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Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself
Most people are curious about their ancestry - in our age of information, genealogical research has become one of the most popular activities in the world and the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most important resources. Started in 1894, the Mormon genealogical project has grown to include 2 billion names, 2.4 million rolls of microfilm, and 278,000 books - making it the worlds largest collection of genealogical information. Donald Akenson explains and evaluates the history and functioning of this massive undertaking, in the process providing an insightful study of the Mormon scriptures and their implications for genealogical work. One of his central arguments is that there are four basic genealogical forms. The supporting evidence runs from the Solomon Islands to classical China to ancient Ireland. Highly significant on its own, it also provides the information needed to assess the Latter-day Saints' efforts to provide a single narrative of how humanity keeps track of itself. Appendices cover topics of vital interest to historians, genealogists, and ethnographers - the use and limits of genetic data in genealogy, the reality of false-paternity as a widespread phenomenon in genealogical lines, the vexing matters of incest and cousin-marriage. Taking a unique perspective on a neglected topic, Akenson draws far-reaching conclusions about the stories cultures tell themselves. Some Family will be of interest not only to religious scholars but also to anyone who has ever used the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to explore their ancestry.
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 8, 2007
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19 people want to read
About the author
Donald Harman Akenson
36 books10 followers[From book The United States and Ireland (1973):]
Donald Harman Akenson teaches history at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born in Minneapolis, took his degrees at Yale and Harvard, and taught and held administrative positions at both of those universities. He is the author of The Irish Education Experiment (1970); The Church of Ireland (1971); and Education and Enmity: The Control of Schooling in Northern Ireland (1973).
Donald Harman Akenson teaches history at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born in Minneapolis, took his degrees at Yale and Harvard, and taught and held administrative positions at both of those universities. He is the author of The Irish Education Experiment (1970); The Church of Ireland (1971); and Education and Enmity: The Control of Schooling in Northern Ireland (1973).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 13, 2018
OK folks, this is going to be long, but this book just annoyed the hell out of me.
Genealogy is a messy subject. It's inherently optimistic: anyone indulging in the hobby pretty much begins with false assumptions, not the least of which is the myth that no one ever lied about who the baby daddy was, persuaded someone to put false information on a document, or gave false information under oath or simply from selective amnesia. Even if a miracle happens and your family is that fictionally magical one with nothing to hide and who told only the truth all the time, there's still the very real possibility that documents were copied, transcribed or printed incorrectly. This bubble is fragile even before you factor all he mistakes derived from false logic, inattention, typos, and just plain stupidity because someone didn't bother to question how a child could be born to a mother who had been dead ten years or decided the parents "must" have been married because "everyone was married back then." You don't even have to go back far. My grandmother's death certificate--an official document, mind you--lists her daughter and son-in-law as her parents. (I can only assume my aunt, who was the informant, either didn't understand the question asked or was too upset to think straight.) My father's published obituary has three major errors in it, including my name and his birth place. Those errors get replicated and passed on, especially now that the internet has made it possible for anyone to put up their 'research" cheaply and easily. Spend an hour on Ancestry.com, and chances are you'll see something presented as fact that simply makes no sense and/or is completely wrong.
Like I said, it's a messy hobby.
There is also a question about what, exactly, a person is trying to research. Does DNA trump all? When we research our family trees, do we give priority to biological ancestry or cultural ancestry? If you said "biological," then how do we then track and record step-parents, adoptions, egg/sperm donors, same gender marriages, adultery, bigamy (hey, it happened more often than you might think), incest, or other cases that don't fit the Western European, Traditional Marriage, White Folk monogamy model...which is, whether you want to face the fact or not, is both a fairly recent model and not even the majority one. And if you said "cultural," then you have to define what that means and how on earth to track it since the tools available don't really lend themselves to dealing with guardians, fostering, apprentices, blended families, or any of the myriad ways non-American cultures choose to form families or define parenting.
If all this isn't messy enough, throw in religion. First, there is the whole "begets" thing outlined in the Old Testament that some believe to be literal truth and others (with good reason) have plenty of doubts about. (Most Biblical scholars agree that nothing and no one prior to King David can be proven to have existed, and some aren't even sure about him.) Then there are the LDS, a religious group for whom genealogy is far more than a hobby; it is an integral part of their practice. They believe all of humankind are literally descended from a literal (as opposed to mythical or metaphorical) Adam and Eve, and their quality of afterlife depends on documenting and solidifying (through sealing) those bonds. Never mind whether you agree with them or not theologically, just think about the logistics of it. How do you create the family tree of every person who ever existed?
It's this mandate that has spurred the LDS church to create the Family History Library system, a marvel of record storage and access, open to anyone of any faith. The LDS have the world's most thorough collection of documents, with masters stored in temperature-controlled caves that would make our military blush with want for the same. They comb courthouses, small town libraries, newspaper archives, etc., locating, copying, archiving, transcribing, and digitizing documents. It's really quite impressive, and it's useful to sociologists and historians as well as the genealogy hobbyist.
Unfortunately, the LDS are wonderful collectors and archivists of primary and secondary documents, but they aren't terrific auditors of submitted undocumented family trees. The IGI -- the master database they've been working on for nearly a century -- is rife with errors. And they will tell you this if you ask, but users seldom do: they just assume that if it's in print (or on-line), it must be true. So, again, errors are replicated. And you end up with some crazy stuff like a family tree that leads back to Odin, fictional Norse God, or to Noah -- ones for which I would dearly love to see the documentation.
If you're still with me, I've pretty much told you what this book is about. The only parts I've left out are where the author gives a blow-by-blow history of LDS founder Joseph Smith's personal life (Spoiler alert: There's plenty of documentation out there to show he was not exactly a paragon of virtue and was likely a minor con artist...same as a lot of other religions' founders), the theological reasons and church teachings that explain why the LDS are so committed to the project, and a lot of details about various non-western cultures whose family models that don't fit neatly into the highly western-centric pedigree charts used in the US. I've also tried to be a lot less snarky, offensive, and condescending than the author. And, while this rant is long, I'm pretty sure I covered in all in a lot less than the 600+ pages in this book.
A graduate of Yale and Harvard and professor of history Donald Harman Akenson is considered an expert on the Irish diaspora and has written extensively about Judeo-Christian history. I'd be lying if I said I did not learn some interesting things from this book. If I hadn't been learning something, I wouldn't have slogged through it. But I'd also be lying if I said I enjoyed the book. Mr. Akenson is clearly an intellectual who takes his work seriously, but I found his writing style annoyingly snarky and pedantic...or, to use a word he seems very fond of attributing to others, hubristic. Despite is proclaimed admiration for the LDS, he can't seem to let pass any opportunity to make snide comments about them. I'm not LDS (and would never want to be), but after a hundred pages of his pointed parenthetical jabs, even I started feeling offended for them. Not that he discriminates: several other religions get the treatment, too, but nothing like the constant pounding he delivers to the Mormons. I agreed with most of what he was saying, but not with the tone he was using to say it. (And, Dr. Akenson, why not just call them the LDS or Mormons? Why "Saints" in quote marks as if you're rolling your eyes every time you typed it.)
Six hundred plus pages later, I'm still not sure what his goal was with this book. If it was to point out the messiness of genealogy and how that is compounded by sloppy practice and ethno-centric standards, he did that exhaustively -- beat the poor horse to death several times over-- but he offered no constructive ideas or solutions. If his goal was to Mormon bash, why? What good did it do? In my opinion, the problems of genealogy research and entanglements caused by theology -- ANY theology--would be more constructive if approached in a tone that invites solutions and dialogue, a discussion that should include the LDS since they do have such a strong commitment to preservation of records and providing access to research tools
Genealogy is a messy subject. It's inherently optimistic: anyone indulging in the hobby pretty much begins with false assumptions, not the least of which is the myth that no one ever lied about who the baby daddy was, persuaded someone to put false information on a document, or gave false information under oath or simply from selective amnesia. Even if a miracle happens and your family is that fictionally magical one with nothing to hide and who told only the truth all the time, there's still the very real possibility that documents were copied, transcribed or printed incorrectly. This bubble is fragile even before you factor all he mistakes derived from false logic, inattention, typos, and just plain stupidity because someone didn't bother to question how a child could be born to a mother who had been dead ten years or decided the parents "must" have been married because "everyone was married back then." You don't even have to go back far. My grandmother's death certificate--an official document, mind you--lists her daughter and son-in-law as her parents. (I can only assume my aunt, who was the informant, either didn't understand the question asked or was too upset to think straight.) My father's published obituary has three major errors in it, including my name and his birth place. Those errors get replicated and passed on, especially now that the internet has made it possible for anyone to put up their 'research" cheaply and easily. Spend an hour on Ancestry.com, and chances are you'll see something presented as fact that simply makes no sense and/or is completely wrong.
Like I said, it's a messy hobby.
There is also a question about what, exactly, a person is trying to research. Does DNA trump all? When we research our family trees, do we give priority to biological ancestry or cultural ancestry? If you said "biological," then how do we then track and record step-parents, adoptions, egg/sperm donors, same gender marriages, adultery, bigamy (hey, it happened more often than you might think), incest, or other cases that don't fit the Western European, Traditional Marriage, White Folk monogamy model...which is, whether you want to face the fact or not, is both a fairly recent model and not even the majority one. And if you said "cultural," then you have to define what that means and how on earth to track it since the tools available don't really lend themselves to dealing with guardians, fostering, apprentices, blended families, or any of the myriad ways non-American cultures choose to form families or define parenting.
If all this isn't messy enough, throw in religion. First, there is the whole "begets" thing outlined in the Old Testament that some believe to be literal truth and others (with good reason) have plenty of doubts about. (Most Biblical scholars agree that nothing and no one prior to King David can be proven to have existed, and some aren't even sure about him.) Then there are the LDS, a religious group for whom genealogy is far more than a hobby; it is an integral part of their practice. They believe all of humankind are literally descended from a literal (as opposed to mythical or metaphorical) Adam and Eve, and their quality of afterlife depends on documenting and solidifying (through sealing) those bonds. Never mind whether you agree with them or not theologically, just think about the logistics of it. How do you create the family tree of every person who ever existed?
It's this mandate that has spurred the LDS church to create the Family History Library system, a marvel of record storage and access, open to anyone of any faith. The LDS have the world's most thorough collection of documents, with masters stored in temperature-controlled caves that would make our military blush with want for the same. They comb courthouses, small town libraries, newspaper archives, etc., locating, copying, archiving, transcribing, and digitizing documents. It's really quite impressive, and it's useful to sociologists and historians as well as the genealogy hobbyist.
Unfortunately, the LDS are wonderful collectors and archivists of primary and secondary documents, but they aren't terrific auditors of submitted undocumented family trees. The IGI -- the master database they've been working on for nearly a century -- is rife with errors. And they will tell you this if you ask, but users seldom do: they just assume that if it's in print (or on-line), it must be true. So, again, errors are replicated. And you end up with some crazy stuff like a family tree that leads back to Odin, fictional Norse God, or to Noah -- ones for which I would dearly love to see the documentation.
If you're still with me, I've pretty much told you what this book is about. The only parts I've left out are where the author gives a blow-by-blow history of LDS founder Joseph Smith's personal life (Spoiler alert: There's plenty of documentation out there to show he was not exactly a paragon of virtue and was likely a minor con artist...same as a lot of other religions' founders), the theological reasons and church teachings that explain why the LDS are so committed to the project, and a lot of details about various non-western cultures whose family models that don't fit neatly into the highly western-centric pedigree charts used in the US. I've also tried to be a lot less snarky, offensive, and condescending than the author. And, while this rant is long, I'm pretty sure I covered in all in a lot less than the 600+ pages in this book.
A graduate of Yale and Harvard and professor of history Donald Harman Akenson is considered an expert on the Irish diaspora and has written extensively about Judeo-Christian history. I'd be lying if I said I did not learn some interesting things from this book. If I hadn't been learning something, I wouldn't have slogged through it. But I'd also be lying if I said I enjoyed the book. Mr. Akenson is clearly an intellectual who takes his work seriously, but I found his writing style annoyingly snarky and pedantic...or, to use a word he seems very fond of attributing to others, hubristic. Despite is proclaimed admiration for the LDS, he can't seem to let pass any opportunity to make snide comments about them. I'm not LDS (and would never want to be), but after a hundred pages of his pointed parenthetical jabs, even I started feeling offended for them. Not that he discriminates: several other religions get the treatment, too, but nothing like the constant pounding he delivers to the Mormons. I agreed with most of what he was saying, but not with the tone he was using to say it. (And, Dr. Akenson, why not just call them the LDS or Mormons? Why "Saints" in quote marks as if you're rolling your eyes every time you typed it.)
Six hundred plus pages later, I'm still not sure what his goal was with this book. If it was to point out the messiness of genealogy and how that is compounded by sloppy practice and ethno-centric standards, he did that exhaustively -- beat the poor horse to death several times over-- but he offered no constructive ideas or solutions. If his goal was to Mormon bash, why? What good did it do? In my opinion, the problems of genealogy research and entanglements caused by theology -- ANY theology--would be more constructive if approached in a tone that invites solutions and dialogue, a discussion that should include the LDS since they do have such a strong commitment to preservation of records and providing access to research tools
May 20, 2020
The author wrote a long book on why he has a low opinion of the doctrinal beliefs and genealogical efforts of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints but admires their dedication to record preservation as well as their many positive character traits.
I actually agreed with the author on several points but found his writing style rather condescending.
This quote amused me; “Professional historians, like all skilled tradespeople, have their own status rules. One of the most basic of these – so basic that our postgraduate students do not even need to be told, so clearly do we silently communicate our snobbery – is this: do not ever become involved with the practice of genealogy: it is a necropolis of the mind and anyone who enters there can only return as a zombie.” (The author goes on to show why this is a mistaken belief, but I had to include the quote as an example of the tone of the writing.)
“The best genealogies are artful and achieve the status of consciously crafted art.”
There you go. I’m an artful zombie. I’ve got a degree in history - genealogy to prove it.
I agree with the author that the databases of the Church of Jesus Christ contain amazing amounts of fiction along with a mind boggling amount of fact. The structure of those databases isn’t always ideal to represent what a variety of family relationships can entail. History and families are messy tangles but computer programs are logical and organized. I just got tired of the listing of all the many ways we’re all doing it wrong.
I actually agreed with the author on several points but found his writing style rather condescending.
This quote amused me; “Professional historians, like all skilled tradespeople, have their own status rules. One of the most basic of these – so basic that our postgraduate students do not even need to be told, so clearly do we silently communicate our snobbery – is this: do not ever become involved with the practice of genealogy: it is a necropolis of the mind and anyone who enters there can only return as a zombie.” (The author goes on to show why this is a mistaken belief, but I had to include the quote as an example of the tone of the writing.)
“The best genealogies are artful and achieve the status of consciously crafted art.”
There you go. I’m an artful zombie. I’ve got a degree in history - genealogy to prove it.
I agree with the author that the databases of the Church of Jesus Christ contain amazing amounts of fiction along with a mind boggling amount of fact. The structure of those databases isn’t always ideal to represent what a variety of family relationships can entail. History and families are messy tangles but computer programs are logical and organized. I just got tired of the listing of all the many ways we’re all doing it wrong.
December 27, 2007
Although the author says he loves Mormons, the author uses inflamatory words to describe the story of Joseph Smith as a background to why Mormons do family history research with such fervor.
I did not like this book.
Cutting another's belief system is more the goal of this book.
I did not like this book.
Cutting another's belief system is more the goal of this book.
April 3, 2011
Always learn new things when I read Akenson. And this one is no exception. An important read for those interested in genealogy
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews