So, my sister entered a few family names on the Family Search site. I forgot that it's LDS. I was just looking at it and can see info she's entered that I gave her.

We've probably discussed this here before at some time but I forget: Does the Mormon Church use that info for dead dunkings and other reasons?

If so, that would kinda bug me. I want to let my sister know.

If you change your mind and want to expunge the names do they let you do that?

Personally, I'm fascinated with what you can find on family search. The site has answered many questions I've had about ancestors

I would think that if they know enough to post it, they can already have it and can use it for dead dunking.

There are other records - military, census, foreign baptismal records.

The posted family stories about traveling, daily life are interesting although you have to take them with a grain of salt as they talk about the blessings and inspiration of the gospel.

If there's someone in your family who is Mormon, then yes. Those names of the dead will be used to do work in the temple.

I do not know if they can be removed. If you don't have anyone Mormon in your family who would do that work, I wouldn't worry about it. If you DO have someone Mormon in your family, how much monitoring are you going to do on the site to make sure that those names aren't added again by that temple-going family member?

I think the important thing to note, if you believe in the afterlife, is that Mormonism is a sex cult scam, and someone doing baptisms for your dead is meaningless. Like, even by religious rites standards, Mormonism was fabricated by a colonial era scifi writer and pervert. It's not actually doing anything other than making living people wet.

On the legal side of things... I'm not sure what you could do. It's important to ask, if long dead relatives work is done, are they now listed as members of Mormonism in their records on Family search and other genealogy sites? Is there anything you can do about that?

Edit: also, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for any of this to come across as glib. I was thinking matter of factly and reread it and realized I come off sorta snotty to you and that wasn't my intent. I was typing out loud while trying to think through the different possible scenarios you might have to reasonably deal with.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2023 07:48PM by blackcoatsdaughter.

No worries. I didn't notice any snottiness! If someone wants to be snotty to me they have to give me a heads-up as I'm clueless that way.

So you're all right. :)

No, that information is very useful. Thank you.

Nobody in my family is Mormon. Thankfully. I realize it means nothing when they do "the work" for people who are dead. I was just feeling sensitive there thinking about my grandparents' names being uttered inside a Mormon temple. Really though, worse things happen at sea, eh?

I was feeling guilty for a sec as I'm the one who gave my sis the names. I didn't realize she was going to the Mormon site. I don't think she knew it either and didn't intend it, for sure.

When I went in to the site earlier today and they want more info about me and then they want to start sending me stuff and get me more involved in the site and, of course, are hungry for more names, a faint alarm bell went off in my head (finally!) and that's when I realized it's the Mormon site.

I would rather use one that doesn't have an obvious ulterior motive. (Even if Family Search doesn't, it seems like it would or could).

I also don't want to send sibs and other relatives to that site and get them involved.

The family tree stuff I can get/do in other ways and places. Funny coincidence though that that's the site my sis selected when we started talking about family history. Maybe it's the first one that came up in a search and so she just went with it and added in all our greats' and great-greats' names.

Oh well. So far, as you say, the world is still turning...

Thanks for the info you've written. I appreciate it.

blackcoatsdaughter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If there's someone in your family who is Mormon,
> then yes. Those names of the dead will be used to
> do work in the temple.

I remember now that they asked me when I was going to church to give them my grandparents' names, which I did, and they did tell me the names would be used for dead dunks. I didn't really think much about it at the time, until I went to the temple and then at some point shortly after left the church (after a very brief stint there) and then I regretted giving them the names for dead-dunking.

So, as far as I understood, they want to baptize everybody, not just members or even just members' relatives. Plus, apparently, they use the same names over and over. Did I get that part right?

To say nothing about obits. I've heard they use names from obits. Is that correct? I was thinking that first, it may be what they really believe has to happen and second, it gives them something to do when they get to the temple. Because if you're only using the names of relatives of members you're going to run out at some point, right?

How many times does God have to call the roll up yonder before he starts to ask "haven't I seen that name before?" Once should be enough, you'd think.

The church will use names from any place they can find them. They have "volunteers" that will search out names

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/youth/activities/new/indexing?lang=eng

They believe that everyone who has ever lived (or will live) must have temple ordinances performed in order to have a chance at reaching the CK. Those ordinances must be performed on Earth. Of course, that is not possible as there have been billions of people who lived on Earth for whom there are absolutely no records.

They definitely reuse names. For example, Hitler has been done multiple times

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2424835,2424848#msg-2424848

[|] Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> They definitely reuse names. For example, Hitler
> has been done multiple times
>
> https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2424835
> ,2424848#msg-2424848


Ugh

Etc

Everything I know about the names used in the temple has come from church sources, so, my knowledge is incomplete at best and an outright lie(told to me) at worst.

I was always told that the names I take to the temple could only be related to me to avoid legal troubles. However, I have NEVER done genealogy. Any time I have ever gone to the temple, it has been with names "loaned" to me by friends and family. I almost always did endowments and never baptisms, so, I usually just needed one per visit.

I don't think on an individual level that those names are getting redone over and over. It was like a complete quest video game for my friends and family who were into it. Constantly trying to fill out more and more names in the records of the family tree to get new names to do. I have never heard of any of them just taking names from any old place to go to the temple? The whole tag line is that it is about the feeling of doing something for your ancestors.

However, I'm not alone in having zero interest in doing genealogy. It seemed pretty niche in the wards I've been in, for people to be occupied doing the work. Like, you find one or two people OBSESSED with it, who talk about nothing else, then 5-6 others who get only enough of their chart done to go to an occasional ward temple trip.

So, I think about everyone else who was like me. My fathers side of the family is untouched by Mormons, as far as I know. Whereas my mother's side, full of Mormons, is likely done to death(pun intended). Are there some lines that just are cut off because there's no Mormons on that side? My mother and father aren't doing the genealogy, so there's no one motivated on this root to do it. The buck stops wth us. Like, my aunts and uncles on my mom's side wouldn't be doing MY genealogy would they? Because even though they're related to ME, they're not related to any of my dad's relatives.

Then again, if they really can just dunk anyone, then I suppose it's all moot. People like to bring up Hitler and Anne Frank but I'm pretty sure that's why they started having the "only folks you're related to" rule. Because it was making Jewish people and other faiths really angry to have their relatives baptized. Somehow there is a loophole if the one doing it is directly related to the one being baptized.

https://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Local_Support/Consultant/Temple_Policy-Name_Submissions/resources/assets/fil/z00001w00000000000a0/Name-Policies-lesson-handout.pdf

Notice this loophole

"If you are not one of the closest living relatives, you must obtain permission to submit the name of any
individual born less than 110 years ago."

So if you can dig up a name for someone born over 110 years ago, you can submit it.

I have never submitted a name. My mom was one of OCD Devout when it comes to genealogy. She had a certificate for when she passed 5,000 submissions. Ponderize that for a minute.

I can no longer ask her for details, but as I recall, the restrictions on only submitting names of direct ancestors and their close kin only applies to people only relatively recently deceased. I thought the requirement is that they had to be dead for less than 110 years for the restrictions that you had to be a closest living relative, or have permission of the closest living relative.

If they have been dead for over 110 years, there is no longer a closest living relative as per the LDS Inc priority list, to contact for permission. They would all be dead too.

As for getting the ordinances undone, I think there is zero chance of succeeding at that, except in special cases like Jewish holocaust victims, where there was a lawsuit, and revocation was part of the settlement. It's damn near impossible to get your own temple sealing cancelled unless you are a woman remarrying in the temple. Getting a baptism or endowment undone for someone that has been dead for a hundred or more years, i think LDS Inc will simply ignore you.


I am a little puzzled by the statement on the church's website that you must obtain permission unless the person was born more than 110 years ago. I thought that the person had to have died at least 110 years ago, the rationale being that all the "closest living relatives" would also be dead after 110 years. I further thought that any person dead for more than 110 years could have their name submitted by any member. You no longer had to be related to the person.

I know my mom didn't have genealogy records on 5,000 ancestors. If anybody knows a currently active LDS genealogist, I'd love to get clarification on that. I'm almost sure you can submit names of people you are not related to if they have been dead long enough. Or at least I think that used to be the rule.

My records are all messed up on that site. After my Dodge letter and final letter of leaving they removed my user name. But when they tried to remove the tree it skewed the information. So I never said anything. Every couple of years I poke in there and the info is all messed up.

Interesting. I can't see why they would remove ordinary genealogical information (i.e. births, deaths, family relationships,) because that is public information that can be found on a number of sites.

Many years ago I saw on Family Search that my nevermo maternal great-grandmother had been dead-dunked twice by some busybody in New York state (she had no Mormon ancestors or descendants.) Then the church made it so that I no longer had access to that particular information. Although I realize the dead-dunking carries no particular meaning, at the same time I was upset about it because I consider it disrespectful in the same manner that Jewish people consider it disrespectful.

It was removed before the site had public access. You had to be a member to use it. I did call and ask where my tree was but was told it was removed when I left. Now some wives are shown as kids and kids on wrong generation. I never pushed it.

My family records are all messed up too. Number and ages of wives. One girl married to a father and then to a son. At least there was a divorce first (eyeroll).

My conclusion after using Family Search (or whatever they are calling it nowadays,) is that Mormons do sloppy genealogy, at least when it comes to strangers. That irritates me. Either make an effort to get it right, or leave it to people who care about their departed ancestors.

I used family search quite a few years ago. It was when they first began putting genealogical info online for people other than mormons to search. Probably hoping to hook them into the church through their research or something. I don't recall ever having to have a membership or be signed in in those days.

The site didn't provide explicit info about ordinances that had been performed or anything, but somebody told me that if an ancestor was listed in the IGI it was an indication that they had been dead dunked by someone. I don't know if that was accurate. In any case I always looked for that notation on the records I was searching, and found my grandparents and their parents. My immediate family were the only ones who had ever joined the church, and none of us were active, so any ordinances must have been performed by random people.

Eventually, one of my brothers and I had our names removed. Our parents were already deceased, so by default they died "as members" (in name only) and I'm sure that any ordinances they didn't have performed in life have been done by somebody. We were resigned to that. Our older brother wasn't bothered by it though and never had his name removed. He died suddenly in 2006, and about a week after he died, once the funeral and all had been dealt with, I sat down at my computer and checked his name out on family search. I was curious to see if he would show up, but thought it was probably too soon for a record to have been created, as he hadn't had anything to do with mormonism for 40 odd years.

To my amazement he was already on the rolls, in the IGI, and referred to in what was termed a "record of a deceased member of the church" (I'm paraphrasing, it was a long time ago.) My stomach leaped a little and I sat there stunned. The first word out of my mouth was "Vultures!". They couldn't wait even a little bit of time to reclaim him and to proclaim it. I have no doubt he has had all ordinance performed, whether he'd have wanted them or not. As said in an above post, it doesn't matter really, it's all made up. But it rankles a little still.

As I mentioned above, there was a window of time long ago when even nevermos could see ordinances performed for dead ancestors. I was stunned to see my paternal great grandmother in there. There were no Mormons anywhere in her family line that I knew of. She had all of her children baptized into the Episcopal church.

Her ordinances were performed in the Palmyra, N.Y. temple -- twice. And whoever did them got her birth and death dates off by a day or two -- twice. The sloppiness annoyed me (on top of the fact that someone dead-dunked her who was not a direct descendant of hers, and who had no business interfering with my family's beliefs, history, etc. whatsoever.)

She had deep roots in New England that included a Revolutionary War ancestor, and William Bradford of the Mayflower. Our family history included people from Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. She herself was born and raised in Vermont. I checked to see if she was anywhere near where Joseph Smith was born, but she was not. I have no idea who found her records, or why she was of any interest to the Mormons.

But as I mentioned before, I do find the fact the the Mormons did her ordinances without the permission of her direct ancestors to be very, very disrespectful. No wonder the church leadership took to hiding this information.

I'm also a descendant of William Bradford.

It is quite possible your ancestor's name popped up in the paperwork people submit to be part of the Mayflower Society or similar organization.

My son actually joined first. He convinced me to join since all I had to submit was a note I was the father of a member.

Any TBM that joined could conceivably have gotten a lead on other members.

The brother whose records you found right after his funeral had to have been a member when he died, however inactive he may have been. Family members still have to wait a year after death before doing temple work for a deceased relative.

That is true even if the deceased was a member, and you want to do an endowment session for them. One year wait is mandatory. There might be an exception if the deceased already had a current temple recommend at the time of death. Knowing the answers to questions like that is way above my pay grade.

If you are of european descent the chances of having mormon relatives is great. They may be 4-100th cousins but they still share your ancestors.

Imy afraid that one doesn't need to worry about that. They have so-called "researchers" whose only job it is to find vital records and lists of dead people who they just baptise willy-nilly.

Yep and in the future let AI sort out the dead.

While I was ex-ed by the church many years ago, I do appreciate the good it has done for genealogy over time. It may be the one good thing lds has done. Recently, FamilySearch changed it's set up, so if you choose to allow your family tree to be part of the World Tree it is public and the end result is to include everybody that ever lived.

My nevermo cousin is a genealogy/history hound and subscribed to all those sites. She's been a big help in my birth family search but I won't subscribe. The less they know about me the better.