Eternal marriage & temple endowment handshakes, tokens, signs & passwords

[huckelberry]

Tax relief? What tax?

Sorry you may not realize in US church funds are tax free. That helps out those special religious leaders who must have private jets and gold encrusted mansions and dog houses (not speaking of LDS with that).

I replied to the wrong post sorry. I didn't realise. Thanks for your answer though. Just wondering if there is some financial benefit from having inflated membership numbers.

Imwashingmypirate, I cannot think of any financial benefit for inflating membership numbers except perhaps increase a sense of security for tithe paying members. I understand that the church is slow to remove names from the roles for non participants which is a sort of inflating of numbers. That would have nothing to do with baptism for the dead. Those names are people who are dead, not members.

[IWMP]

I replied to the wrong post sorry. I didn't realise. Thanks for your answer though. Just wondering if there is some financial benefit from having inflated membership numbers.

Imwashingmypirate, I cannot think of any financial benefit for inflating membership numbers except perhaps increase a sense of security for tithe paying members. I understand that the church is slow to remove names from the roles for non participants which is a sort of inflating of numbers. That would have nothing to do with baptism for the dead. Those names are people who are dead, not members.

Thanks.

[huckelberry]

Precisely, they take databases where the information was obtained for one purpose, and unilaterally decide to use that information for a completely different and unsanctioned purpose. It’s worth noting that (at least in the UK) census information is anonymised for 100 years. So any vicarious rituals done for people who died less than 100 years ago are based on information from other sources.

It’s akin to a telemarketing company buying up databases so they can monetise the information. And of course, the Church is also monetising the personal information they obtain from hoovering up databases of names.

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans, etc. in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

[Marcus]

Precisely, they take databases where the information was obtained for one purpose, and unilaterally decide to use that information for a completely different and unsanctioned purpose. It’s worth noting that (at least in the UK) census information is anonymised for 100 years. So any vicarious rituals done for people who died less than 100 years ago are based on information from other sources.

It’s akin to a telemarketing company buying up databases so they can monetise the information. And of course, the Church is also monetising the personal information they obtain from hoovering up databases of names.

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans etc, in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

I'll have to look up the story again, but it's my understanding the LDS church built up their databases by requiring volunteer indexing from LDS members, to the point that they were able to sell it for a huge sum, and require paid memberships for people to use it. Another money grab by the LDS church. Oh, and i'm sure they documented every free hour of indexing at a competitive labor value to get recognition for the "donations."

[huckelberry]

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans, etc. in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

I'll have to look up the story again, but it's my understanding the LDS church built up their databases by requiring volunteer indexing from LDS members, to the point that they were able to sell it for a huge sum, and require paid memberships for people to use it. Another money grab by the LDS church. Oh, and i'm sure they documented every free hour of indexing at a competitive labor value to get recognition for the "donations."

Hi Marcus, I am not the expert or most up to date information source so am open to learn more. Of course all the building of LDS genealogy information and collection is done by volunteer members. My mother worked on it for years. I do not know about a sale of the information or who would. I checked few minutes ago via google on the LDS genealogy site, it claims to be free to use but you have to set up a registration. I am put off by that a bit. Some years ago, likely over 20 I used the LDS site reviewing my family, it was easy and open. I found polygamous ancestors I did not know about. Not really a big surprise. Some years later I rechecked and such detail was not so easily located.

Selling the information does sound a bit tight, counting the time as donation would become a sort of the church donating to itself.

[IWMP]

Precisely, they take databases where the information was obtained for one purpose, and unilaterally decide to use that information for a completely different and unsanctioned purpose. It’s worth noting that (at least in the UK) census information is anonymised for 100 years. So any vicarious rituals done for people who died less than 100 years ago are based on information from other sources.

It’s akin to a telemarketing company buying up databases so they can monetise the information. And of course, the Church is also monetising the personal information they obtain from hoovering up databases of names.

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans, etc. in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

In the UK, when I did them, the ancestors were done by the relative but the public records and parish record names were done by us who hadn't done any family history work. They told us they were from parish records. Parish records being non LDS churches.

We can pay to access census information. We can access birth, death and marriage certificates and in the family history centres they have these machines with little plastic things (can't remember the name maybe microfiche?) and you can get information from that. But I'm pretty sure they just sweep all the records and write the names down.

Actually. I'm sure I was able to see census information that had my name on it in the past and I'm not over 100 years old.

[Res Ipsa]

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans etc, in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

I'll have to look up the story again, but it's my understanding the LDS church built up their databases by requiring volunteer indexing from LDS members, to the point that they were able to sell it for a huge sum, and require paid memberships for people to use it. Another money grab by the LDS church. Oh, and i'm sure they documented every free hour of indexing at a competitive labor value to get recognition for the "donations."

Is this the story you were thinking of? https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php? ... type=CMSID

[huckelberry]

I have a question, how are you seeing the church monetizing personal information that members obtain from public records?

I am puzzled as to what you mean by unsanctioned purpose. I am unaware of legal limits placed upon the use of the genealogical information that church members search out. Well of course you cannot use the information to pretend that an ancestor is still alive in order to vote or take out loans etc, in their name.

At least to my knowledge or how it was in the past names to be baptized for are submitted by relatives who have found or know the information about ancestors. For the past hundred years that would usually not require census information but would be family knowledge.

In the UK, when I did them, the ancestors were done by the relative but the public records and parish record names were done by us who hadn't done any family history work. They told us they were from parish records. Parish records being non LDS churches.

We can pay to access census information. We can access birth, death and marriage certificates and in the family history centres they have these machines with little plastic things (can't remember the name maybe microfiche?) and you can get information from that. But I'm pretty sure they just sweep all the records and write the names down.

Actually. I'm sure I was able to see census information that had my name on it in the past and I'm not over 100 years old.

Imwashingmypirate, I understand you to say that over in England they are happy to just make a list of everybody on records name and proceed in the temple. Sounds irregular but I am not the authority.

I remain inclined to think it more practical to have one person baptized for everybody who ever lived skipping the name list thing. Oh I guess that is an irregular idea as well.

[Marcus]

Here's a reddit thread from 2021 with multiple links:

Ancestry, online family history business, to be purchased by Blackstone for $4.7 billion, didn't we do indexing for free for them?

http://kutv.com/news/local/ancestry-onl ... 47-billion

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ess_to_be/

More information in the reddit thread comments, the last link above.

And a thread from 2016, w more details, plus a very interesting timeline:

Exploitation and Spin: How the LDS church is making millions by driving members to do Genealogy work, and selling the results back to them and others.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... church_is/

[Res Ipsa]

Read them. The problem is that the 60 million wasn’t for the purchase of an existing database. It was a capital contribution to pay for the cost of creating a database from millions of rolls of microfilm sitting the church’s vaults. A substantial portion of those records were from teams the church sent all around the world to photograph records from different sources. It preserved a huge volume of records, but until the development of computerized databases, there was no practical way to access and use the information they contained.

What the articles describe is not the sale of an existing database — it’s a joint venture to create a database out of all that microfilm. The Church had the microfilm — Ancestry had the investment capital. Both parties would have access to the finished database and the LDS Church would make it available for free through FamilySearch.org. Ancestry would add a bunch of bells and whistles for its paid service.

My aunt showed me how indexing works. OCR and text recognition technology is not reliable for reading the contents of handwritten records. Individuals read and enter the text, with many individuals reviewing the text as a cross check. It can be done only after the database has been created.

The Redditors present a misleading interpretation of the press articles. They did not present any evidence that the Church sold a database for profit.