Is the Church Attempting Yet Another Cover-Up?

[_Doctor Scratch]

I learned of this over on FLAK. Apparently, the Church's FamilySearch.org is instituting a policy that prohibits anyone other than Church members from utilizing the site. The FLAK poster known as RicoBabalu posted this from the FamilySearch site:

If I'm not a member of the Church, can I register?

This release of the new FamilySearch is a limited release for Church members only.

Why do I need to enter my membership record number and confirmation date?

You need to enter your membership record number and confirmation date for the following reasons:
It establishes that you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It helps the new FamilySearch link you to the information that the Church already has about you and your ancestors.

There has been some speculation as to why the Church is doing this, the most obvious reason being that they do not want people to know if proxy baptisms have been performed for, e.g., Pres. Obama's mother, or for Mussolini, or Ted Bundy, or Leona Helmsley, or whomever. Thus, it will be that much more difficult to know whether or not the Church is keeping its promises to not baptize Holocaust victims and the like.

I checked out the site---

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

--and it did not seem like the basic engine was affected, though. I tried searching for "Adolf Hitler," and sure enough, his record came right up. Likewise, I checked out the Joseph Smith record, and couldn't really see what's amiss. The poster called Sophocles helped to clarify:

From the looks of things, the new FamilySearch is going to replace Temple Ready, which I have no experience with but I gather has something to do with tracking ordinance work. So it's possible that they could be keeping the old familysearch site going, for general genealogy and for its benefit as a missionary tool, and the new version will be for members concerned with submitting names for ordinance work. They could quietly phase out any ordinance information from the public site and in theory no one would notice or care, and all the church's PR problems from proxy baptisms go away.

Intriguing. I am not very familiar or adept with FamilySearch, though I did notice that there was no information (that I could see) on Hitler's proxy baptism, though If I recall correctly, he was indeed baptized-by-proxy. So, I guess I am left to wonder: what's going on here? Another FLAK poster noted that the new policies were actually from 2007, so perhaps the Church has been slowly phasing out access to proxy baptism information? Certainly, all the information on Joseph Smith's plural marriages are right there for anybody to find....

I'm curious if anyone here knows anything about this.

The FLAK thread in question can be read here:

http://www.thefoyer.org/viewtopic.php?t ... sc&start=0

Another intriguing tidbit: FamilySearch made it so that FLAK cannot link to the website, rather like MAD used to do for MDB. Is MDB also on FamilySearch's "blacklist," as it were?

[_rcrocket]

The family history site database is the victim of repeated pranks. It was set up as a clearinghouse for members and nonmembers alike. With the exception of the extraction program, which has dwindled down to very little, the Church corporate does not input names. For decades, people of all faiths submitted names to the old IGI, even knowing that they'd receive proxy ordinances. When interviewed, the people would say that the IGI was the only international clearinghouse for family name submittals and genealogical research, so to submit a name meant that a secular genealogist might gain access to additional sources.

This monopoly on genealogical clearinghouses has given way to Ancestry.com, which the church does not own.

So, access to all persons has given way to access to interested members and to pranksters.

There is no real way of knowing that name submittals are for real people. Seems that former member Helen Radkey is on Holocaust submittals immediately and reports them to the Jewish organizations, and then Church employees and service missionaries remove them as fast as they can.

Because of the infinite variations possible in name submittals, filters have proven very difficult to catch bogus names. There are some filters. Those who do this stuff all the time know that on occasion they'll see a challenge which has to be resolved by a live person before the name is submitted.

Some of the Family History workers have identified the source of prank submittals and have tried to bar the source as a way of filtering all names from that source, but in a couple of cases with which I'm familiar, the submitter just reformulated himself with another name.

The "members only" rule is an effort to minimize the prankster effect.

[_Yoda]

Did the Church ever own an interest in Ancestry.com, or did the folks who own that website simply copy the Church's idea with genealogy and improve on it?

I can see why they would want to keep it open to everyone as a missionary tool. It's unfortunate that hackers have gotten a hold of it.

by the way, I tried linking to familysearch.org from MDB and there was no problem.

Thinking out loud here....let me check the familysearch's source code and see if they have some type of javascript in place to block FLAK. That was what we used to block the links between MDB and FAIR.

[_Yoda]

OK, there are two links. The link which prompts the sign up is:

https://new.familysearch.org/en/action/unsec/welcome

This is Scratch's link:

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

I went to FLAK first, and clicked on both links and was able to access Family Search.

I don't know if there was a block on there that has since been fixed, or if the poster on FLAK who reported the problem was having computer issues from his end.

I'm using a Firefox browser, and I use a Mac, so I'm using the new Mac OS 10.X Leopard operating system. Sometimes folks that use Windows have more issues.

[_Jersey Girl]

You wouldn't think that I'd have a relevant Jersey Girl/East Coast comment on this but I do.

The LDS genealogical data base is accessed directly from Ellis Island for visitors to look up and locate family members who were immigrants to the states through Ellis Island.

Can someone tell me how they think this will affect that service or will it affect it at all?

[_Yoda]

You wouldn't think that I'd have a relevant Jersey Girl/East Coast comment on this but I do.

The LDS genealogical data base is accessed directly from Ellis Island for visitors to look up and locate family members who were immigrants to the states through Ellis Island.

Can someone tell me how they think this will affect that service or will it affect it at all?

I suppose it depends on how they are accessing the database.

If they are accessing it from Family Search.org, it might. But yet, according to Scratch, the search feature is still intact, whether or not you are signed in with a membership number.

It also sounds like Ancestry.com has all of this information on a much larger scale, and there is no membership number required for that site.

[_Jersey Girl]

You wouldn't think that I'd have a relevant Jersey Girl/East Coast comment on this but I do.

The LDS genealogical data base is accessed directly from Ellis Island for visitors to look up and locate family members who were immigrants to the states through Ellis Island.

Can someone tell me how they think this will affect that service or will it affect it at all?

I suppose it depends on how they are accessing the database.

If they are accessing it from Family Search.org, it might. But yet, according to Scratch, the search feature is still intact, whether or not you are signed in with a membership number.

It also sounds like Ancestry.com has all of this information on a much larger scale, and there is no membership number required for that site.

I don't remember which it is. I do recall that they charge for the use of the computer and data base.

On the other side of the Ellis Island thing...I'm a member of Ellis Island.org and from there you can access both Family Search and Ancestry (among other data bases) on a limited basis. Not all the search results are complete.

[_Doctor Scratch]

OK, there are two links. The link which prompts the sign up is:

https://new.familysearch.org/en/action/unsec/welcome

This is Scratch's link:

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

Thanks for tracking this stuff down, Liz. I wonder: is the first link you listed more thorough? One of the things the FLAK posters were speculating on was whether or not people would be able to examine baptism records. Crucial to all of this, it seems to me, is the question of whether or not the second link (i.e., the more general site) is slated to be taken down, or whether it will remain online, albeit sans certain kinds of information (such as the aforementioned baptisms). If the main issue in all of this is controversy over proxy baptisms---as rcrocket suggests---then it could be that the sign-up/login version of familysearch.org will be the only one in which one can find information on baptisms.

Something else to bear in mind is the fact that that email was some two years old.

[_Yoda]

Crucial to all of this, it seems to me, is the question of whether or not the second link (i.e., the more general site) is slated to be taken down, or whether it will remain online, albeit sans certain kinds of information (such as the aforementioned baptisms). If the main issue in all of this is controversy over proxy baptisms---as rcrocket suggests---then it could be that the sign-up/login version of familysearch.org will be the only one in which one can find information on baptisms.

It seems to me like it would make more sense to keep the more general site up as a missionary tool, if nothing else. You may be onto something as far as the Church membership sign-on being used to research baptisms. Frankly, I would think that if the webmasters were concerned about hacking, that would be a good solution. From a logical standpoint, it would be more critical for Church members to be able to access information about baptisms, temple records, etc. To a non-member, I don't know that it would really be much of an issue...except...as you said...as a check and balance for someone who didn't want his/her family to have Church ordinances done for them.

That actually brings another question to mind---How big of an issue do folks really have with temple work for the dead being done without family permission? I know that there were concerns with the Holocaust situation that was publicized, but is it really a widespread situation? And how could we find out if it is?

[_Dr. Shades]

Okay, I know that one can look up a person's raw information, like birthdate, death date, marriages, etc.

But how can one tell if temple ordinances have been done on their behalf?