventually receive full blessings. Then in 1978 a "revelation" allowed blacks to hold the priesthood. There are still some vestiges of the 1950s view, though; a friend told me of someone else in his mission who, after visiting a non-committal black family, complained that "n___ers were fence-sitters in the pre-existence and they're fence-sitters now".
So, as you say, it's complex. Official LDS doctrine (specifically coming from "prophets") regarding blacks went from a little racist to extremely racist to kinda racist to not racist. Individual LDS attitudes have always had some variability.
The cynic & atheist in me thinks that "Mormon beliefs followed contemporary conservative US attitudes" to be a much more accurate, succinct and possibly honest description of the situation. Racist when it was common to be racist, not racist once that got politically unacceptable.
A similar timeline happened with polygamy/plural marriages. Abandoned when it became politically unacceptable.
Your version isn't actually very accurate. In particular, note that official Mormon doctrine was at times much more racist and at other times less racist than contemporary conservative US attitudes, with significant changes from one "prophet" to the next. I wouldn't characterize it as following others attitudes, but rather as being controlled by the whims of individual men who were all over the spectrum of US attitudes, and who didn't particularly agree with each other.
Your comment on polygamy is also lacking sufficient detail. In particular, note that LDS polygamy was never convenient or accepted by outsiders; whenever it was publicly known, it led to serious community opposition, and probably contributed to their being chased out of Nauvoo [2]. They also officially denied practicing or teaching polygamy, even as Joseph Smith was accumulating a total of 34 wives [0]; he was actually killed as a result of fallout from burning the printing press that was used to expose the practice [1]. Even their "abandoning the practice" was more of a denial that it ever happened, and a weak bit of "advice" to "refrain" from violating local laws [3]. This came shortly after serious attempts by the US government to end polygamy via asset seizures and other forms of pressure; unlike in the 1850s, there were few uncolonized areas they could move to (but some LDS fled to Mexico, including some of Mitt Romney's ancestors [4]). So it would be more accurate to say that the practice was officially abandoned when it became exceedingly difficult to continue. Even so, unofficially within the main LDS church and officially within various offshoots, polygamy continues to this day [5]; official doctrine still teaches polygamy in the afterlife as well [6].
[5] My friend Doris Hansen escaped from fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, and now runs a ministry to rescue other women and children: http://www.shieldandrefuge.org/index.htm . The ministry has its own TV show at http://whatloveisthis.tv/ . The show archives contain lots of interviews with former polygamist men and women.
Listen, I'm sorry that their feelings are hurt when I point out that their mantain a policy of bigotry against LGB people, but tough. That's how democracy works. You have the right to say what you want, but not the right to say what you want without people pointing it out.
Y'know what hurts me more? The fact that I can't get married.
Marriage has been redefined many times since 1984. In my country (Ireland), divorce was impossible/illegal. Times change, adapt.
Not my politics nor bigotry, thank you. I'm just thankful
that some entity came up with a generally usable standard,
rather than 20+ competitors in the software market all
rolling their own incompatible or non-exportable data store.
I haven't checked recently, but for a while there was one vendor
marketing family tree software in big box stores that used a
proprietary and non-exportable data format. People would buy the
simple package, work on their tree, and want to migrate, only to be
put off by: "you'll have to re-enter your data."
As for non-support of non-traditional family structures,
I'm not surprised that a conservative religious entity
motivated by research into historical vital records
tends to focus on the typical needs for its own users.
Many of the rest of the user population benefit from a generally
usable (and I'll agree, imperfect) data standard, without which
this field would be less interesting and less profitable.
There are a bunch of challenges for software developers in
regard to traditional family structures of many kinds,
generally showing that real life is often more complicated
than simple tree-oriented data-structures might suggest.
Divorce & step-parents are fairly well handled, but consider how to
store, display, & represent explicit and implicit relationships among:
unmarried persons living together
adoptive parents
egg donors
surrogate mothers
I expect that software and standards will evolve as real life
does, but I don't expect the LDS to be putting their effort
into areas that they likely do not see as benefitting them,
or that they see as controversial for many of their members.
On the other hand, an entrepreneur could produce a set of patches or
extensions to GEDCOM that addressed the more complicated areas, and
provided export into and import from GEDCOM or an extended format.
Firstly, many users don't just use genealogy software to track their DNA ancestors, people use it to record details of their family tree. If a relative died without leaving any offspring, that person isn't deleted from the tree, they are still there. Likewise, people may want to record same sex marriage in their family trees, even though there might not be any off spring. People in same sex marriages might want to track their own family trees. A man might want to include his mother and his mother-in-law (his husband's mother).
Secondly, yes, some same sex marriages can produce children. From adoption, to artificial insemination/surrogacy, to one partner having a child(ren) from a previous marriage, which the other adopts, etc.
Thirdly, it is possible to have genetic children from a same sex marriage. Some countries have gender recognition law which allows trans people to legally change their gender and get a new birth cert. Depending on the law, they may still be in the original marriage, and still legally have children. (Yes there are people who start living as a different gender and their spouse still loves them and stays with them.)
Yes, these are new issues, and a lot of genealogy deals with stuff in the past, but this is only going to get more common as time passes. Blanket statements saying essentially "This is nothing to ever be worried about at all" is false.
(As an aside, bisexuals et al. can enter into same sex marriages, it not just 'homosexual marriage')
Many years ago -- 1980? -- I visited SLC and looked at some of these microfilms. They had tax records from the turn of the century that included info about my grandfather. It was like going back in time.
The transcription of records for indexing is also valuable, but less so, given that volunteers were working from projected microfilm copies of (usually) hand-written records (some in beautiful but dated hands).
OCR in the 1980s was not adequate, but Soundex indexing helps a lot, and if you need to search a small area exhaustively, you can see many of the microfilm copies of records through a site like ancestry.com or from the digital media available for use at local LDS family history centers.
The LDS was also strong in producing the GEDCOM data standard, which is widely (almost universally) used for family tree exchanges, and the PAF software package (which now has many competitors.)
Note that research into ancestry has an interesting network effect - while people have 2^N N-parents, once N gets over 4 or 5 it can become challenging to trace individuals - but the chances that some other active researcher shares some of those 2^N N-parents start to increase - and ancestry.com has done well at providing links to other researcher's public trees when they become available.
This pattern has the effect of encouraging subscribers who have already found most of their ancestors out to level N, for whatever N, to continue to subscribe in hopes of finding a new link from another researcher, or perhaps a new clue in a newly digitized document set.
It will be interesting to see how the decreasing cost of genome analysis affects family history research - perhaps helping find distant cousins, or perhaps revealing surprising differences between a presumed history and the biological record.