ABOUT CHILDREN BEING "PARENTIFIED" : THIS WAS HOW LIFE WAS LIVED FOR CENTURIES : OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

I recently read an article that was clearly influenced by the latest notions about child abuse coming from the psychology profession.  I remembered when I took Psych 101 in college and my professor said that one of the reasons the profession existed, a kind of manifesto, was to make the world a better place. Well, has it?  Sometimes I think this profession is responsible for making just about everyone diagnose-able in some way and looking for more patients. I'm all for children being wanted and loved, and parents taking responsibility for raising them  But the article railed against the latest notion of child abuse and that is "parentifiying" a child.

What this was explained to be, by this article, was children having to raise their siblings. Well, that is exactly how it worked in the past, when entire families had to work together also in the fields and many families had numerous children who had to help out in the house and yard and care for their siblings.  We called them "farm families" but it was not just agricultural life that required big families. Many immigrant families, and families in which both parents needed to work, relied on family members to also work, especially in maintaining the household and the younger siblings. Ten children - sometimes more - were not unusual.  Many of you are descended from families in which a mother had a child every couple years, had them in her own bed with a midwife, breast fed the babies, and the older children helped out as she went back to work cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry.

It may be rare, but I've met people in their teens and early twenties who took responsibility for younger siblings when parents died.  I've meet the teens who, being raised by single mothers, were the ones who were also caring for their parent who was terminally ill, while also going to high school. Someone had to step up to the plate, these people did, and I admired them for the courage and fortitude. (They're the kind of people worth hiring in the workplace too when their in home caregiving is done.)

In particular, back in the day, older sisters were helping bath, diaper, and feed babies, playing with them, and having their younger siblings tag along, watched out for them on the school yard, and in the process not only bonded with their siblings but learned the skills needed to be a mother themselves. 

This was how "baby-sitting" otherwise known as child care was perceived, which is why as a teenager I and so many others were paid, but barely, so that a neighbor could go out for the evening or take care of business elsewhere.

I realize that child labor is usually defined as labor in which a child earned money - outside the home - and did not go to school. However, children, especially sons, often worked with their fathers and other members of their family in the trades, learning skills such as weaving, tailoring, and cobbling, and were only considered qualified to marry if they could, through apprenticeship and moving into the family business or a trade guild, support a family.

I've been doing the genealogy for a family that landed in the United States as German immigrants to Pennsylvania after the American Revolution and it is clear on the census that the children were all working by the time they were teens. They may have gone to the first three grades, maybe eight, and then it was time to work at a bakery or as a seamstress.

Children were considered to be adults earlier back in the day, or, as a friend called them "small adults."  While I think teens today feel pressure to grow into adulthood too soon, I also see that parental expectations of their children is that they will not truly be released into adulthood until they are educated and have established careers.  All of this would be considered the indulgence of the rich a hundred or more years ago.

Do you have an opinion?

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FREE PRINT OUT GENEALOGY RESEARCH FORMS - CHARTS and RESEARCH LOGS ? IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED!

I've posted a number of pretty charts that may inspire you when you have completed your research and are ready to calligraphy or print neatly. 

This may surprise you but I don't like ANY of the free research charts that are offered by big genealogy databases or genealogy clubs that I've found. I mean the ones you use while you're doing your research. 

My main reasons are:

NOT ENOUGH ROOM : Lines or boxes too close together. To handprint or type in these you may have to read with a magnifying glass. 

PRESUMPTONS ABOUT HOW MANY CHILDREN BORN IN A FAMILY.  Some family group forms are limited to two pages. There isn't even an option to list more than seven children such as a third or fourth page.

BAPTISMAL DATES MORE IMPORTANT THAN BIRTH DATES. One of my big issues is that the what is more important to genealogy is the birth date.  When every child in the village seems to have been baptized within days of its birth, OK, maybe that's not too far off, but I've found the baptismals that took place months after the birth too. In the databases the baptismal date is being used instead. This means you have to read the originals and go back and forth a few months at least. Some of these forms are overly religious to me.

THE SOLUTION?  Just type it out, neatly, and KEEP CONSISTANT TO YOUR OWN FORMAT.

C 2025 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

FIND A GRAVE CHANGES POLICY TO BE MORE SENSITIVE : OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

FIND A GRAVE, the web site that features volunteers and others posting private information on where a human has been buried, has changed its policy, giving some credence to the sensitivity of living family.  It is not enough.  They have determined that they will allow family to grieve for three months before posting the location of the burial. (FIND A GRAVE WILL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO OBJECT, if you register with them, then they will hold off for a YEAR.)

The lack of privacy in death that the deceased person and their loved ones has makes me feel some outrage at the whole situation - costly burials and the whole lousy funeral industry included. 

Apparently if you are living in the United States, you have about 70 years of privacy when it comes to census records, but almost none in death, and since most people who are alive have family who have died THIS ERODES THEIR PRIVACY TOO.  It is no wonder that fraudsters, including people who call up old widows and try to get their money, operate so easily. They see an obit, do a little research, and soon they have the person's address and phone number thanks to some of the most popular genealogy databases.  It's shameful.

I know someone whose parents were robbed of their life savings by such a fraudster and he knew all sorts of things about them and their children, which the criminal used in his story.  

Someone else I knew, who was in very deep grief over the death of his wife, was solicited by some lonely widows!  (To his credit he joked that he could not move to Florida because there would be even more of them after him there!  He had no interest in dating or remarrying.)

I had this experience years ago when a loved one died after a long, horrible illness. I was still in grief when I found out that the expensively paid for funeral and grave site - supposed to be on HOLY GROUND in a RELIGION-BOUND CEMETERY YET, was posted on FIND A GRAVE.  I recall seeing this on the Internet and a sick feeling spread through my stomach.

Apparently, the whole cemetery had been tramped on as a couple went around taking down information about the tombstones but when? I called the cemetery and tried to express my displeasure and got a snotty person on the phone who did not give a damn. She sure wasn't going to contact these people for me.

This person, who I was calling long distance, previously also did not want to reveal to me where my very own ancestors were buried in the cemetery - apparently it would take a visit to find out. Since then I have to wonder how many cemetery workers just think "go look at the FIND A GRAVE web site!" Since then others have died and been buried in that cemetery and the same thing - the information is exposed to the world! 

It was at that time that I decided if I myself was buried I would NEVER WANT A TOMBSTONE. (We really need to rethink why we need to have a tombstone at all. I don't think too many people actually visit cemeteries and the whole kneeling on the grave, looking at the tombstone and saying prayers thing, which I've witnessed others doing, is something I will not do. That person is gone. The best embalming and the heaviest locked up casket will not stop a body from decaying, be it in the ground or above ground.)  

Though the couple who did this outrageous privacy invading reportage did post that if you objected you could contact them and they would take the information down, I had to wonder how many people even knew what they had done and who they were! Latter Day Saints in a Catholic cemetery?  People who were with the local historical society?  Did they have any family buried in the cemetery?  What about the cemetery management and the church that claims this is Holy Ground - a great place for co-religionists to wait it out until The Second Coming resurrects them?  Maybe Jesus has his own database?

The idea that someone will offend you first, and then if you object, they will backtrack on the Internet yet, which is after all is world-wide, is sort of like when some man you're out on a first date with grabs your breast (or worse) and only if you object will he remove it. In other words, FIND A GRAVE and their cohorts seem to be, like some social networks with empire building agendas, speculatively depend on being caught and you making a fuss rather that ASKING YOUR PERMISSION IN THE FIRST PLACE. That is simply NOT DECENT.  

Further, FIND A GRAVE has turned into a place where people are posting private genealogy information as well: this is something I NEVER do as a professional. It is one thing to find out someone who died in 1906 in Austria is buried at a certain place, another to find out your mother's grave has been revealed. 

Privacy Rules for the Deceased and Their Families should be the same across the board.  Leave the dead to rest in peace and their loved ones alone too! 

There are many other privacy deprivations in place in the world of genealogy including in databases, and you can be sure FIND A GRAVE INFORMATION IS SHOWING UP ON ANCESTRY (The genealogy database: This blog has no relationship with it.) and well, lots of other places, including FAMILY SEARCH. 

I do wonder if FIND A GRAVE just decided to foist all that free, volunteer-given work over to ANCESTRY or if ANCESTRY PAID THEM?  FAMILYSEARCH? There is nothing wrong with contributing your free time and knowledge to a database but they need to be held accountable for privacy invasion. I await the day when someone who has been a victim of crime can point to these sites as to how the criminal found them and hold them accountable.)

Can cemetery sites help you with genealogy?  Certainly.  But let's get PRIVACY LAWS IN PLACE to show respect. Let the person rest in their grave without the world knowing where to locate them until decades have passed.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy.

(By the way, you are under no obligation to publish an obituary, and the funeral businesses putting obits and a plea for commentary and soliciting people to buy flowers and so on the internet, can also be insensitive. If someone has died and you have been informed, the thing to do is make a personal contact with the loved ones, not post on the Internet. If they are not personal enough to you to have been notified, you're just minding other people's business. This solicitation of posting remarks on Internet obits has become a sort of pressured activity, and funeral businesses are behind it.  If you want your privacy in death, be sure that your contract with the funeral home and cemetery include a contract in which they will not post and will not allow your burial site to be revealed!)

 

CURSIVE WRITING BECOMING EXTINCT - EDUCATIONAL DISASTER - DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD!

Today, because of the dependence on the keyboard, typing, and text, school children are not being taught CURSIVE WRITING... HANDWRITTING.

Oh you've read me complain about dealing with bad handwriting on documents and the poor way in which they are read and then typed into databases.  Much of my personal research STILL will not come up on databases and I've wasted so much time trying misspellings!   BUT TO NOT KNOW HOW TO HANDWRITE?

That is an educational disaster.

If your child is one who will not learn to handwrite in school - which usually began I believe in the first grade and used to be taught before or with printing - make it a summer project to teach them.
 


C 2015  Ancestry Worship Genealogy - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

THE BEN AFFLECK - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ? LOUIS HENRY GATES "CONTROVERSY"

This morning I learned that there is a "controversy" because the actor Ben Affleck, who was one of the stars whose family genealogy was explored on the Louis Henry Gates Jr. show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? asked that it not be revealed that some ancestor of his owned slaves.  Apparently when private e-mails were hacked in a recent Hollywood scandal, and these e-mails were publicized, it was discovered that he had asked for this consideration and it was given.

YOU KNOW WHAT? 

I completely agree with what LOUIS HENRY GATES Jr. explained, especially because I have been watching the previous seasons on DVD and my criticism was that there was perhaps too much emphasis on the whole slave - slave owners thing.  Affleck would have been just one more, and well, the rest of his family was more interesting, providing, over all, a more interesting show and series.

I think ANYONE whose personal family history is going to be revealed to the world in these shows SHOULD have a say about what goes on the air.

I wonder how it is that anyone with such fame and the according WEALTH needs to have their genealogy done for free in exchange for their personal family heritage - any of it - and their reactions to it - as entertainment!  Sometimes I've winced watching.

Professional genealogists are expensive but affordable to the well-to-do and the wealthy and being able to trust your genealogist is important.  As is that the genealogist keep to professional behavior which is to report to the person paying for our services.  We are not spies.  We are not scam artists.  We are not reporting into tabloids.  And now we should also have the client sign that they are not using the information for illegal purposes - such as stalking.

Doing it on your own is a middle class - working class endeavor - which is why the subscription databases which are free at so many Family History Centers and Public Libraries - are so appealing.  These databases have opened genealogy up to the masses.

So,  famous people who can afford PRIVACY allow their fame to attract an audience.

I would sure like to see what the contracts signed for the show look like!

The shame is not in Affleck being sensitive.  Other guests with slave owner ancestry appeared to be appropriately mortified, and we are not responsible for what our ancestors did or didn't do anyway.  These days we agree slavery was and is wrong.  DID YOU KNOW THAT MORE WOMEN AND GIRLS ARE SEX TRAFFICKED right now than the entire population of Africans brought to the America's unwillingly? Apparently it is still OK for the female to be the ultimate slave because this would not be happening if men were not buying.

The shame is that e-mail is increasingly useless due to hackers.  It used to be that it saved you a phone bill long distance, but now, these hackers also feel it isn't enough to personally read your life and get to know you so they can set up an Identity Theft, but they want the WORLD to know your business, in an attempt to show off.  Why are not more of them in prison instead of hackers conventions? 

An e-mail that I use in conjunction to this blog has been hacked three times.  Each time it was caught and I changed the passwords.  However, it felt to me like someone - perhaps a genealogy database company - was trying to screw things up for me.  I never ever use the e-mails associated with this blog for anything personal!

C 2015  Ancestry Worship Genealogy - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

NATIVE AMERICAN COUNCIL OFFERING AMNESTY TO 240 MILLION ILLEGAL WHITE IMMIGRANTS IN US : MY OWN LITTLE WARPATH

CITYWORLD NEWS - NATIVE AMERICAN OFFER AMNESTY TO MILLIONS  full article

EXCERPTS

The Native American National Council will offer amnesty to the estimated 240 million illegal white immigrants living in the United States....

“We will give Europeans the option to apply for Native Citizenship,” explained Chief Sauti of the Nez Perce tribe. “To obtain legal status, each applicant must write a heartfelt apology for their ancestors’ crimes, pay an application fee of $5,000, and, if currently on any ancestral Native land, they must relinquish that land to NANC or pay the market price, which we decide.

“Any illegal European who has a criminal record of any sort, minus traffic and parking tickets, will be deported back to their native land. Anybody with contagious diseases like HIV, smallpox, herpes, etc, will not qualify and will also be deported.”

***

When I saw this headline I thought it was a joke.  And I'm still not sure it isn't.  I think it was meant as humor or jest.  I realize it was said to make a point.  The worst thing about it is Anti White Racist.  The kind of Racism that is politically correct these days.

So here's the thing.  I'm one of millions of American's whose ancestors did not own slaves, were not slaves, were not Native American, and did nothing to move or otherwise kill Native Americans.  Yes I am sure.  My bloodline wasn't here early enough to participate. 

So where did this fellow get his figure of 240 million?

What does he plan for the millions who are part Native American by blood?  Will they get a discount?

Will we all have to present our genealogies to some Native American council to prove we have nothing to apologize for?  (Did you know that the Nazi's expected people to turn over their genealogies to prove they had no Jewish blood?)

I've read around and took a college course or two about Native American history and culture and spirituality and know enough to know that all tribes were not - as they seem to be today - united.  In fact some of them battled each other historically, often for resources.  Early settlers who were farm steading and pioneering were, in general, shocked by Native American tactics which seemed excessively brutal compared to the European standards of battle at the time, which felt almost gentlemanly to them in comparison. An example was that some Native Americans killed not just men who were not at war with them, but women and children in attacks that spread fear across the land. 

I've read about the Trail of Tears; one family I researched for had ancestors who were both marched and pointing the guns, as well as some who hid in the hills because before 1840 they were already intermarried with Natives.

It's a stereotype to think that Native Americans were all smoking "peace pipes" and getting along because they were not.  That is all newish as is the New Age adoption and interpretation of the religious beliefs of various tribes. There were more tribes with variant cultures in California and the resources were so good that they seem not to have fought each other for them but some tribes were famous for stealing from other tribes.  And now with gambling and casinos legal on reservations there are issues arising about who can benefit.

When someone tells me they are Native American I ask WHAT TRIBE(S)?  Because I still want to help and direct them towards the best resources for them.  If someone tells me that they want to prove their Native Americaness in order to get tribal benefits including casino rights, I will do my best, but I know that it may take more than the documentation.

Who is Native American and on what basis is now also challenged by DNA tests.

I have no "ancestral crimes" to apologize for here in the US and besides the Biblical "sins of the fathers" warning, I'm not sure ANYONE is responsible for ANYONE ELSE's SOUL - Behavior - or Crimes, unless maybe were talking parents being responsible for their children. 

But let's say that you're doing your genealogy and you find out that someone whose blood flows through you was a criminal back in the day.  They were arrested.  They died in prison.  There is nothing you can do about the past but try to learn from it and try to do better.  I've met those people who unveiled a family secret, that someone killed their wife - domestic violence - or that they were a Nazi.  I even worked with one woman who was pretty sure that she was the result of a Nazi breeding program.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT NOW?

I've helped Native Americans with their genealogy and also have helped White people who know or suspect they are part Native American - even before there was DNA tests.  I've reached out to tribes for help on their end for others who want to track family history and rarely gotten any response.

The question of diseases is also controversial.  I've heard it repeatedly that Whites deliberately killed off Native Americans with smallpox.  This is part of something that can be considered anti-White racism even if it is repeated by college professors with agendas or even printed in some bad books. 

I've heard Whites don't get and die of smallpox and were thus only carriers.  That they went as far as to give Native Americans blankets full of the disease.

THIS DOES NOT HOLD UP SCIENTIFICALLY nor BY DOCUMENTS.

Some of my own White ancestors in the European Country of Hungary are documented to have died of smallpox.  There were horrible killing epidemics there and in other "White" countries.  I've seen Church records of all sorts of epidemics sweeping through Europe... you turn the page and dozens are dying off - cholera - typhus. A village of 200 houses and 50 people are dead in a month or two.  Let's remember the misunderstood plagues.  Medical science is still trying to figure out the flu that killed off millions in the early 20th century.  My own ancestors were spared that though they said that ALL THEIR NEIGHBORS LOST AT LEAST ONE FAMILY MEMBER.  They credited that a priest had blessed their house and marked the door.

There were also smallpox and other epidemics that killed White European people in early America, including the Philadelphia of our founding fathers.  PEOPLE WERE SO FRIGHTENED OF CATCHING IT THAT THEY WOULD ABANDON DIEING FAMILY and come back only after they were dead to bury them.  Ignorance about disease was prevalent then.  We know so much more now.  And with our scientific knowledge we should reconsider repeating this ignorance. Yes, people who have never been exposed to a disease before are often going to die from it, with no "natural resistance" at all.  We await "natural resistance" to Ebola!

C 2015  Ancestry Worship Genealogy - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

WATCHING "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE" ON DVD

The very interesting television series WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE is available on DVD (and some YouTube videos) in case you never saw it, missed some, or want to watch it again.  I just watched the second season in one long sitting, and as a researcher was sensitive to any reveals about how the research had progressed, the obvious tie in with the genealogy database Ancestry, and the various expressions of interest and appreciation which revealed that people vary in what they perceive as important, be it self knowledge or solving a family mystery.

Most viewers (I do hope) know that extensive research beyond the capabilities of the celebrities who travel to talk to professionals, archivists, and go to graveyards, is done and condensed into a show. I think bringing professionals into the research is only right and very smart.  But they are only shown handing over color copied documents which might have taken many hours, weeks or months, to get ahold of.  Then the celebrity is amazed.

One of the problems I found with one episode was a discussion of COLOR (RACE) on census and other documents.  That someone is listed as White, or Mulatto, or Black, seems to be really subjective, even if the instructions to the census taker were fairly clear that when they looked at the person they exhibited certain traits.  The PERCEPTION OF RACE is often dependent on the place and time.  For instance I have found people called Black in the South who moved to Chicago and were considered White on records.    So if I see a W, I don't automatically believe this person has a long European history.

On the show that featured Barbara Walters I learned how important it is to have a researcher who is willing to involve someone else if they cannot, say, read Hebrew off a tombstone.  Barbara had genealogy done by a professional that had hit a brick wall because the Walters surname was not the Hebrew name of her Jewish ancestors.  A local expert went to the cemetery where her father was buried and there on the tombstone was the name.  This also proved that when you hire a second professional, they should go over the previous work of family, volunteers, and other professionals, to get situated, if not to prove or disprove the work.

It has happened to me that in looking over genealogy that a family member did for a client I've seen great leaps of faith presented as documented research and sadly, the family has put their reputation on this when they have to reason or right to, so bringing up the fact that something is speculation presented as fact is sensitive.  Such leaps of faith are sometimes wishful thinking, such as anchoring the family in early colonial America.  DNA sometimes help locate a relative who knows more or has family documents that move the speculation to proof, but often one must accept that they are cornered by the Brick Wall.

I like WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE as a show.  I think it is interesting and useful and inspiring and it does familiarize the viewer with research.

C 2015 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

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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OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY : PRESIDENT OBAMA'S LONG VERSION BIRTH CERTIFICATE RELEASED : ADOPTION and SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

"Questions regarding Obama's birth certificate have persisted for more than two years, as the president noted Wednesday at a press conference announcing the release of his long-form birth certificate. A vast array of evidence attests to Obama's citizenship--including a certificate of live birth, signed affidavits from people who viewed Obama's long-form birth certificate, confirmation by Hawaiian officials, and independent investigations by news outlets. Nevertheless, "this thing just keeps going" as Obama said this morning. Even after the White House released the long-form certificate of Obama's birth, birther leader Orly Taitz—who has filed unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to obtain access to Obama's birth certificate—sought to cast doubt on the document's authenticity, suggesting that in 1961, Hawaiian officials would have classified Obama as "Negro" rather than using designation "African," which suggests, in her view, a more contemporary concern for "political correctness." Link to the Yahoo article above.

ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY OPINION HERE:

What surprises me most about this controversy is that it is occurring so far along in the President's term of office and is being used as a method by his opponents and competitors, to discredit him, even impeach him. IF THERE WERE EVER A QUESTION OF HIS BIRTH LOCATION, and QUALIFICATIONS it should have happened when he applied to run for President.

When there are adoptions, a second birth certificate is usually given to the adoptive parents, and the adopted child must reach adulthood to petition (variant by location) for the ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE. But if the child grows to adulthood and is never told they are adopted, they may not have a clue (or interest) in searching for the ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE. In addition, in many cases special circumstances may apply, such as if a child is born on a military base in another country or at an American Consulate, or while on a boat or aircraft ABOVE a country in which case the birth may be considered to be the place the parents are citizens, rather than the country they are flying over or from or to!

In many locations throughout the world, and in the United States, it was not required by civil law to have a birth certificate at all, or until after 1900. For instance, many births are ONLY RECORDED IN FAMILY BIBLES or, especially if there was a mid-wife delivering the child who may or may not have filed the birth for immigrant parents, and may or may not have been able to read or write or spell!

So Let's Leave our President Obama To Concentrate on his Job! The chances are he has never had any worry or concern over the circumstances of his birth in Hawaii, his multi-racial heritage, OR that he would be disqualified for Presidency. For good reason. He's honest.

Christine