People who are of the LDS faith have specific religious reasons why they do genealogy. One reason is so a posthumous baptism can be preformed on an ancestor who was not baptized when he or she was alive. Recently, someone did a proxy baptism for the parents of Simon Wiesenthal. He was Jewish, and a Holocaust survivor. This has led to controversy.
Genealogy is the study of family. Everyone who wants to learn more about their ancestors, or to fill in missing pieces of their family tree, is welcome to partake in this hobby. One doesn’t necessarily need to be connected to a particular faith or religion in order to become a genealogist.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (also called LDS or Mormon), is a church that connects religious beliefs to the practice of genealogy. One of the big reasons why Mormons do genealogy is so they can submit the names of their deceased ancestors for temple work. People of this faith have the belief that everyone should have the chance to have to have religious ordinances done for them, even after that person has passed away.
One of those ordinances involves giving an ancestor a proxy baptism into the LDS faith. This is for ancestors who were not baptized while they were living. A living person stands in for that ancestor while the baptism is being done.
Mormons believe that it is their moral obligation to do temple rituals for their ancestors. They also believe that the ancestor, who has passed away, can choose whether or not he or she wishes to accept the action done on their behalf.
Recently, someone in the LDS church decided to posthumously baptize the parents of Simon Weisenthal. Their names were Asher and Rosa Rapp. Rosa died in the Holocaust. Asher died in World War I. They were Jewish. Their son, Simon Weisenthal, was a Holocaust survivor. He, like his parents, was Jewish. He dedicated his life to documenting Nazi crimes, and hunting down the people who perpetrated those crimes.
Records show that Asher and Rosa Rapp were baptized by proxy by LDS church members in Arizona and Utah in January of 2012. The LDS church leaders have since stated that they sincerely regret the actions of an individual member. The LDS church says that the person who did this went against the guidelines and procedures of the church regarding this ritual.
An agreement was made in 1995 that banned the practice of baptizing by proxy people who were Holocaust victims. This agreement was made after the discovery that hundreds of thousands of the names of Holocaust victims had been entered into Mormon records. Genealogy researchers have discovered that Anne Frank had been added to the Mormon baptism records. The LDS church has promised to purge the names of Holocaust victims from its baptism rolls.
Michael Purdy, a spokesman for the LDS church says that the names of the Weisenthal family were entered into a genealogical database by one person. He also said that the person has since been suspended from having access to the church’s genealogy records.
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