Mormon Ancestry Records
Mormon Genealogical Records
Mormon ancestry records are the best resources for studying your family’s genealogy in the world. Mormons have nearly 5,000 Family History Centers worldwide. Almost all of the information offered about ancestors is free, though you’ll occasionally have to pay a reasonable fee for access to their repositories of family histories.
Included in these research centers are microfilms and microfiches of birth records and other public records of the past, as well as genealogical books.
Do I Have To Be A Mormon To Study Mormon Ancestry Records?
Absolutely not. My mother (definitely not a Mormon) once studied her family’s ancestry at a family history center in Fort Worth, Texas, and was not approached by anyone involved in the faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is separate from the Mormon genealogical services.
In fact, many of the staffers and volunteers at the Mormon ancestry record centers are not Mormon, either. Because of certain aspects of their religion, Mormons have become masters at researching bloodlines and family history, and they have kept copious records of public records to help them with that research. In the days of the Internet and easy transit cross-country, those resources are now available to the public.
On their ancestry websites, like FamilySearch.org, you might find some unobtrusive links to their faith-based sites. That’s about as close as you’ll get to an attempt to convert anyone through their ancestry records. The great thing about links is that you don’t have to click on them if you don’t want to, so that shouldn’t be a concern. These aren’t links that are hard to avoid.
Why Do Mormons Care So Much About Ancestry?
One part of the Mormon faith is the “sealing” of ancestors into their faith, so they can live together for eternity. Since I’m a non-Mormon, I’ll probably butcher this concept, but in a very simplistic fashion, Mormons want to learn the ancestry of people in the Church, so they can baptize those ancestors dating back 5 generations. The utopian idea is that you and your ancestors can live together in God’s grace for all eternity.
Because of this belief, Mormons want to know everything they can about their ancestors, dating back at least five generations. Since they want to do the same with anyone who marries into the Mormon faith, Mormon ancestry experts need to know the ancestry of non-Mormons, too, since that information becomes important to their beliefs, if one of those people marry into the faith. So the Mormons keep the best ancestry records in the world.
Researching the Mormon Ancestry Records
If you have been searching through ancestry records and you find out these are kept by Mormons, don’t assume this is part of some hidden plot to convert people to their religion.
While the great ancestry files kept by the Mormons are a natural outgrowth of their religion, their Family History Centers are a service they provide to the world, with no expectation of something in return. Because the Mormons consider ancestry research so important to their own faith, it’s natural they would believe it’s a good idea for other people in the world to research their family history.
So it’s both smart and “safe” to search the Mormon ancestry records.
Related Posts
Canadian Ancestry Records
Polish Ancestry Records
Ireland Ancestry Records
Italian Ancestry Records
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Genealogical Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.