I got a message on Facebook yesterday from someone I didn't know, but since I own a small business and freelance a bit, this isn't an unusual occurrence. This woman and I had no mutual connections, and her profile showed she lives in a neighboring town. Here's how our conversation went (her name is Emily):

E: Hey westernwillows, I have a random question.

Me: Sure. Ask away.

E: So I've been asking people if they know where your grandparents and great grandparents were from? Where does your family tree trace back to? :))

E: I'm trying to learn about family history!

Me: My family history? Why?

E: Well, I was just curious to know how many people actually know about their own

Me: It seems like a strange question to ask someone you don't know.

E: OK sorry!

The term "family history" is the first thing that sent up a red flag for me. Does anyone outside the Mormon church even use that term?

The other thing that threw me off is "I've been asking people if they know where YOUR grandparents and great grandparents came from." She made it sound like she was interested in me, specifically, rather than family history in general. It came off very stalker-like. Poor choice of language. I would have engaged with her a bit if her question had been worded differently. More general. Because as a good Mormon girl, I did, in fact, research my family history because all Young Women do.

Is this the new way the church is reaching out to people? Everything about the short encounter screams Mormon.

I thought missionaries proudly ID'd themselves as such in their profiles on FB?

Honesty, I've never looked. The girl's profile picture certainly makes her look like a sister missionary with a floral dress reminiscent of dresses I wore to church in the late 1990s. But apparently 90s fashion is back, so I can't really say if she is a missionary or not.

As a nevermo, I would use the term genealogy. I never heard the term family history before I came to this board. I agree, that's a very odd way to reach out to a random stranger.

I hear my nevermo friends use the term "genealogy" but an interest in it is pretty rare among them.

One guy, he said he was a relative, but he would be very distant if true. He wanted the names and addresses of all my siblings and cousins and ages and all sorts of stuff. I told him no.

Another relative in law, appears to be kind of a dog or graffiti artist. She takes anything I tell her or write and puts it on various geneology sites. She can't even spell names right. Cut her off.

Weird.

I have had four (4) different people that I am friends with on FB do posts in the past 4 to 6 weeks that are nothing more than proselyting for the church. Each one had a different approach. But ALL appear to be scripted by someone else, as they all had the same tone and feel to them. I am sure this is the "new" missionary program. Rather than send kids out and get zilch in return, they will just get members to flood all their social media pages with these messages.

For reference, three of the four are 60 and older and the fourth is in her 40's. Three are female, and one was male.

The girl who messaged me appears to be in her early 20s. Certainly missionary age.

A few years ago I had my DNA tested, in a search for my biological maternal grandparents (my mother was adopted as an infant from a home for unwed mothers). Since then I get messages from the DNA service notifying me that they have connected me up with another person's DNA, and give me that person's email address.

Naturally, I contact that person and ask if he or she can let me see a pedigree, since we know (from other sources) the actual names of her bio parents and their place of residence, and I am looking for their ancestors in others' family trees.

So, in that situation, I am asking essentially the same question that the OP is objecting to. And I am not a Mormon missionary.

But I bet you mention the basis of your inquiry in the first paragraph of your email, letting them know from whence you obtained their contacte info.

I don't see it as being apples to apples... But then I've been certified by the American Breeders Association as a jerk.

Yes, but I'm sure you explained the situation.

What sent up red flags was that she said she was interested in "your family history" meaning mine. If she had said she was interested in family history in general and was reaching out to people to survey if they knew about their own, I probably would have engaged in conversation with her. Her language came off very stalker-like, which is what sent up the red flags. I have porn shoulders in my profile picture so I'm sure she suspected I was a nevermo and she could bait me in.

Imagine with that dishonest introduction being the taught the complete truth.

I located a man who had the same last name (ours is not terribly common) and reached out by identifying myself and my lineage. I told him the state and cities we were from. Then I asked if there was any chance we might be from the same family tree.

He was polite and responded that his father and grandfather did not come from that state or city. I thanked him for responding and ended the communication.

Yes, your encounter sounds like missionary work is getting desperate for ways to make contacts.

I think you are right that it is likely a member that contacted you.
If they were a missionary they would have Identified themselves as such.

More than likely they are a member who was assigned a job and given no real instructions on how to accomplish it. So they work somehow with genealogy and family history, they have a list of names and they are reaching out in an amateurish style ( something reminiscent of an newly minted MLM drone).

They aren't good with people and they were told to work with people to accomplish some genealogy related goal. You probably won't hear from them again and they will be moved out of their calling into something more their speed in a few months.

The real question is where did she get your contact info?
What list are you on?

Our towns are approximately 100 miles apart, so I doubt that I appeared on some ward list (I officially resigned in 2009).

I suspect she came across my profile in a Facebook group and decided I might be a good prospect since I have porn shoulders in my profile picture and am clearly not LDS.

that is a new (digital age/ social media) approach .....to the same old scam of barging into people's personal affairs while trying to pretend that there is some legit reason of familiarity to do it ......as a lead in to try to sell them something ...... and all forms of scamery are currently doing it/ engaging in it, not just the MORmON church, even so that is in NO WAY any excuse by me for the BS tactics that DISGUSTING LDS inc does employ...... IF you are asking me. LDS Inc operatives should be in prison for stealing..... right along with harassing cold call phone solicitors

Yes, indeed "family history" is used outside the church. It nay have spread from there.

I hear it used on TV for example.

To be blunt, many people are semi-literate these days, so using "family history" is easier than a word like "genealogy". It is part of a bigger trend:

Biology et al -> Life sciences
Geology et al -> Earth sciences
Biography -> Life stories

There's a touch of Newspeak about it, but it's hardly unique.

As a missionary, we were taught all sorts of disingenuous ways to approach people. It disgusted me. You have to do a giant mental somersault to think that you are doing it for a higher purpose but some stick the landing.

Nothing has changed. It is anything to get a contact goes and the trouble is these tactics are coming straight from General Authorities themselves along with promises from the Lord that if missionaries take this dishonest approach they will be blessed.

And if you don't, it is because you aren't being obedient to "higher" instructions. Yet, the first chance the GA gets called on the carpet for it - the missionary, um, must uh, um misunderstood what was said. That's the ticket!

If this is a new missionary tactic, it might be backfiring.

A family member has been home for a couple of years. She likes to post about things she misses from her foreign mission and she gets a lot of responses from other missionaries. Randomly I clicked on one of those who responded and on her FB feed was an alarming post that a current sister missionary posted. She sounded desperate. Seems that they are being instructed to flood social media with "spiritual messages" --kind of a shotgun approach to tracting. Well, some of those posts are attracting all kinds of very unwanted attention including marriage proposals and naughty photos from people and so forth. She really sounded alarmed and said that it is really messing with her mental health.

What in the world is TSCC thinking if that is the way they are now asking the missionaries to spread the gospel???

My friends son is now serving a mission in US, he was overseas in a very remote environment and his mission was essentially closed down and he was shipped to a mission in a rural area in US. They are ordered to find 20 new contacts a week through social media that might turn into teaching contacts. They don't identifiy themselves as missionaries but join facebook and other discussion groups of various interests and try to make "friendships" that they can exploit. These groups are for hobbies that the missionary doesn't currently partake in, but they might have previous knowledge or experience.

I also have a friend in Europe who says he keeps getting messages from a mormon missionary who wants to do yard work for him or his mother. His mother is creeped out and he was asking me if I knew who he could contact to have it stopped. I forwarded his messages to the mission president. I heard back that the mission president is missing in action and stuck in the US and can't enter the mission. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

We all need to relax.

This is unfolding just as ghawd intended. None of this, not one bit of it, is a surprise to ghawd's living prophet, Russel Milhaus Nelson, M.D., Pr.D. (Doctor of Prophesy)

The gospel is filling the entire Earth!!! It's unstoppable!!

The waters of baptism are overflowing their fonts and they are running out of folding chairs for the overflow areas!

What a great time to be a stormin' mormon!!!

Give me an M!

Give me an O!

Give me an R!

Give me an M!

Give me ...

... hey! Where did everybody go?

After you advertised for it, everyone moved to the Totalitalian Polite State.

I'll miss them but will probably be okay if you'd pass the salad dressing, Cesar.

This is the first time I have had a post on one thread answered by addressing that post in a totally unrelated thread.

You go, Girl!!!

Your post was such a gem, before it disappeared into the Maw of Moderation, that I thought it should be given a second chance at life.

Carry on, Cesar. I'll see you just this side of the Rubicon!

Okay, I confirmed that my gem, as you so kindly put it, did vanish, a victim of politics.

Very decent of you, ma'am. You're my kind 'o broad.

Nothing's new in Mormonism, well...

They're just scraping the bottom of the barrel: the best and brightest amongst us (those who wouldn't think anything of tscc, much less anything appropriate).