I was using this to try to find the records that included my family. The search for 'Firstname Lastname" seems to search for Firstname OR Lastname. Does anybody know if its possible to search for Firstname AND Lastname and what the syntax for that might be? It seems to just still match any of the strings when entered that way.
Wait for this to appear on FamilySearch (if not already) and search there I think will be your best bet. FamilySearch is owned by the Mormons but free and very functional.
FamilySearch is fantastic. They do require you to make an account to use their website, but it’s free. They are meticulous about records preservation worldwide and expansive about records access, at least when the underlying government archive or agency is not being a hardass about it.
They even have teams filming and photographing records in some of the Ukrainian archives branches right now, even while under siege. They are serious about saving copies of world cultural history, it’s just that they emphasize family history.
Yes, they are the best. I used them several years ago when constructing my family tree.
And a big raspberry to their competitors that lock everything behind a paywall. I think one of them (ancestry) has exclusive deals with some states, so they have records you can't see without signing up.
They do. I’ve seen the contracts, and even the RFP’s that led to the contracts. It’s illegal.
They will sometimes make a free gateway portal to those records, where you input your in-state zipcode to get access, or some other nonsense like that. But they actually have the gall to say in their contracts that the digital files cannot be redistributed by the (public, taxpayer-funded) state or local archive. Funny, the state law says they can’t do that…
And so the non-profit I founded and run is starting to reclaim those public records, for the public, for free.
Just curious, is there any special significance in pointing out it's owned by Mormons?
The Mormons are really good at this sort of thing. Really really good.
Also, it's trendy for a subset of angry people on the internet to hate the Mormons for various reasons, both real and imagined.
And, there is a very tiny, but very vocal, number of people who will not use any service that might be even tangentially related to a religion. They're afraid of getting Jesus cooties or something.
to be fair, people who are outside the organization and/or critical tend to say "Mormon" while those in the organization that I have spoken with, carefully say "Latter Day Saints" or LDS every time.
ps- sincere thanks to the LDS Temple letting me use their library and record search for many weeks, long ago
outside the organization and/or critical tend to say "Mormon" while those in the organization that I have spoken with, carefully say "Latter Day Saints" or LDS every time.
I used to be good like that, but since I've moved away from areas with high LDS populations, I've lapsed into just the word "Mormon" again. Probably because that's what I grew up with in a non-LDS region, so I don't automatically associate the word "Mormon" with bring critical of LDS.
To clarify, only direct relatives can give permission to baptize a deceased relative by proxy in the temple. So if you're worried that simply adding a name to FamilySearch guarantees they will be baptized, that is not the case unless you have a relative that is a member of the church.
This explains a strange interaction I had on FamilySearch. I knew they were owned by the Mormons, but I was doing some cleanup (think deduplication/obvious typo correction stuff) on older records in my line, when someone on the site messaged me and essentially gave me first dibs on... I don't remember the exact phrase, "registering ordinances" or something like this for the person in question, because I was a direct patrilineal descendant. In retrospect I think it was related to this baptism-by-proxy thing, maybe?
Yeah that definitely sounds like it was related to the baptism-by-proxy. There are other ordinances in the temple that are also done by proxy for the deceased which is why they phrased it like "registering ordinances".
It sounds like a distant relative of yours saw your contributions and assumed your were Mormon and wanted to make sure you had the chance to be the proxy for your ancestor before another relative did it for you. That's not required, it was just a common courtesy.
For clarity: I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). I've also done development work on sites that used the FamilySearch API, I've served as an "ordinance worker" in the temple, and have done some of my own family history work on FamilySearch.
> For clarity: I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). I've also done development work on sites that used the FamilySearch API, I've served as an "ordinance worker" in the temple, and have done some of my own family history work on FamilySearch.
Then may I ask you about the provisions available to opt-out for baptism by proxy?
Is it possible to contact the church of LDS to refuse in advance, should any descendent (or proxy) convert, then want me baptized at any point in the future?
[Just in case it's not clear, that's a serious question.]
I'm asking while I'm alive because I won't be able to opt-out when I'm dead.
Good question. I am not aware of any "opt-out" list for baptism by proxy.
The doctrine of the church, however, is that even if a person is baptized by proxy it has no efficacy if the person in the afterlife chooses not to accept it. The agency to choose is a core belief, and we believe it is important for the individual to decide whether they want to be baptized or not.
I still understand your desire to not even have the ordinance done in the first place regardless of whether you believe it does anything, but like I said before I'm not aware of any way to "opt-out". I wish I could be more helpful.
So I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and can I ask you an honest question. Is there a reason you don't want to have that happen? I am asking honestly in the Spirit of inquiry it's something that always confused me to a certain extant, if the religion isn't true and it doesn't mean anything is there a reason the idea of someone saying a prayer with your name in it after you are dead bothers you? I just am curious about the line of reasoning, if it is just a matter of you don't like the idea, and don't feel comfortable about it I can understand that as well. I am just curious.
> can I ask you an honest question. Is there a reason you don't want to have that happen?
Of course: it's just a question of consent and respect.
I respect your faith, I would hope mine would be respected too, which is why I do object to being engaged in a baptism even 1) after having very clearly expressed when I'm alive that I do not consent to that but 2) under the assumption that when I'm dead, if a descendant consents, my own consent is void and no longer matters!
> if the religion isn't true and it doesn't mean anything
My point is the exact opposite: if it's true and it means everything, then surely you can understand my rejection!
Let's look at that differently: imagine I belong to a different religious movement, and that we have an "antibaptism" that can retrospectively negate baptism, snatch your soul from wherever it may be, and send it on its way to our deity - or to oblivion, or to damnation, or to whatever feels uneasy and disturbing.
Would you not want to object to have that done do you, instead of saying it wouldn't matter when you're dead?
Even "if the religion isn't true and it doesn't mean anything", it may disturb you.
> I just am curious about the line of reasoning
I tried to explain in good faith my uneasiness with the practice.
More or less: "Before you perform ordinances for a deceased person born within the last 95 years, obtain permission from the closest living relative. Relatives may not want the ordinances performed or may want to perform the ordinances themselves. The closest living relatives are, in this order: a spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/introductio...
They apparently care allot (thus try to do it right)
in part because they perform posthumous baptisms
to boost the numbers in their internal scorecards
to achieve a hi-score of some sort.
If you happen to know the address of where the individual lived, you can make a much more targeted search if you know the census enumeration district. With the ED in hand, just looking up by last name may be sufficient, but you can also just step through the individual sheets.
This site has a way to look up the ED by street address:
Depending on the street, there will be 1 or more districts; e.g.: "9-27", etc. Just enter that string in the "Enumeration District" search field. I knew the addresses of several relatives based on the 1940 census and it made looking them up in the 1950 census very easy.
> Tip #1: Search for the first and last name of the head of household (plus state and county of residence if known) because the surname was written on the census form only on the line for the head of household and other persons in the household with a different surname.
> Tip #3: You don't have to know the exact spelling of a person's name in order to perform a name search. Enter as much as you know. The search engine will return any close variations or matches.
The FAQ also adds:
> Is there a name index to the 1950 Census?
> Yes, researchers will be able to search the 1950 census by name. Please note that the name index will not be 100% accurate because it is based on optical character recognition (OCR) and artificial intelligence/machine learning. The website will feature a transcription tool to enable users to submit name updates, which will improve the accuracy of the name index and make the records more accessible for everyone.
It seems impossible to find anyone regardless. My mom's family has common names, so there are pages and pages to wade through. Meanwhile my dad's family has a very unusual last name, but their data seems to be missing from the 1950 census.
