Hi Lewis On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:55 -0400, Lewis Kirk wrote: > I have become queasy about the whole online genealogy thing. Ancestry would > not let me go even after I ended my membership. I finally retired the email > address they had for me. (I have a lot of email addresses just for that > reason!). The gedcom format was developed by the LDS. Ancestry and just about > all the other genealogy sites are based out of Utah and owned by Ancestry.
I had no idea LDS were involved, but then I hadn't investigated it too deeply yet. I thank you for this information. I've never been to church myself :-) (I'm 61) so I'm certainly not pro-religion. Rather I'm a great believer in Freudian psychoanalysis, and see these 2 phenomena as mutually exclusive. Pity about the email address thing. I've encountered this elsewhere and it never fails to infuriate me. > The LDS church has a peculiar habit of posthumously baptizing people. The > gedcom records for my family that were on Ancestry.com had posthumously > baptized a number of my ancestors. I know it's really put me off of using > those services. I was aware they did this posthumous thing, and don't like it. Of course it could be argued it's the 'cost' of access to their huge record analysis results. Mind you, it's difficult to attach any real meaning to the process, for the deceased that is, although it's understandable it would distress some people. > I really am not posting this to start a great debate or flame war or > whatever. Do your own research and come up with your own conclusions if you > care to. Wikipedia has a good article on the company and on posthumous > baptism. Agreed re the debate... Wikipedia here I come. > Contact me off-list if you have a comment. Nuff said. -- Ron Savage http://savage.net.au/ Ph: 0421 920 622
