DORSET-L Archives
Archiver > DORSET > 1999-03 > 0920356699
From: <>
Subject: Re: LDS church release Family Search
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 01:38:19 EST
Re: LDS church release Family Search
To: Clive Henly, United Kingdom and William Skyvington, France
I think you both miss the point.
Mr. Skyvington, you would have members of the Dorset-l rootsweb group dismiss
genealogical information based upon your dislike for the Mormon Church. Mr.
Henly, you would have us dismiss any argument that would challenge the
reliability of sources of information. I believe you are both wrong.
Thirty years ago this coming summer, I graduated with an undergraduate degree
in Philosophy and Theology. Since that time I have traveled to 66 countries
on six continents and read approximately 3500 books. I can't say that I am
smarter for my efforts, but at least I am more informed and a skeptic to all
sources of information. What I learned about the Christian bible was many of
the things I thought were written with creative imagination were actually
based on historical fact and other things I believed were fact were in fact
outright, intentional lies intended to deceive for religious or political
beliefs. In the last thirty years, we have learned more historical truth
about the early Christian church than was known in the previous two thousand
years.
During one part of my life I held a position of Chief of Detectives,
supervising over 2,000 cases per year. After several years being a Chief of
Detectives, I also taught investigator courses. The most important thing I
taught my students was to "not assume anything". To me genealogy is the
greatest detective case of all times, because it never ends. The search for
the truth that is. The sources of our information must be questioned,
checked and then checked again. Over and over.
Was Thomas Jefferson the father of Sally Hemmings youngest child? Probably
not. Did Thomas Jefferson's first cousin who stayed at Jefferson's home
father slave children. Yes, most certainly. How do I know? Because
Jefferson wrote a long letter to his cousin and friend, Captain William
Royall, chastising him for keeping a mistress. A habit that Jefferson believed
a violation of sound ethics and good morals. Because of the letter, Captain
Royall married his mistress, Ann, the daughter of a servant.
After Captain Royall's death, the young widow, Ann, became one of the greatest
journalist in the history of America. Jefferson banished his cousin from his
home after the cousin murdered a slave. However, Hollywood and modern
press would have us believe that Jefferson fathered slave children. Because
it makes Bill Clinton look less like a predator? The fact is that the DNA
used recently in the Sally Hemmings tests were from the direct line of the
banished cousin, not Thomas Jefferson's line.
Recently two well dressed and polite young missionaries of the Church of LDS
knocked upon my door and asked if they would be welcome in my home. I told
them no. They asked me why. I told them that in the early days of the LDS
settlement at Salt Lake, a large Catholic wagon train headed west for the West
Coast the United States. The wagon train was lost without a trace. No one
ever knew what had happened to them. Until about ten years ago. A
disenchanted senior member of the Mormon Church fled the Church with Xeroxed
copies of Joseph Smith's diary. In Smith's diary, he wrote that the missing
Catholic wagon train camped for the night outside of Salt Lake. Smith and his
followers murdered 270 Catholic men, women and children in their sleep, stole
their property and buried their remains in the desert. This was only a small
part of the lies and deception outlined in Smith's own handwriting. I have
nothing against any current member of LDS. I just question the basis for
their teachings.
As a matter of fact, every religion one can name has practiced murder in the
name of God on more than one occasion. Can religion be separated from the
modern history of mankind. Unlikely. Should we all continue to search for
the truth in our historical past by freely challenging all sources of
information. I say yes. John Royall, Virginia
This thread: