Tracing Your Ancestors in Church or Synagogue Records

The Mormons do genealogical work as part of their religious activities called Temple Work. The concept a non-Mormon would most readily recognize is "baptism for the dead" which is mentioned in  1 Corinthians 15:29. What "baptism for the dead" might actually mean is not an object of discussion in this particular post.

I am not a Mormon and it is not necessary for you to be a Mormon to be interested in your family history. Your ancestry is a large part of who you are. It is your link to history. You love your parents. Why not also learn of and love your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents?

There are many techniques genealogists use to trace family relationships. One of them is studying church and synagogue records. These are as much primary source records as are public civil records.

Jewish genealogy seems to present particular problems since there is very little centralization of the records. The following repositories may be helpful: The Center for Jewish History, the American Jewish Archives at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, the Douglas Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center, and the Jewish Genealogical Center. The New York Public Library has a Jewish Genealogy Collection. If your family has a long connection with a particular synagogue there may be records available of some family specific information.

Christian church records are also highly fragmented because of the existence of over 200 different religious denominations in the United States alone. 

Many of today's Christian religious denominations have gone through highly contentious times, with multiple mergers, splits, mutinies, power battles, excommunications, shunnings, relocations, etc. Many splinter groups declared themselves to be the original pre-split group. The groups often took with them as many historical documents as possible. Lawsuits over ownership of property and documents produced court records which are also primary historical source material.

Organizational records may include payroll information, property rental and purchase documents, tax records, employment records, records of disciplinary actions, chains of command and job descriptions, etc. The records may also contain personal records (births, marriages, deaths, burials, consecrations, and ordinations.

When individuals shifted their allegiance from one group to another their church-held vital genealogical records usually were not shifted with them and remained with the parent group. The records may now be stored in the archives of the original body (which may or may not be in their original geographic  location.)

If you know the dates when organizational shifts occurred or the approximate dates when your ancestors moved from one group to another, you may be abler to infer the likeliest place to begin searching for a particular record. Early public records are often spotty and incomplete or even totally lost due to floods,  ,fires, or wartime rapacity. The only extant record of the marriage of your great-great-great-grandparents, who lived in California, may be housed in church archives in Florida for a group which originated in Minnesota.

Many universities and colleges with denominational ties have extensive records. Samford University (Southern Baptist) and Birmingham Southern College (Methodist) are two examples. Contact the national headquarters of your particular religious denomination and they may be able to steer you to their own historical repositories.

Fairies Wear Boots

Fairies Wear Boots (1970) is a song by the rock music group, Black Sabbath, about a man who insists that you must believe that he saw “fairy boots” dancing with a dwarf. “You gotta believe me … I tell you no lies … I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes.”

The lead singer of this song, Ozzy Osbourne, says that he has no idea what the song is about since he wrote the lyrics during a night of hard drugs and drinking. The only reason he knows that he wrote the lyrics is that his friends told him that he did. 

Goin' home, late last night

Suddenly I got a fright

Yeah I looked through a window and surprised what I saw

A fairy with boots and dancin' with a dwarf,

All right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

Oh all right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

All right now!

So I went to the doctor

See what he could give me

He said Son, son, you've gone too far.

'Cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do.

Fairies Wear Boots lyrics © T.R.O. INC.

In legal usage, eyewitness testimony is considered to be admissible evidence but it must be consistent with known facts, not fanciful, and the eyewitness must be examined carefully to ensure that the chance for intentional or even unintentional bias is minimal. Ancient Jewish practice insisted that eyewitness testimony must be provided by two men of unquestioned character before it could be believed.

Of course, some people will believe in almost anything (ghosts, visits by extraterrestrial beings, telepathy, fairy folk, etc.) just because someone adamantly insists that they “saw it with their own two eyes.”

Religious movements have sprung up around charismatic individuals. These movements seem to be primarily cults of personality, based primarily on the individuals themselves. The founders claim, with no verifiable proofs, to have seen visions (Edgar Cayce), or mysterious holy objects (Mormonism). Some claim to have met Ascended Masters who gave them messages for the world. There are at least twenty religions based on the UFO phenomenon. 

Christian belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is itself based on eyewitness testimony, but with a major qualitative difference. In the Bible, there are numerous reported post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, one to a group of over 500 people AND there is even an implied challenge to naysayers. If most of the 500 were still alive at the time of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, all anyone had to do was hunt them down and ask them what they saw.

"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;"    1 Corinthians 15:6

Was Bill O'Reilly Divinely Inspired to Write Killing Jesus?

The Fox News Channel political commentator Bill O’Reilly was a high school history teacher before he embarked on his television career. He has written numerous books such as Killing Kennedy, Killing Lincoln, The Last Days of Hitler, and Killing Patton.   He is a Roman Catholic believer and has said that he thinks he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write his excellent Killing Jesus. This set off a firestorm of criticism with some people saying that they think he is insane or blasphemous. I think he is probably correct that he was inspired.

I know the implications of what I am saying. I also think that this blog is inspired by God. Of course, it is not inspired on the same authoritative level as Scripture. That idea is the core heresy which led to modern Mormonism. The canon of scripture and doctrinal interpretation is closed. 

The Bible clearly states that each of the Saints (us, not a special class of extra-holy people) is divinely inspired. We  have the Mind of Christ. We have a direct link to the Holy Spirit who indwells, leads, instructs, and counsels individual believers.

Of course He leads us. Of course He inspires us. If He does not, then the problem is with us. We are not listening.

If you do not feel the Holy Spirit moving in your life, now is the time, today. If you are a Christian, ask Him, then listen.

___________________________________________________________________

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Dominant Religious Groups in the United States

This link at businessinsider.com shows a graphic of the dominant religious groups in each county in the United States of America. I believe that the article itself will translate, but I am not sure about the legends accompanying the graphic itself, For readers in languages other than English, the listing below gives the colors of the boxes and the names of the associated religious groups. In most of the major metropolitan areas there are, of course, hundreds of different religious traditions present.

Current statistics show Christian identification declining and "non-affiliated" or "non-religious" identification rising in the USA.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-religious-makeup-of-america-2015-4

Lavender: American Baptists Churches in the USA
Blue: Roman Catholic Church
Yellow: Christian Churches and Churches of Christ
Light Brown: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Grey: Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
Dark Brown: Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
Red: Southern Baptist Convention
Dark Green: United Methodist Church
Light Green: Other
White: None Reported

Alice Cooper Has Become a Member of the Church of Satan?

Rock musician Alice Cooper has become a member of the Church of Satan?????  For years, he has claimed to be a “born-again Christian.”  Cooper’s actual religious heritage is Bickertonite.  The Bickertonites are a small Trinitarian Mormon sect named for Wlliam Bickerton, but actually formed by the fascinating Sidney Rigdon. (Rigdon was a ubiquitous American religious figure from the nineteenth century who was quite fractious, becoming involved in one religious argument after another and moving rapidly among religious denominations and then quickly becoming a prominent leader in each of them.  Rigdon was in rapid succession, a leader among the Baptists, the Campbellites (Disciples of Christ), the main Joseph Smith Mormon group, and several Mormon schismatic sects.  Rigdon usually ended up disassociated or excommunicated by his former affiliative groups.)

Bickertonites  http://www.thechurchofjesuschrist.org/index.cfm

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=113546

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Bickertonites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_(Bickertonite)

http://graceforgrace.com/2008/02/18/lds-church-vs-church-of-jesus-christ-bickertonites-vs-rlds-community-of-christ/

For the record, many people believe that this is an elaborate April Fools Joke being perpetrated by Alice Cooper for the publicity it will engender.

Unusual Christian Places: Chapel of the Snows

The non-denominational Chapel of the Snows is at the United States McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Antarctica.  Protestant chaplains are supplied by the United States Air National Guard and Roman Catholic priests by the Archdioceses of New Zealand.  The chapel is also used by Mormons, Bahai’s, Buddhists, and Alcoholics Anonymous.  The chapel is the southernmost religious building on Earth.

The chapel has burned to the ground and been rebuilt twice.

Film Comment: The Twilight Series

The Twilight series of films is based on a highly successful five book young adult romance fantasy series by American author Stephenie Meyer.  The films are:

Twilight (2008)

Twilight: New Moon (2009)

Twilight: Eclipse (2010)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (2012)

To date (25 November 2012) the series has grossed over $2,500,000,000 worldwide.  The basic plot is this: Bella, a lonely teenager, displaced by divorce to a boring small town on the United States northwest coast, becomes attracted to a strange but handsome boy at her high school.  She eventually comes to realize just how strange he is.

Edward is a member of a vampire family which lives in one location until it becomes difficult to disguise the fact that they are not aging.  The “family” members are not biologically related but were collected together by the patriarch, whom they recognize as their father.  The family long ago stopped hunting humans for food and lives off the blood of forest animals.

Edward proves to be a sensitive and protective boyfriend for Bella and he strongly holds to his Nineteenth Century values of sexual abstinence and chaste love until marriage.  That presents the problem: a vampire cannot marry a human.  Because he loves her, Edward is reluctant to “turn” Bella though she begs him to.  He realizes that he would be damning her to become a monster like himself.

Stephenie Meyer, the writer of the Twilight novels, is a Mormon and some believe this is the origin of the series’ emphasis on family and chastity.  Feminists have complained that the novels and films present Bella as a helpless female, with her life revolving around her man.  Edward must continually protect Bella from other vampires (and werewolves!) who disapprove of their relationship.  Feminists also object to the relationship’s violence, as Bella is seriously injured when she and Edward eventually do consummate their relationship.

Bella eventually becomes a powerful vampire with a beautiful half-human half-vampire child.

I see all these things, but what I really see is perhaps a message which Meyer did not originally intend.  The message is this:  to succeed, to really get what you want in this world, you must submit.  Adapt to the world.  Adjust what you believe.  Buy into the system, and you may find love, success, wealth, and maybe even power.  The darkness is very seductive.

Religious Place Names

Iosepa, Hawaii, USA: “Iosepa” is the Hawaiian language version of the name “Joseph.”  The town is named for Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).

Mahabarata, Nepal: Named for the Mahabarata, one of the ancient Sanskrit language holy books of Hinduism.

Tewin, England: Named for the Norse god, Tyr (aka: Tiw) plus “ing,”  “a meadow.”  Tyr was the Norse god of single-handed combat and victory.

Thundersley, England: From the Old English, Thunor’s leah (Sacred grove of Thunor).  Thunor was a variant name of Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

Shiloh, Tennessee, USA: Named for the ancient Ephraimite city of Shiloh, located about 12 miles northeast of Bethel, in the land of Canaan..  Judges 21:19.  The modern name of ancient Shiloh is Khirbet Seilun in the West Bank..  A “khirbet” is a “ruin on a hill.”

Some Reasons Why Mormons Are Not Christian

Mormons insist that they are Christians but there are many sharp divergences between orthodox Christian doctrine and Mormon doctrine.   Listed below are just a few of them.


Orthodox Christian doctrine:  Do not add to scripture. Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32, Proverbs 30:5-6, Revelation 22:18-19
Mormon doctrine: The Mormon canon includes three additional scriptures: The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, and The Doctrine and Covenants.

Orthodox Christian doctrine:  God is not a man, but a spirit.  (Numbers 23:19; John 4:24)

Mormon doctrine:  God was once a man like us and, even now has a physical body.

Orthodox Christian doctrine: There is only one God, who created all of existence. (Isaiah 44:6)

Mormon doctrine: There are millions of Gods, each of whom has created his own universe.

Orthodox Christian doctrine: God is pre-existent and eternal.

Mormon doctrine: God was once a man on another planet who earned godhood by his good works.  He and his wife populated this world with their spirit children (us).

Orthodox Christian doctrine: Jesus is pre-existent and was present at the creation. 

Mormon doctrine: Jesus was the first spirit child of God and his wife.  He married several of the Marys named in the New Testament.  His first brother was Satan.  We are subsequent sons and daughters of God.

Orthodox Christian doctrine: God is one God who exists as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Mormon doctrine:The Trinity is three gods united in purpose.

Orthodox Christian doctrine: The ultimate destiny of individual Christians is sinless perfection in an eternal relationship with the Lord.

Mormon doctrine: Each Mormon man may become a god through his good works and create his own universe.  He and his wife will populate their universe with their spirit children.

Orthodox Christian doctrine: Salvation is by grace through faith based on the shed blood of Christ.  Good works are a result of salvation.

Mormon doctrine: Salvation is by faith and by following the commands of God.  The shed blood of Christ is not the source of salvation.  Salvation is conditional on faith, repentence, baptism, and keeping the commands of God.


"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?   And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matthew 7:21-23.

Mitt Romney

This is not, never has been and never will be a political blog.  You will never know how I intend to vote in the upcoming national elections.  Sometimes, though, my posts may touch tangentially on politics as I discuss something else.  This post, for example, will be about the American politician Mitt Romney.
 
For those readers in other countries, as I write this on Tuesday night, the political caucuses in the State of Iowa are choosing the presidential candidates they favor for the nominations as representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties in the upcoming (2012) United States presidential election.   One of the Republican candidates is Mitt Romney, a Mormon.  The caucuses are politically important because they are the first test of the strengths of the various candidates with the voters.  There are still 49 other states and several territories which must also express their choices.

The nationally distributed newspaper, USA Today, had an article recently entitled"Christians are tough crowd for Romney." (The online title is "Mormon Romney struggles to win over Evangelical Christians.") Many Evangelicals are wary of voting for a Mormon because they do not consider Mormons to be Christians.

Actually, by law, there is no religious test for eligibility for the office of President of the United States of America.  The office could be held by a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or even an atheist, but it is understandable that voters would be most comfortable with a leader with whom they feel they share certain basic values and beliefs.

Mormons are known for their strong family values, strong work ethic, conservative social values, and non-orthodox religious doctrines.  They are led by a Prophet who speaks authoritatively for God.  They do not believe that revelation from God was completed within the Bible and have added additional scriptures.

Tomorrow, I will detail some of the reasons most Christian denominations do not feel that Mormons are Christian.

Addendum on 4 January 2011:
Last night in Iowa, Mitt Romney won the endorsement of Iowa Republicans as their choice for the position of candidate to represent the Republican Party in the 2012 United States Presidential election.  Mr. Romney edged out Rick Santorum, a Roman Catholic, by a margin of only 8 votes out of almost 125,000 votes cast.  The candidates now move to the state of New Hampshire.

The Democrats, as expected, gave their endorsement to the incumbent candidate, United States President   Barack Obama.

Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans

Paul's letter to the Laodiceans is obviously a lost letter.

"And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea." Colossians 4:16


There have been numerous guesses (and that is all that they are) as to the identity of this letter.

It is a totally lost letter.

It is the book known as 1 Timothy.

http://www.godshew.org/PaulsEpistles.html 

It is the book known as Philemon   

http://columbusbiblechurch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54:colossiand-416&catid=37:articles&Itemid=59 

http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVanswers/2003/2003-10-29.htm 

It is the book known as Ephesians

http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/20100808.htm 

http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/colossians.htm 

Some consider the sixth century letter mentioned on this web page to be the Letter to the Laodiceans, others insist that it is totally spurious.  No copy of this letter can be proven to have existed before 546 AD/CE, much later than any other biblical book.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/epistle-laodiceans.htm 

A Mormon perspective saying that the mention of this letter proves that the canon of Scripture is not closed.  The majority of Christians reject this as heretical.

http://www.gospeldoctrine.com/NewTestament/Colossians4.htm 

Another Light Bulb Joke

How many Mormon polygamists does it take to change a light bulb?
One, and four wives to help him do it.

Who or what is a Christian?

In a recent article entitled "Tension among Haiti's religions grows after quake," Associated Press writer Paisley Dodds lists some of the Christian groups providing aid to the population: "Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, Mormons and other missionaries."

I'm sorry, but this demonstrates the world's confusion about who and what we are. They have no clue, especially about the concept of the "εκλεσσια," the "church." The Scientologists make no claim to be Christian. The Roman Catholics at one time claimed to be the one true church; the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses still do.

There is much disagreement among the various denominations about what constitutes "being a Christian." We all need to think on the question.

British Israelism

I realized after I posted yesterday that some may not know what "British Israelism" is. The doctrine, also known as Anglo-Israelism, holds that persons of Western European ancestry are direct lineal descendents of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Many British Israelists also believe that the British Royal Family is lineally descended from King David. As with Mormonism, the genetic, historical, and linguistic evidence just does not add up.

The doctrine existed earlier but was first clearly expounded in the late 18th Century. The most prominent proponents of the doctrine have been Princess Alice, the Countess of Athlone; Roger Rusk, a university professor and brother of United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk; William Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand; and Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong even declared that he was called by God to explain and prophesy about the doctrine.

Groups which have expounded the doctrine (or still do) are The Shepherd's Chapel, the Bible-Pattern Church Fellowship, the Orange Street Congregational Church, the Christian Revival Crusade, Brit-Am, the Revival Centres International, the Worldwide Church of God, and the Churches of God in Ireland. The Christian Identity Movement adds a racist angle to the doctrine. In a modified form, traces of the doctrine can be seen in the teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon (LDS) Church.

The main Bible verses on which the British Israel doctrine is based are Genesis 12:2-3, 17:4, 18:18, 27:29, 35:11, 48:14-20, 49:22; Exodus 31:13; Deuteronomy 2:25, 4:7-8, 15:6, 28:10; 1 Chronicles 5:1-2; Isaiah 24:15, 42:19, 49:6, 49:12, 66:19; and Hosea 1:9. This is clearly an example of eisogesis at it's worst; assembling random bits and pieces of scripture together to prove a point one has already accepted.

Eisogesis (Greek "eis" = "into") is the practice of taking an idea "into" the scriptures and trying to find "proof texts" to confirm one's thesis. Exegesis (Greek "ek" = "out") works in the opposite direction, seeking to derive doctrines from the scriptures which are internally consistent with the entire Bible.

Christian Denominations: Disciples of Christ

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

222 South Downey Avenue

Indianapolis, Ind. 46219

     The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) arose from a merger of the followers of Alexander Campbell (Christian Church) and Barton W. Stone (Disciples of Christ).  Sidney Rigdon was a major leader in the movement until he quarreled with Alexander Campbell and left to join with Joseph Smith in Ohio.  Campbell denounced The Book of Mormon as heretical.

Church Genealogy

    I inadvertantly angered some Mormon acquaintances of mine when I submitted an article to their genealogical magazine detailing the historical development of the Mormon religion as well as its historical precedents.  This was as a follow up to a submitted article which has been posted in this blog on 15 and 16 September 2009.  Both articles were rejected by the magazine, I later learned, for doctrinal reasons.

     Mormons believe that the true church of jesus Christ had disappeared from the Earth until it was restored by God's revelation to Joseph Smith.  As such, the Mormon Church could have no historical precursors.  However, to a non-Mormon such as myself, it is obvious that no social, political, or religious movement just suddenly springs into existence without precursors.

     The Mormons historically include individuals gathered from numerous religious backgrounds, but there is a definite strong element of Congregational/Baptist thought in early Mormon history, especially through such leaders as Sidney Rigdon who rose to positions of power and authority in every religious organization with which he affiliated (Baptist, Campbellites, Latter-day Saints, and Bickertonites/Rigdonites).  

Another Light Bulb Joke

How many Mormons does it take to change a light bulb?

Two.  One to change the bulb and a second to seal it for eternity.

Pioneer Day

24 July 2009: Pioneer Day is a holiday celebrated in the Mormon religion.  It celebrates the contributions of the early Mormon settlers in the American West.