Ancestry.com and the Mormon Church

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Marie5890 said:
I am unfamiliar with the legal ruling you are referring to. Can you point me to it please? 🙂
Thanks.
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Sorry, heard it on a news broadcast yesterday did not catch which news?🤷

But this is not the first one who objected to an LDS baptism of ancestors.
 
Gabriel_of_12 said:
Sorry, heard it on a news broadcast yesterday did not catch which news?🤷

But this is not the first one who objected to an LDS baptism of ancestors.
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Oh ok. I understand now. 🙂

No, there was no legal ruling.
There was a 1995 agreement between the LDS church and members of the Jewish community to remove the names of Holocaust survivors and victims who had had proxy work done.

I was confused when you said

"I found that very interesting, how Mormons are able to comly their spiritual faith to secular laws? "

No secular laws were broken or a compliance with any secular legal ruling.

What WAS violated was the agreement that was between the LDS Church and members of the Jewish community. 🙂
 
LOL I remember the Mormons also baptized Hitler and Anne Frank as well I believe…

No doubt it’s highly innapropriate and those concerned should have thought about the controversy before going ahead with it, which I suspect, may be partially done in order to bring attention to themselves
 
Aaronmc90 said:
LOL I remember the Mormons also baptized Hitler and Anne Frank as well I believe…

No doubt it’s highly innapropriate and those concerned should have thought about the controversy before going ahead with it, which I suspect, may be partially done in order to bring attention to themselves
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I would give them the benefit of the doubt…they were seeking to “offer” them a chance at redemption…at least according to Mormon belief any way…I don’t think “bringing attention to themselves” was the goal…but in their estimation an act of charity.
 
Corvus_Corax said:
Wiki is not exactly an unassailable source of the truth. Anyone can add information to a wiki.
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The Salt Lake City crew routinely denies any association with any business.

You see… a few years ago they were investigated by Congress for unfair business practices and monopolies.
 
SteveVH said:
I could really care less whether the Mormons “baptize” me after I die. I have already been baptized into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and an indelible mark has been placed upon me. Mormon baptism is invalid anyway, according to my Church. I’m really not sure what all the hoopla is about. Basically, it has no effect.
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It has no effect, but it is not benign.

Your grandchildren look at some website and find out that Grandpa Steve was a Mormon and next thing you know, they are giving some thought to Mormonism. After all, if grandpa Steve was a Mormon, maybe there is something to it, right?

I know very little about the Mormon faith, but I really don’t care what faith it is. I wouldn’t want some Satanist using my name in some ritual, nor would I want Islamists, nor Hindus, and the same goes for the Mormons. I’ll thank them very much just to leave me alone and die a Mormon heretic, or whatever they call it.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
It has no effect, but it is not benign.

Your grandchildren look at some website and find out that Grandpa Steve was a Mormon and next thing you know, they are giving some thought to Mormonism. After all, if grandpa Steve was a Mormon, maybe there is something to it, right?

I know very little about the Mormon faith, but I really don’t care what faith it is. I wouldn’t want some Satanist using my name in some ritual, nor would I want Islamists, nor Hindus, and the same goes for the Mormons. I’ll thank them very much just to leave me alone and die a Mormon heretic, or whatever they call it.

-Tim-
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Tim,

I do understand your point, but no website would show that Grandpa Steve was really Mormon.

What it would show was that Grandpa had died and a person by the name of John Brown was baptized in his stead, in a certain temple, on a specific date.

Or at the very least, a proxy baptism had taken place, after his death.
 
I found this on another discussion board.

Aren’t the mormons going against their own scriptures by doing this?

Alma 34:32-35 Those who die without being baptized in this life are too late, there is nothing that can be done later:

I would LOVE for someone to explain that one. 😃
 
A little late to announce but:
Do Mormons really baptize their ancestors has been merged with this thread
 
twopekinguys said:
I found this on another discussion board.

Aren’t the mormons going against their own scriptures by doing this?

Alma 34:32-35 Those who die without being baptized in this life are too late, there is nothing that can be done later:

I would LOVE for someone to explain that one. 😃
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Interesting.
Do Mormons use the Protestant argument against infant Baptism that the infant has no say in his or her Baptism, and can only be Baptized when they reach the ‘age of reason’?
Because uh…the the departed have no say so either.
 
JustaServant said:
BTW, has ANYBODY found any conclusive evidence, beyond Wikipedia, that Ancestry.com is not owned by the Mormon church?
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Ancestry.com is a publicly traded company, it’s listed on the NASDAQ as ACOM. Here is the NASDAQ Ownership summary I suppose if you looked into who the top stockholders are you’d be able to see if it is owned by the LDS church. I am clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff but it looks to me that while it’s possible that the LDS church could invest in Ancestry.com, they don’t "own"it.
 
A public company is public, so presumably any of us could own some of it. If your mutual fund invested in it, for example, you might own some and not know it. As to controlling the company, it often doesn’t take a lot (say 5%-10% or less) of shares to control the company, just depends on who holds what.

Update: In their SEC filings it lists an investor called “Spectrum Equity Investors V, L.P.” as having about a 21% stake in ancestry.com

ir.ancestry.com/sec.cfm
 
Don’t delude yourself into thinking and please don’t try to convince yourself that ancestry.com is anything other than a Mormon organization.

There are other groups that will supply the same if not better information.
 
MisterCorduroy said:
They take geneology very seriously, but they use the information to “baptize the dead”. Catholic parishes were told not to allow Mormons to look through their baptismal records for this reason. Many Mormons who had their ancestors posthumously baptized will update their Ancestry.com info as being baptized Mormon. I have a friend who was surprised to see her Irish grandmother listed as being Mormon!
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Being baptized posthumously does not automatically make one a Mormon. The ordinance must be accepted by the person and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

How does she know her grandmother was not baptised into the LDS Church? Many Irish were baptised in the 1840s. We don’t go around changing historical documents.
 
agnes_therese said:
There seems to be a certain amount of paranoia on this thread. Ancestry.com is a business. They are in the business of selling access to records that can help you trace your family tree – census, military, bmd, etc. Many of these records are available elsewhere, but would require a lot of hunting down, travel expense, etc.

No one, even the most dedicated genealogist, is obligated to use them. And having been a subscriber for years, and worked in an internet community of thousands of other subscribers, I have never seen any evidence that they use subscribers’ research for their baptisms. If anyone has such evidence, that would make for a much more impressive post than calling them silly names.

I mean, really – Purple Spaghetti Monster cult?
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I believe your comments are honest and accurate. Thanks.
 
Publisher said:
I would give them the benefit of the doubt…they were seeking to “offer” them a chance at redemption…at least according to Mormon belief any way…I don’t think “bringing attention to themselves” was the goal…but in their estimation an act of charity.
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Thank you for your kind remarks my Quaker friend. Sorry to hear you have been suspended.
 
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