My wife's uncle changed any dates on his family tree whenever he found evidence of a child being conceived or born out of wedlock, just to make sure that his genealogy appears "pure" to anyone who might see it. Do any of you have relatives who are this anal about their family history?

Yes, and it's one of the reasons why mormon genealogy is considered to be essentially worthless (another being the push to extend back to Adam & Eve).

Both the child's birth date and the marriage dates were dicked around with so many times that no one knew what actually happened (the events happened way back in the 1890s), until I discovered the true story with documentation. Still, I gave up trying to fix it because of the "oh no, my sainted ancestor could NEVER have done anything like that!" mormons.

FamilySearch, like Ancestral File and the International Genealogical Index before it, is a dumpster fire. The church ruins everything it touches.

Any person can go in and alter the church’s family search stuff. I asked the head of our genealogy gig why someone could keep going in and changing what I put for my family under my sign on, which was what was happening. She said anyone can go in and delete a whole lineage if they want. She said it’s absolute chaos.

Kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any person can go in and alter the church’s
> family search stuff. I asked the head of our
> genealogy gig why someone could keep going in and
> changing what I put for my family under my sign
> on, which was what was happening. She said
> anyone can go in and delete a whole lineage if
> they want. She said it’s absolute chaos.

--------------------

So go in and add a Neanderthal or really odd line to their files? Hermaphrodite cross dressing midget gunrunner for Hitler, maybe?

A church member (or members) dead-dunked my nevermo great-grandmother on two occasions. On both occasions the dates of her birth and/or death were off by a day or two. To me, those actions were disrespectful not only of her own religious choices, but also of my nevermo family and our genealogy.

This is why I have a problem with dead-dunking outside of your own family line. If you dead dunk your own ancestors, at least they are your family. But keep your hands off of my nevermo family. The Mormons don't have any right to do that. They don't have any right to mess up the genealogy of people who carry no meaning for them. They have no say whatsoever in our religious choices. I feel the same way about it that the Jewish people do. It's an obnoxious, disrespectful, religious practice.

This was common in the UK in the 20th century, I think. When my grandmother died, some time after my grandfather, we came across their marriage certificate. It was 2 months later than they had told their children... My mother, their eldest, didn't like to be reminded of this ;-)

And then I gave her three grandchildren conceived and born out of wedlock ;-)

Luckily, by then, it didn't "matter" to society so much. As an aside, people who idolize the past should not forget how just plain nasty things were.

The church had me listed as deceased because they mixed me up with my brother. Unfortunately my mom corrected it and next thing I know, I’m getting contacted by the missionaries.

Were you baptized before they listed you as dead, or did they baptize you during the time you were dead to them?

I do a lot of genealogy and I've noticed a lot of family trees don't include multiple wives.

Yep. My sister had a baby when young and out of wedlock. Not only did she lie about the identity of the father on the birth certificate, there is no mention of the baby at all in our Mormon genealogy.

My other sister adopted kids and followed her own line of genealogy because the kids were "sealed" to her. Their biological mother is barely a footnote.

I don't understand why people put so much confidence in their genealogy research. Women have been lying about who fathered their kids for centuries. Some estimates are one in 10. Add that to genealogy following the paternal line instead of the maternal line over generations and you are likely to be barking up the wrong tree. DNA can do a lot to clear things up nowadays.

The only real good reason I can think of for researching family trees is to see if you carry a gene that can cause a major disease or disability to your offspring, and, usually, you don't need to go back a lot of generations for that. While changing the birth dates of your ancestors for the sake of purity won't affect this reason for genelogical research, lying about who fathered a child most certainly will.

Only for her family. Her mother was a convert and she worked on that line. My mother would NEVER even consider changing dates or lying on the genealogy sheets.

I looked up my boyfriend's great grandfather and his family after we dated in 1978 and we parted ways. I kept that info for all the years in between 1978 and when we reconnected 17 years ago. He took the info I had found at the genealogy library in SLC to his parents. His dad's family is mostly mormon, but his immediate family was not, so he was raised not mormon, but he had a lot of genealogy and had done some himself. He saw what I had found in the lds records and the pictures were not right and so were a lot of the dates according to what records he had and what his family had.

Is your wife's uncle my brother? I did the same thing at least once.

That should be HE, not I.

Ther was a time on the American frontier when there was no preacher available to perform marriages. it was not uncommon for a couple to just move in together and whenever a preacher came by they would marry.
It happened to an ancestor of mine in missouri



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2022 10:26AM by thedesertrat1.

First rule of genealogy.

First kid can come at anytime.

All others take nine months.

As far as altering.

If the child was premature it would of course come early.

If the source record was either wrong or entered incorrectly the modifying it further would only muddy the waters.
This would apply to the marriage date as well.

If the bride was widowed and pregnant by her first husband when married the second husband. This occurs in my family tree.
Disease wiped out a lot of people in an isolated village. Some quick shifting and consolidation occured. Was odd to see a child on the record with a different father than the one his mother was married to at the time. This occured in new England area late 1600s.