IF YOU or AN ANCESTOR WERE MEMBERS OF LATTER DAY SAINTS THERE IS A 1960 CHURCH CENSUS as well as 1914, 1920, 1925, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1950, 1955

This is a census of the members...

FAMILYSEARCH CHURCH CENSUS  This is an information page and will bring up some data but you'll have to go into your FamilySearch account to go further.

Excerpt: Church census records include censuses for the years 1914, 1920, 1925, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1950, 1955, and 1960. Included with the 1914-1935 census are some delayed birth certificates which originated in the Church Historian's Office and a few Salt Lake Granite Stake genealogical survey cards. The records are arranged alphabetically by the head of the household. Microfilm of original records in the LDS Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Church records are kept by many denominations. For instance for Roman Catholics the records are usually in the Diocese archives. And church records are usually of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, while sometimes there are also records of Confession, Communion, and Confirmation, as well as Converts

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WHAT'S UP at the FAMILYSEARCH - LDS FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY IN SALT LAKE DURING CORONAVIRUS-19 LOCKDOWN

The Family History Library owned and operated by the Latter Day Saints Church (ie. The Mormons) in Salt Lake City, Utah, is genealogy central in the United States.  The outside of the physical library now has the FAMILYSEARCH title on it.

So many generations of researchers and historians - since before there was Internet or on-line databases - have depended upon it.  The library currently holds more data than the Library of Congress.  Television series that focus on genealogy such as Who Do You Think You Are, depend on professionals and research assistants who spend about 1000 hours of research for one 40-minute program.

If you have a FamilySearch account, which is easy enough to sign up for, you can log in and watch live stream videos or find past live stream videos done on Zoon now archived on YouTube.  Some of these are instructional, others update you on what's happening there, and there are some question-and-answer opportunities.

I suspect that a lot of people are using their time indoors to do their genealogy research because every time I log in to FamilySearch and start a search the whirling icon keeps on whirling.

I know my browser needs updated but I cannot at this time do it.  It's annoying that the message comes up EACH AND EVERY TIME a new page shows up on my screen.  What a pain in the butt.

The library was affected by the recent earthquake that occurred in Salt Lake just shortly after it all closed down due to the virus.  The shelves are sturdy and bolted so none of them fell but some ceiling panels and books did land on the floor.  This is good news.  Should it reopen and you be researching there, you're not likely to be hurt in an earthquake of the 5.7 or less category.

5.7 is a good shake but nothing compared to the Northridge quake of 1994 which was 6.7.  (The earth experience earthquakes all over every single day, this we know due to the latest technology.  However, it does seem to me that earthquakes are occurring in more places that don't expect them and where housing might not be built or fortified for them.)

Enjoy your research.  Try to take good notes you can read in the future, so you know where you stopped, what your goals are, and so on.


C 2020  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

TWO MORE YEARS FROM TODAY'S DATE : THE 1950 CENSUS

STEVE MORSE and JOEL WEINTRAUB on the 1950 CENSUS - YOU WON'T FIND NAMES!

72 years of privacy for census was determined long ago when 72 years was one long life.  I sometimes wonder if this will be changed as our lifespans increase.

You can read the entire paper put out by these two gentlemen who have helped genealogists get through databases such as ship records and past census.

When the 1950 is first released you'll have to search page by page through Enumeration Districts until the massive undertaking of listing by name - indexing - happens.

The U.S. population after World War II was BOOMING (as in Baby Boomer) so while I have no doubt it eventually will be done, you may not want to wait another two to four years.

I remember when the 1940 came out.  I headed for my nearest Family History Center of the Latter Day Saints and I sat there for hours searching certain records in New Jersey... And what I proved weeks into it was that the first-generation immigrants and their children were no longer living where they had been in 1930, no longer in ethnic ghettos but out to the suburbs, even to other counties and states, some in old age homes.

I imagine the 1950 will show this movement into suburbs and other counties and states even more so. So many GI's got houses on the GI bill which afforded them small homes in the burbs!

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Click on the tab  Genealogy Help - 1950 Census to bring up the series!

IS GENEALOGY ANCESTOR WORSHIP?

I believe that there are many reasons why some people are inspired research their family history and genealogy and that SOME PEOPLE do genealogy and family history writing as a form of worshiping their own ancestors, worshiping as in putting those who came before them on a pedestal. 

You don't need to light a memorial candle or do any spiritual rituals or services to show the people who came before you respect. When I think of the thousands of hours - the patience, endurance, and love - as well as intelligence and learning that some people put into writing their family history and genealogy books, I suppose it's not that much different than say, having Masses said for the deceased or entering them into Temple Ordinances in the Latter Day Saints Church or trying to talk to them through a medium.

LATTER DAY SAINTS DISCONTINUE MICROFILM PROGRAM

September first of this year - just a couple weeks away - you will no longer be able to order microfilm from Salt Lake City's Family History Library/Archives to be sent to your nearest temple library.  I have to tell you that I've talked to people at Genealogy Societies and at my public library and generally, people are panicked. 
I guess my commentary that I would never be able to duplicate my research without these films to this day has not been heard. 
What's up with LDS?  Is it that not enough films are rented, making it financially impossible? They say that microfilm is dead, sort of like microfiche has been.  Digitalized Computer Images are better. Well, digitalized images are computer dependent. And that forces you to own a computer or go to a public use computer.  Believe me my cell phone and FamilySearch are compatible, but the screen is way too small to deal with all those digital images.
Read the fine print and you'll see that individual libraries are going to make decisions about what they keep when it comes to microfilm.   Usually a fee is charged for the rental and then you can renew the film as you use it.  What I see ahead shortly is some fast ordering by researches and a pile of last minute money to be made by LDS but also a gradual phasing out of the microfilms.
Latter Day Saints/Family Search says that by 2020, just a few years, everything they have to offer will be on their web site, Family Search. It's those few years that worry us completely. That seems almost impossible to me, considering that one category of film I use a lot has apparently been considered done by revealing baptismals, but not marriages or deaths; I keep checking. In the past I've made a great number of family groups by reading the births in a town, each consistent with parents, while not finding a marriage for the parents in that some town.  Recently I spent an entire weekend on FamilySearch, playing games with crazy spellings, in order to see if I could find a marriage.
This was a personal quest and would be extremely expensive if was working it for someone else, and entirely speculative.  The fact is, if the marriages were up, I could likely focus on just one or two villages, and work the births of children from there.


So I suspect something secret is going on with Latter Day Saints and the Genealogy Business in general.  So far everything is free, and there is a lot of contributory work.  One person I know who indexed for FamilySearch is livid to find out his work has been given over to Ancestry - a fee based site.  He says if he had been asked he would have said no, but at least he wouldn't feel so disrespected.

LDS ORG on MICROFILM DISCONTINUATION ANNOUNCMENT  READ THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.


Another aspect of the wait until 2020 is that in that year the 1950 census should be at least begun, since the 70 year Privacy wait will be over.  It will be a much larger project than the 1940 since this is the post World War II "babyboom" era.


From September 2017 till sometime in 2020 you can still pursue  your genealogy but if what you need is not on the web site, don't forget the "old fashioned" methods!


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SOME FAMILY: HOW HISTORICAL GENETICISTS and MORMON GENEALOGISTS DIFFER : BOOK EXCERPT

SOME FAMILY

THE MORMONS and HOW HUMANITY KEEPS TRACK OF ITSELF

by Donald Harman Akenson  C 2007

Published by McGill-Queen's University Press - Montreal and Kingston

Pages13-14  Excerpt

"Where historical geneticist and Mormon genealogists completely lose touch with each other is in their notion of who are First Parents were and how we find them.  IN this regard, historical geneticists are humble, in the sense that they were aware that they are making a set of approximations and that they will never have a final answer. ... In contrast, the Mormons are confident to the point of arrogance (quiet arrogance, but never the less cocksure).  They know that humanity came into existence as described in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew scriptures.  This was in the year 4004BCE, or thereabouts, according to the now-classical chronology of Archbiship James Ussher, the seventeenth century Church of Ireland archbishop of Armagh...

Page 88

...The conflicting forces are th4e Mormons, genealogists in general, historical geneticists, historical demographers, and anthropologists.  (I am lumping together anthropologists, ethnographers, and ethnologists, while being fully aware that over the generations they have fought with each other over the job specifications for each category.)  All the various forces are produced by individuals who are good-faith practitioners of their own discipline or sub-field within their discipline.  but if they cannot agree on something so basic as what to call the human adult  pair bond- then we are in trouble let alone when they begin developing their own terms for various family members and for generational interconnections.

...the Mormon use of "pedigree" to refer to human genealogical lines is to be voided.  The demographers, geneticists, and anthropologists are here correct: thoroughbred horses and show dogs have pedigrees,  but humans are not the product of controlled breeding programs.  In human society we have "lines: or "lineages,"  never pedigrees.

A set of words that also is to be avoided, except under very narrow circumstances, is "patriarchal" and "matriarchal".  These are perfectly good words, but not here.  They carry connotations of power relationships that can be confusing...

Page 110

If you enter any aspect of the Mormon genealogical system - from blank genealogy forms to computer-generated lineages - you will discover that it runs on the Standard Double system.  Is this ethnocentric imperialism?  Probably, but there is a potential intellectual justif8ication for the practice.  This is the very clear argument that all human beings have biological mother and a biological father and that, therefore, humans should be traced in the same way traces the breed roots of Secretariat or Red Rum.  .... one cannot retroactively impose the Standard Double system on cultures that did not employ it.

2016-2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

SOME FAMILY : DONALD HARMAN AKENSON LOOKS AT WAYS OF DEFINING FAMILY and LATTER DAY SAINTS GENEALOGY OBSESSION

SOME FAMILY

THE MORMONS and HOW HUMANITY KEEPS TRACK OF ITSELF

by Donald Harman Akenson  C 2007

Published by McGill-Queen's University Press - Montreal and Kingston

A fascinating book which asks the question, is the Latter Day Saint's religious view of family that so inspires their genealogical research and world effort to collect data on humans who once lived.

As a genealogist, I've become aware that some of the records one find have been previously submitted by Latter Day Saints have not been proofed, that there are errors. However, as I understand it, most people only go back to their great grandparents, and frankly, for most people going back much further can be extremely taxing if not impossible, depending on exactly where those people were living.  (For instance if your heritage is from Jewish London you may be able to go much further back.  If your ancestry is English or German you may also be able to go much further back.)

So here are some excerpts from this boom that I found quite telling.

page 7-8) On the dimensions of the collective project LDS members are working on (For which they have already collected 2 billion names.)

"The world records for fecundity are the more than 1,400 progeny sired by Moulay Ismail, an eighteenth-century emperor of Morocco, and on the female side, the 69 children of Fedora Vassilyex, an eighteenth century Russian woman.)  This if the Mormons are going to make a world pedigree, it would seem they have their work cut out for them....What saves their task from being completely inconceivable is the simple fact that human beings interbreed quite promiscuously.  Not just third cousins, or second, but first cousins, uncles and nieces, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, nephews and aunts, wives and brothers in law, and on and on.  Most of the closest inbreeding are covered up by social convention and by skilled lying.  Unless your parents come from totally separate populations (say from Africa and from China), you would not have to go back many generations to find some of your mother's people procreating with your father's - would not, that is, if the records were compete and accurate, which they are not.... Whether or not one likes this basic fact of frequent human inbreeding, it provides a valuable set of advantages for genealogists and geneticists.  It means, first, that nay individual will have a lot fewer distinct genealogical lines to trace than if there had been no inbreeding.... the limited original population from which we all stem means that we are all interrelated;  and, if there were a full genealogy of every human being, we would discover that not only are we all related, but that our ancestors intersected with each other several times in a great genetic tangle.

More excerpts coming...

By the way,  I think most genealogists know this.  After all this is what is behind all the web sites you see in which some celebrity is connected through some line (could be one of 64 or more) to a royal personage.

DO LDS MISSIONARIES AT FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS TRY TO CONVERT RESEARCHERS OF OTHER FAITHS? : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Q:  My friends say I should start going to the closest Family History Center and order in films (to continue my genealogy research) but I'm not Christian and I hear that the missionaries there try to convert people. I don't want to be rude but I don't want to talk religion. I just want to do my work.

Do they really do that?

Michelle


A:  I think they do pray for people who are doing research at the Family History Centers when they go on breaks in the back room and take an active interest in you and your religious beliefs. But that doesn't mean you have to bring it up or get into it with anyone. 

When you walk in they often ask if you are member of the church or not. Answer honesty.  They're collecting stats on usage of the centers. Also they have some resources that are open ONLY TO CHURCH MEMBERS and you have to respect that. Additionally, we respect their religion and lifestyle beliefs by dressing modestly and not bringing coffee or caffeinated tea or soda drinks with us when we bag our lunches. We try to keep the area we're working in clean and neat and obey the rules of the library.

But then when you say no, you are NOT LDS, they know then that you are not a member of LDS.  I can't say for sure that they will or won't try to convert you, but the next questions is not "and so what religion are you?"  AS I UNDERSTAND IT, by opening those research centers that are so vital to many of us to EVERYONE, they are supposed to JUST LET YOU RESEARCH.  If anything the libraries are great PR for the church, because just about everyone (I say that having encountered a few stinkers over the years) that works there has been CHOSEN for a SPECIAL MISSION. These people feel honored. Many of them finance their own apartments to live away from their homes for a couple years in order to be there and be helpful. Some are or have become expert genealogists, others not so much.

I know that many genealogy clubs and groups come into research, such as the local Jewish genealogy group, and don't seem to have any religious conflicts or issues.  I would like to think that is always the case, and that one of the things genealogy research teaches us is a respect for different beliefs and cultures.

These days due to the availability of some of the same electronic resources available at LDS at other libraries and societies, much of  your research work can be done without going to LDS but the microfilms they have are of great value!

C 2016 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

DO YOU PRAY BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH?

I've been advised in the past by Latter Day Saints missionaries to PRAY to the ancestors in the spirit world for help in my genealogical research.  To me this is a form of ancestor worship.  I don't actually have a problem with the notion but I also have never prayed for other worldly research assistance.

Maybe this is because an occasional dream has provided guidance instead.

I suspect it is more ethical to pray to your OWN ancestors for help when it comes to genealogy research - or anything else - than to the ancestors of strangers you might be helping or working for. 

I do wonder what other people think of this.

I suppose it can't hurt but maybe it can.

Maybe it depends on the focus of the research.

RUMORS OF WAR ON BETWEEN LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILYSEARCH.ORG and ANCESTRY.COM? IS IT HOT? OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

RUMORS OF WAR ON BETWEEN LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILYSEARCH.ORG

and ANCESTRY.COM?  IS IT HOT?

 

By Ancestry Worship Genealogy

 

Have a seat in a comfortable chair to read this one!

Since I've heard about this "war" between the Latter Day Saints, who have the currently free genealogy research database called FamilySearch.org, and the popular Ancestry.com databases, which are generally paid subscriptions, but offered free at many libraries that pay the fees involved, including Family History Centers owned by the Latter Day Saints Church, and genealogy societies and clubs, and including a couple of the city public libraries I use, I thought I'd make some commentary.

According to one LDS missionary I spoke to, Bishops throughout the country have been and are organizing church members to read and input data into the FamilySearch databases, and that this effort has the air of both competition between Stakes and cooperation.  Some of the individual volunteers have personally imputed a hundred thousand names from census records, for example. The LDS Church members historically have pulled together and been as busy as bees and this is the latest project they are working on, you could say collectively and as a Church. 

To understand the LDS's great on-going and eternal interest in genealogy information, you must understand their religion, something I won't get into here at length.  The need to know the identity of ancestors is tied in with Temple Ordinances as well as the emphasis on family life.  As I understand it members must submit to the church their family tree back to the great-grandparents but many go far beyond that.  Since the Church sends missionaries out all over the earth and have many converts, while older historical members of the church are up to date, new converts have genealogy research and Temple Ordinances ahead of them.

Considering the vast amount of documents currently on microfilm and books, and the vast amount of documents that are yet to be microfilmed or published or even found, it's difficult for me to believe that in my lifetime such a project will ever be complete.  Also, I have to emphasize that I periodically try to duplicate some of my personal research on these and other databases, and have yet to be able to do it, even when trying popular misspellings to pull up information.  My  personal research, going back over a decade, was and would still be dependent on the use of microfilms provided by LDS for rent.  I simply love to get to as original a resource I can and I hope and pray that LDS does not stop renting the films after they are turned into text databases when the text databases do not suffice.

Ancestry.com has been, no doubt, a business, and a profitable one. They are a com - commercial. FamilySearch.org is an organization.  Currently it aims to provide the same, more, and better information, including better organized information, than Ancestry.com.

Meanwhile Ancestry.com has always had competitors in the genealogy information business.  There have been many upstarts.  All of these databases that you pay to use also pay employees. I don't know how well.  So is the focus by the LDS Church only to compete with Ancestry.com or all of the paid databases?  (Or is the aim to put the professional genealogists out of business with all the hobbyists doing the work themselves?  I can say that many hobbyists need coaching.)

I find this difficult to say, know, or find out. 

One question would be, has the LDS Church found genealogy information profitable or do they want it to be?

While the cost of renting film has generally been low, if you need to use the same film for several weeks or continually, or you find yourself ordering many films over time, it can get pricy.   But probably not as pricey as hiring a professional or traveling the old fashioned way to archives and so on all over the country or world.  (That said, genealogy as a hobby is not for everyone.  It requires certain character as well as skills and talents.  There are very good reason to hire someone who charges for research, interviewing, and creating a book for a client.)

I can't say the rental of films has always been or is not for profit.  Family History Centers have many resources that are entirely free to use while there, including some microfilms, many books and maps, but lately a few databases including Ancestry, Fold3, and others.  I researched for years without ever walking into a Family History Center, went through a period where I was at one weekly, and currently find less need to go to one than before unless I am ordering in and using microfilms.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF A BATTLE FOR DOMINANCE IN THE GENEALOGY INFORMATION WAR? 

According to some missionaries I spoke with, originally there was an agreement that all such genealogy information would be SHARED and FREE.  Thus, some feel that Ancestry.com is becoming a monopoly for profit, gobbling up everything it can, and that the LDS church does not feel they have been sharing with the Church - playing fair.

Now, I use Ancestry.com and many other resources, including FamilySearch.org. I've reached out for help to volunteers at the LDS Church locally and at Salt Lake and I've also donated some books they didn't have at the time to the library and Church as a way of giving back. 

I hear complaints that the Family History Centers missionaries are so preoccupied with entering information into databases that the research assistance one used to count on is no longer available.

Sometimes I switch between the two databases, back and forth, in a quest for information and I research often enough that I sometimes notice that FamilySearch has something up that Ancestry.com does not and visa versa.  But Ancestry seems to have something new frequently.

At the same time, I have been frustrated with both sites because I think they have both gotten to the point where the amount of information they are hosting has become unwieldy, if not disorganized.  I've heard a lot of grumbling about how many more clicks it takes to get to so called "Advanced Search" on Ancestry.com than it used to be. 

Also...

 * On FamilySearch.org I've found that some online collections with what I'll call Grand Titles need to be retitled and referenced on their start pages rather than clicking around to find that information because THE TITLE IS INCORRECT FOR WHAT THE COLLECTION ACTUALLY CONTAINS.  You really have to hunt to find out that there are huge gaps in the information and what those gaps are.  Rather than a Grand Title, instead I think the online information needs to be akin to the original microfilm in title and in organization.  If I failed to find out what was really in a collection by clicking, calling local or Salt Lake volunteers did not provide me the answers.  They were as confused as I was and simply wanted to follow my moves on a computer long distance as if that would take them somewhere different than where I went.

* I've noticed, being a member of JewishGen.org for research purposes, that JewishGen.org information that was compiled by volunteers, is now appearing on Ancestry.com, but meanwhile the begging for money by JewishGen.org has become so unending and guilt tripping I would say the word "pathetic" is spot on.  I'm annoyed by the constant e-mails and the assumption that I'm Jewish and celebrate all those Jewish holidays just because I'm a member.  Did JewishGen.org just fork over the information to Ancestry.com at no charge or sell information that was also supposed to be done by volunteers for free use? (Donations were to be used only for the purposes of keeping the web site and databases up on the Internet, as I remember it, the original idea.)  

If JewishGen.org or any other database that is the work of volunteers and for free use did sell out like that, then they deserve, in my opinion, to be vamoosh!  (Your word to your volunteers should count.)

* SEEMS TO ME NO "ORG" should be providing a "COM" with free information.

* I do not know if LDS plans to start charging to use their databases as they have their micro-films and the issue is FREE INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE AS PROVIDED FREE VIA VOLUNTEERS OF THE LDS CHRCH, if the "war" is economic.   Obviously if the Church succeeded in dominating the genealogy information business and providing it free to everyone, that would put Ancestry.com and all other paid subscriptions out of business.

* Genealogy associates tell me that Ancestry.com is owned by Latter Day Saints and that they tithe the Church with their income.

* National Archives of the United States information is appearing in collaboration with both sites.  I have no idea if this sharing was free or there is a financial transaction going on.

* We as researches must not forget that we can still go to original sources such as County, State, and City, as well as National Archives for information.  That stamps and envelopes still work so long as the U.S. Mail Service is in operation, though some of these allow you to order on line and use PayPal type electronic money transfers.

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 All Rights Reserved Including International and Internet Rights.  Please contact me for permissions prior to use.

ELDERS by RYAN MC ILVAIN - A NOVEL ABOUT LDS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

Elders - a Novel

by Ryan McIlvain C 2013
Publisher Hogarth London- New York

ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY - BOOK REVIEW

I read this book wanting to know more about those young, white-shirted, LDS missionaries, mostly young men, you see all over - especially in libraries, where they e-mail home.  These days some young women are also going on missions to other countries but you won't find them in this book.  This book is about the conflict between two Elders (young missionaries in their early twenties) who have been teamed to go door to door, hoping to convert some people to the LDS Faith in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  One of them is a native Brazilian who has converted, the other an American from Salt Lake, Utah who has some doubts about his personal faith.

The native Brazilian character begins to imagine himself immigrating to the United States, going to BTU, graduating, marrying, maybe even staying in the US and bringing his family over.  Does he still want this religion if those things never happen for him?

The American character feels he has sacrificed life as is usually spent at his age - in school, having Friends, and having sex.

While I did learn a little bit about the organization of missionaries - predictable corporate, I found this book a strain to read.  I knew the author had resigned his own LDS membership, and I wonder how much of it was autobiographical.  The back of the book features some excellent reviews, but while I congratulate anyone who completes a book, this one left me with a dark feeling. 

The missionaries not only have competitiveness and inter-personal problems that become physical and combative, but the American is dowsed with Anti-American feeling.  The ending is a walk out.

EXCERPT:

page 237  (After a woman who wanted to be baptized into the faith despite her husband's disinterest is turned down for immediate baptism, and American character Elder McLeod questions this, because if it had been a man they would have gone ahead without his wife's cooperation.)

"My fellow missionaries, let me be as clear as I can.  Our inspired leaders have told us to focus on teaching and baptizing families, self-sustain celestial units.  This is an effort that matters, and matters everlastingly, and the Everlasting Enemy know this.  We will therefore have to work harder than ever to call on God to help us.  We will have to exert ourselves more than ever to be obedient and worthy of the Lord's helping hand.  The noise of the world, indeed, can be deafening.  We need shelter and protection from the world. W e need a place where we can hear ourselves think, a place to present the Gospel in the bright light of simple truth,  And where can we find this shelter?  Where do we find it?  In the rules and regulations of our inspired leaders."

____

How does this jive with what I assumed or know about LDS missionaries?  From my perspective these missions are is a rte of passage, one that gives youth a chance to see the world outside their home state, to see the world.  It isn't just about converting others, it is about experiencing the challenges of being in a minority in the world and butting up against other religions and cultures.  It is a test.  Teaching anything you know reinforces that learning.

I know that many LDS members marry young - soon after their missions.  Some of them have young women waiting for them at home, some (as happens in this book) loose their girlfriends while on a mission.  I have heard from an LDS member that if a man does not marry young he may never marry, unless he marries a woman who is not of that religion.  According to him, most women do eventually join the church.

It is also considered unusual for all of couple's children to stay in the religion.  The world pulls on people.

RESEARCH YOUR FAMILY, HONE YOUR SELF KNOWLEDGE, HAVE A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE! ANCESTRY WORSHIP - A GENEALOGY

Welcome to Ancestry Worship - genealogy, a Google Blogger! 

As you may notice if you begin to read past posts, and go into my archive, I'm a serious and experienced genealogist and family history researcher and writer.  I love to help others break through blocks, and believe in proofing your research, holding to professional standards.

My interest in genealogy and family history includes a broad range of related interests such as history and cultural studies, anthropology, archeology, and the science of DNA.  Spiritually, I am intrigued by past life regression (hypnosis) and reincarnation. Is it possible that our souls come to this earth many times in search of experiences that will move us to divinity?

I find genealogy is sometimes a spiritual quest.  You may ask, How So?

I'm not a member of the Latter Day Saints though I do know that they believe our ancestors can help us with our genealogy research and I try to respect their beliefs which are centered around family life and healthy living. 

One of the goals of research for members of the Latter Day Saints, a religion that originated in the 19th century, is to Baptise the Dead.  In this temple ceremony or ordinance, live members of the Church welcome those who have gone before the opportunity to be Baptised in their faith so that they can be unified as a family in the After Life.

I do believe we may be reunited with others in the After Life!  But then maybe some of them have reincarnated or have moved on spiritually.

Though I do not pray for help from Divinity or Ancestors in advance of my research, I've experienced some compelling synchronicities leading me to information and the right people.  I've even felt at times that I was being guided or watched.  I've even had dreams that helped me move in the right direction.

Those who are regressed through hypnosis for a myriad of reasons, including curing illness of the body or mind, sometimes find themselves going back in mind or memory to another life where the problem began. These days children seem to be remembering their past lives well enough to be taken seriously by their parents;  truly fascinating!  (I have a couple new books on order right now and hope to report into you!) 

Another aspect of genealogy research for the individual who is researching their own family is that when you better understand your ancestors you may just come to understand your own life and yourself better.  This is especially the case when the family has been broken, perhaps not for any other reason that immigration. Some of us have never even seen a photo of someone who is part of our genetic lineage and who looks like us!

Over the next few posts, I'll be linking to sites about DNA.  DNA is revealing so much to us and so much more quickly than even the scientists anticipated.  Those who have a problem with evolution or DNA science are simply not compatible with my point of view.  They are welcome to keep their beliefs, as am I.  Simply, I see no conflict with the notion of a Creator God or the notion of Creation and evolution. I know that conscious life is amazing and that the universe is intelligent.

HEY THANKS FOR READING ALL THIS!  Now let's go forward!

ANCESTRY.COM and FAMILYSEARCH and the 1940 CENSUS : INDEXING PROJECTS RACE TO COMPLETE AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT

If you use the ANCESTRY.com database, which you can use at home with a subscription and at no charge at some libraries, you will notice that the 1940 census is in process.

Last I checked the states of Delaware and Nevada had been indexed on Ancestry.com, so a name should take you to census pages for those states. Ancestry is paying people to index and as I hear it, made a deal (paid) with National Archives to use the images.

I'M VERY HAPPY TO SEE THAT THE CITY INFORMATION on ANCESTRY.COM INCLUDES THE WARD OF THE CITY on the pull down menu. I checked a couple cities and made lists of ED districts by ward which I will read by ward as my research path.
 What makes a ward? Well, it could be that wards were numbered by the development of that town, take into consideration geography such as rivers and hills, railroad tracks, even churches, with perhaps a population expanding and more suburban development. In some cases, if you found an ethnic ghetto in a ward in 1930, that's a good place to start on the 1940 for the descendants of those ethnic people.

Because there are over 13 million images for the 1940 census, it could be a very long time before the entire census is indexed. As most of us know badly or wrongly spelled surnames, inkblots, cross outs, and horrible handwriting, are all challenges to indexers.

THE LATTER DAY SAINTS have launched an ambitious project soliciting volunteers among those attending church at stakes throughout the country with a goal of all names in all states to be completed in 6 months! THE INFORMATION WILL BE FREE FOR USE ON THEIR FAMILYSEARCH SITE. (Yes some of us are joking "Just in time for 12-12-2012."

One LDS volunteer I met has personally indexed at least 37,000 people! I believe you can join this INDEXING PROJECT without being a church member and if interested I would call the closest LDS Family History Library to ask. They have some software that makes it easier to do. I believe also that you can sign up to do a small portion - say one ward of a town or even one page, but it must be coordinated.

IN ORDER TO DEAL WITH INACCURACIES on the FAMILYSEARCH project, each page will be indexed twice (by two different volunteers) and then a third person will compare and make a judgement where there are any discrepancies. It's a good idea and should help a lot, but you may still find yourself reading page by page anyway.

The ED Converter on the sidebar here at ANCESTRY RESEARCH GENEALOGY I've tried at three different libraries - two public in two different cities - as well as at a Family History Center. It appears that it will take you to images at Ancestry (if you have a subscription you log on then) or the National Archives and some other options. I'm sticking with the National Archives.

I'M POSTING FROM THE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER - LOS ANGELES !

I'm posting from the NEWLY OPENED LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILY HISTORY CENTER. (THIS POST IS POPULAR AND HAS BEEN UPDATED JANUARY 12, 2012)

I just took the tour and WOW!

The facility is larger and absolutely BEAUTIFUL; light, airy, cream walls and blue and green carpet with a leaf motif and large sepia toned photographs of ancestors of various ethnic groups - the Irish, the Poles, etc.

THERE ARE DOZENS OF COMPUTERS set up to link to useful genealogy research sites! There are large classrooms for telecasting classes from Salt Lake and teaching while being telecast to Salt Lake. The Church did not waste a dime in designing and implementing a state of the art facility.

HERE ARE SOME CHANGES :

ALL CENSUS RECORDS ON MICROFILM ARE GONE.ALL PASSENGER/SHIP RECORDS ON MICROFILM ARE GONE.

(This may not be so positive. I have in the past tried to duplicate my research on Ancestry (which is available for free at the Family History Center) and COULD NOT DO IT. I'm great at figuring out bad handwriting and most database entry people must not be... I would rather turn microfilm and read page after page than try guessing some of the mispellings that would lead to the same information. I've also found information ON THE BACK of handwritten cards and indexes.)

THERE ARE STILL MICROFILMS AND MICROFILM READERS.
TO ORDER FILMS YOU MUST DO SO ON LINE.

ALL THE BOOKS THAT ARE NO LONGER UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW ARE REMOVED TO SALT LAKE WHERE THEY ARE BEING DIGITIZED.

THE OLD MAP ROOM/MAPS IS GONE.

SOME OF THE LINKS ON THE COMPUTERS such as INTERNMENT.COM are still paid or trial; you don't need to come into the library to do that. FOOTNOTE DATABASE IS FREE OF CHARGE WHEN USED AT FAMILY HISTORY CENTER. In some cases I'm having better luck with Footnote than Ancestry. The name of Footnote is now Fold3.

THERE IS SOMETHING POSITIVE TO BE SAID FOR A DESTINATION THAT IS DEVOTED TO GENEALOGY and to BE SURROUNDED BY OTHER RESEARCHERS. I CONTINUE TO BE INSPIRED BY HEARING OTHER RESEARCHERS STORIES including their research methods.

There are some rules and regulations stated which I am glad for. One of those is no sexual harassment or vulgarity. I am glad this is the case as that is a problem I had with a male or two while researching a few years ago. It was enough to make me stop using LDS and moving my base of operations elsewhere.

SPOOKY ANCESTOR LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER ?????

Ever had a spook touch you on the shoulder when you were reading, concentrating deeply, spinning microfilm, or looking at your research work? This is the perfect time for a spook who really is an ancestor to try and contact you. And a touch on the shoulder that makes you look around is one of the classic ways they will make their presence known.

One person told me that they were struggling with trying to read some pretty difficult handwriting and had not not found the family they were looking for on a census. They were just about ready to give up when they felt one of the LDS missionaries who staff the local Family History Center, touch them on the shoulder. Except no one was there. And when they looked down to the microfilm desk again, they realized that their family group was right on that page!

ABOUT HENRY "HANK" JONES - GENEALOGY AUTHOR

If YOU'LL CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE... you'll get to the official Hank Z Jones website. There are only 50 Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists elected and Hank is one of them. I got interested in Hank because of his books, which I'll be quoting some excerpts from in this blog.

One of the reasons I appreciate his books is that they include the testimonials of both professional and hobbyist genealogy researchers who believe in dreams, intuition, ancestor spirit research guides, and receiving information on roots quests that comes from extraordinary means, proving that not all genealogists are afraid of this! There are many stereotypes of whose into genealogy that are not true. One of them is that genealogists are mostly members of the Latter Day Saints (formerly known as The Mormons), because they do seem to have a vast amount of archived data.

In the diversity of this United States of America (and the world!) genealogist are practitioners of many different faiths or spiritual viewpoints.