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Names for temple work


Sky

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 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

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I can see where it might cause an operational challenge.

But no, I don't think we will run out of names before the millennium and other end time events that will keep the temples very busy.

And I personally prefer it when people do work for their own ancestors, although there is no doctrinal rule about it.

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1 hour ago, Sky said:

 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  

Since FamilySearch indexing began in 2006, an unprecedented effort has produced more than one billion searchable records  -- wiki

There are many more still not indexed

In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

You have thousands and thousands of cousins who are related to you that are over 110 years.  Just as long as they have a surname in your family tree and lived in the same general area as your ancestors.

 

Edited by cdowis
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1 hour ago, Sky said:

 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

Never heard of them doing that.  There are more than enough names to keep our temples busy for a thousand years.

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I was doing research on familysearch for some reason can't remember and read there were even a number of records from early church members, baptisms in Nauvoo wards that were still being indexed, so I doubt we will run out of names anytime soon.

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Duplication has definitely been done in order to keep temples and people busy.  I think it's far less about getting names done and far more about giving living people the experience, over and over again as ritual tends to seal devotion in many faith followers.  There's not really a names running out issue, though.  You can always just resubmit anyone with some variation or another.  Considering how complicated you can make family ties through history, it's easy to do.  Numerous people are entered into Familysearch databases in multiple ways, as they are treated differently.  There is a feature put in, in recent years, wherein the user can double check for duplicated entries.  You'll find that duplication happens all the time, and it sometimes feels to me like quite a job to just go through my own peoples in my trees and check for duplication every now and then, because new ones continue to pop up.  When you do that you find individual people will sometimes have their ordinances done many times over.  It's cute.  I realize many who participate are doing it, if they are members, to identify names to take.  With that goal it's really easy to mix up the neatness and accuracy.  

Ultimately you are right though.  Our ability to identify names to take is very limited, when you consider the history of the world.  We can only go back so far.  You'll notice everyone has or can create a burrowed line back as far back as you want, linking yourself to European royalty lines is the easiest way to do that.  There are no records for most of it, at some point, so who cares...really.  When family search added descendancies lines, it really opened up avenues for people who were getting stuck in their lines, stuck in submitting names.  But I also suspect doing that added levels of duplication that seem out of control to me.  

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8 hours ago, Calm said:

I was doing research on familysearch for some reason can't remember and read there were even a number of records from early church members, baptisms in Nauvoo wards that were still being indexed, so I doubt we will run out of names anytime soon.

Names from members in Nauvoo is a really short list in the sum.  Also, just because some records aren't indexed doesn't mean the names on those records haven't had ordinances done.  That is most of those ancestors who have descendants who are members, particularly American members, trending back a couple hundred years, have had their ordinances done, and in many cases, many times over.  Indexing often just provides records and/or support for conclusions that are already identified and already have their ordinances done.  

I'd agree that names won't run out.  Because if you consider that any one person from history could be in Familysearch 15 different times, it really is easy to conceive of how names won't run out.  At least as we currently approach this.  Now, if it were possible to have crowdsourcing like the Church does, and keep it to one person only once being entered, names would probably run out, particularly for American submitters. 

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I imagine that it would save time for genarations after if one spends more time in converting living members..I don't envy all of you..it is so confusing but I admire families that keep their geneology (sp) straight and correspond with all family members.

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On 2/27/2018 at 8:59 PM, Sky said:

 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

Limiting names for all ordinances or just baptism? I know that at the temples I have been to  they limit baptisms to family names if an adult is doing it, but not for the teens doing them.

Edited by Rain
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On 2/27/2018 at 7:59 PM, Sky said:

 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

You mean they will not let you attend unless you bring your own names??

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On 2/28/2018 at 10:31 AM, phaedrus ut said:

In 1988 the church announced that there had been 100 million endowments done.  In that announcement, they said they predicted the next 100 million in 15 years. We haven't seen any such announcement of completion by 2003 but we can use that estimate for the upper range of possibilities.  So if the church hit 200 million in 2003 and lets say 300 million in 2017.  That's 300 million completed temple work for approximately 100+ billion people who have died.  I agree with this estimate that approximately 12 million endowments are being done per year for the dead.  That means in total the church has done the work of .3% of the deceased population of the  world and with 55 million people dying each year the 12 million endowments aren't keeping up. 

So the prospect of running out of names isn't a risk when you are adding 40 million names a year to a back log that is already at 100 billion. 

 

Phaedrus 

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

Quote

There are billions of people who’ve lived and died and for whom there are no records to find and we will never be able to find their records b/c none were kept. . (Think of the thousands of deaths in the war chapters of the BOM, for starters.). Most of human history suffers from this record deficit and it will have to be cured during the millennium. Thus, there will be billions of names or people available for temple work during that time. ... Until then, billions of spirits are trapped with no escape hatch b/c there are no earthly records of their birth, death, marriage, children etc. Decent record keeping is a relatively recent phenomenon and limited to certain classes of people.

The question is whether or not we have enough "known names" to support the current rate of Temple work.  Since the Church obviously isn't going to tell us, the best indicators we have are when the Church rations the number of names to be used for proxy ordinances.  Since baptisms go much quicker than endowments, this is obviously going to be the first bellwether, and it appears to be happening. 

If we had a billion records waiting for baptisms, then they would be begging people to go and do as many as possible.  But if they tell people they can only do three, that means the list is finite.

Of course, the real question is what will the Church do if this continues to be a problem?  Since getting people to repeatedly return to the Temple for proxy ordinances has become such a huge focus, they only have a few options:

- Duplicate ordinances for existing names.

- Make up names for theoretical dead people (i.e. make up 1,000,000 proxy names for those who died in Book of Mormon battles).  It's not like someone's "earthly name" is some immutable construct tied to their spirit.   It's more of a random, changeable label.  "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" ordinances could then be applied as needed to spirits who lived in the past.

- Change the focus of going to the Temple to be more of a "sacrament" type experience where you are regularly repeating the ordinance for yourself in order to "renew" it.

 

 

Edited by cinepro
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50 minutes ago, cinepro said:

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

The question is whether or not we have enough "known names" to support the current rate of Temple work.  Since the Church obviously isn't going to tell us, the best indicators we have are when the Church rations the number of names to be used for proxy ordinances.  Since baptisms go much quicker than endowments, this is obviously going to be the first bellwether, and it appears to be happening. 

If we had a billion records waiting for baptisms, then they would be begging people to go and do as many as possible.  But if they tell people they can only do three, that means the list is finite.

Of course, the real question is what will the Church do if this continues to be a problem?  Since getting people to repeatedly return to the Temple for proxy ordinances has become such a huge focus, they only have a few options:

- Duplicate ordinances for existing names.

- Make up names for theoretical dead people (i.e. make up 1,000,000 proxy names for those who died in Book of Mormon battles).  It's not like someone's "earthly name" is some immutable construct tied to their spirit.   It's more of a random, changeable label.  "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" ordinances could then be applied as needed to spirits who lived in the past.

- Change the focus of going to the Temple to be more of a "sacrament" type experience where you are regularly repeating the ordinance for yourself in order to "renew" it.

 

 

Depends on the situation. Sometimes they limit the number because the wait to do the ordinances is so long. Before Oquirrh Hills and Draper were built I would often wait 2 hours before I could do initiatory at Jordan River in the middle of the day. Even after they were built I sometimes waited an hour. 

 

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On 2/27/2018 at 8:59 PM, Sky said:

 There are only so many dead people.  And there are more temples now than ever before.    But what if we run out of names to do work for?  Is that an issue?  In our temple, they are limiting the names of people you can do work for to your own family tree.  

I actually think it's a worry although from what I understand with China and related areas we'll be set for at least an other 100 years. 

As the comments suggest this is more likely just due to more baptisms being done than endowments and trying to reduce how far out of whack the ratio is.

Edited by clarkgoble
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On 2/28/2018 at 8:16 AM, stemelbow said:

Duplication has definitely been done in order to keep temples and people busy.  I think it's far less about getting names done and far more about giving living people the experience, over and over again as ritual tends to seal devotion in many faith followers.  There's not really a names running out issue, though.  You can always just resubmit anyone with some variation or another.  Considering how complicated you can make family ties through history, it's easy to do.  Numerous people are entered into Familysearch databases in multiple ways, as they are treated differently.  There is a feature put in, in recent years, wherein the user can double check for duplicated entries.  You'll find that duplication happens all the time, and it sometimes feels to me like quite a job to just go through my own peoples in my trees and check for duplication every now and then, because new ones continue to pop up.  When you do that you find individual people will sometimes have their ordinances done many times over.  It's cute.  I realize many who participate are doing it, if they are members, to identify names to take.  With that goal it's really easy to mix up the neatness and accuracy.  

Ultimately you are right though.  Our ability to identify names to take is very limited, when you consider the history of the world.  We can only go back so far.  You'll notice everyone has or can create a burrowed line back as far back as you want, linking yourself to European royalty lines is the easiest way to do that.  There are no records for most of it, at some point, so who cares...really.  When family search added descendancies lines, it really opened up avenues for people who were getting stuck in their lines, stuck in submitting names.  But I also suspect doing that added levels of duplication that seem out of control to me.  

Does anyone think this is a waste of valuable time???

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58 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I actually think it's a worry although from what I understand with China and related areas we'll be set for at least an other 100 years. 

As the comments suggest this is more likely just due to more baptisms being done than endowments and trying to reduce how far out of whack the ratio is.

Maybe one day we'll make the baptisms for the dead more like the endowment and make everyone sit through an hour-long baptismal service for each and every baptism that is performed.  That would get the ratio in check pretty quickly.

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2 hours ago, cinepro said:

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

The question is whether or not we have enough "known names" to support the current rate of Temple work.  Since the Church obviously isn't going to tell us, the best indicators we have are when the Church rations the number of names to be used for proxy ordinances.  Since baptisms go much quicker than endowments, this is obviously going to be the first bellwether, and it appears to be happening. 

If we had a billion records waiting for baptisms, then they would be begging people to go and do as many as possible.  But if they tell people they can only do three, that means the list is finite.

Of course, the real question is what will the Church do if this continues to be a problem?  Since getting people to repeatedly return to the Temple for proxy ordinances has become such a huge focus, they only have a few options:

- Duplicate ordinances for existing names.

- Make up names for theoretical dead people (i.e. make up 1,000,000 proxy names for those who died in Book of Mormon battles).  It's not like someone's "earthly name" is some immutable construct tied to their spirit.   It's more of a random, changeable label.  "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" ordinances could then be applied as needed to spirits who lived in the past.

- Change the focus of going to the Temple to be more of a "sacrament" type experience where you are regularly repeating the ordinance for yourself in order to "renew" it.

 

 

i'm sure we've all seen names of spouses like, "Mrs. Bevilacqua" or "Mr. Wigglesworth" on those cards meaning someone knew they were married but the first name is lost to history, but you do the work for them anyways, if the birth and death dates are known of course

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27 minutes ago, cinepro said:

 

Maybe one day we'll make the baptisms for the dead more like the endowment and make everyone sit through an hour-long baptismal service for each and every baptism that is performed.  That would get the ratio in check pretty quickly.

i've often wondered how could Christ take upon himself all the sins, mistakes, etc of the human emotion but we have to do all these individuals work one at a time? if he did for everyone could we do the same way, somehow?

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27 minutes ago, Duncan said:

i've often wondered how could Christ take upon himself all the sins, mistakes, etc of the human emotion but we have to do all these individuals work one at a time? if he did for everyone could we do the same way, somehow?

I think the idea is that they can experience them but more importantly there's a divide between spirits and the physical world. Whether that's just normative (God said you had to be baptized in the flesh so we have to do it) or involves something deeper we don't know. I suspect something deeper particularly with the endowment but will readily admit I don't know for sure.

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On 3/1/2018 at 11:20 AM, cinepro said:

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

The question is whether or not we have enough "known names" to support the current rate of Temple work.  Since the Church obviously isn't going to tell us, the best indicators we have are when the Church rations the number of names to be used for proxy ordinances.  Since baptisms go much quicker than endowments, this is obviously going to be the first bellwether, and it appears to be happening. 

If we had a billion records waiting for baptisms, then they would be begging people to go and do as many as possible.  But if they tell people they can only do three, that means the list is finite.

Of course, the real question is what will the Church do if this continues to be a problem?  Since getting people to repeatedly return to the Temple for proxy ordinances has become such a huge focus, they only have a few options:

- Duplicate ordinances for existing names.

- Make up names for theoretical dead people (i.e. make up 1,000,000 proxy names for those who died in Book of Mormon battles).  It's not like someone's "earthly name" is some immutable construct tied to their spirit.   It's more of a random, changeable label.  "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" ordinances could then be applied as needed to spirits who lived in the past.

- Change the focus of going to the Temple to be more of a "sacrament" type experience where you are regularly repeating the ordinance for yourself in order to "renew" it.

 

 

This is pure baloney

The answer is to encourage indexing.  We have not touched existing records because they are not digitized.  If you ever did research you would know that names are now popping up for work to be done as soon as you log  it- because the system is now making associations for cousins etc for them

The church has spent decades cleaning up duplicates but cannot stop idiots from producing them.  They want accurate records not duplicates

You actually think the church would do this?  Man- you are something else dude.  Do some indexing.  

Go ask your temple president.  I work there.

Edited by mfbukowski
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On 02/03/2018 at 6:20 AM, cinepro said:

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

Quote

Most of human history suffers from this record deficit and it will have to be cured during the millennium.

 

Population estimates vary widely, but Tzvetan Todorov's guess (from the perspective of a historian, not an anthropologist) is that half of all the people who've ever lived on this planet are alive right now. Half of the rest died in the past 100 years. This is called 'the dispensation of the fullness of times' for more reason than one.

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The answer is to encourage indexing.  We have not touched existing records because they are not digitized.  If you ever did research you would know that names are now popping up for work to be done as soon as you log  it- because the system is now making associations for cousins etc for them

This is exactly right. Probably every six weeks or so, I have new ancestors that have been linked into my family courtesy of some diligent indexers. For me this all started just a few years ago. My sister was visiting me, and together we had explored our entire family tree to the end of every line. Nothing. A few weeks after she left, I felt impressed to do it again. I kept thinking, 'Why? Nothing's there', but I gave in and had a look. By random, and with a certain sense of futile annoyance, I picked one line and went one generation back, made another choice and went back, and so on, till it ended. This time with a couple who had been sealed but nothing else.

I was confused, so I tried the online chat function. The missionary could see more than I could and verified that indexing had added those two names just that week. I asked about the sealing. She explained that the sealing had been done when the marriage record had been extracted years earlier. Now it was my job (and my sister's!) to provide all the earlier ordinances, after which the sealing would be 'ratified'.

I said to the Sister missionary that it was pretty cool that out of the dozens and dozens of lines in my family tree, I'd randomly picked the one that indexers had just added to for me. 'Oh, Brother Hamba', she wrote; 'it wasn't random'. I reckon she was right. What a wonderful time to be alive!

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On 01/03/2018 at 9:46 PM, Duncan said:

i've often wondered how could Christ take upon himself all the sins, mistakes, etc of the human emotion but we have to do all these individuals work one at a time? if he did for everyone could we do the same way, somehow?

Christ took on himself all of our sins,  but we can only accept His sacrifice as individuals, one at a time.   Each of us undertakes the ordinances individually,  accepting the covenants and promises for ourselves.   In the temple,  we stand in proxy for an individual, who is accepting those covenants or not as an individual.  As we act as a proxy, we can think of and connect to that individual.  It is a personal matter, for us and for them. Why should the process be different, just because you are the other side of the veil?   I think it would feel very different if it were for tens, or thousands or more at one time. 

As to numbers, I don't think there are limits in my temple.   Maybe the number limit is because of time - that is that there are so many who are at the temple and want to do work that the time each person has has to be limited, the easy way being to put a number restriction in place - rather than a lack of names.  I still have a lot of family to take anyway. 

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On 02/03/2018 at 8:46 AM, Duncan said:

i've often wondered how could Christ take upon himself all the sins, mistakes, etc of the human emotion but we have to do all these individuals work one at a time? if he did for everyone could we do the same way, somehow?

I think you may be misunderstanding something:

Quote

Although this method was slower and more tedious, Elder Jewkes recognized an important lesson as he worked. Pausing for a moment over each cup, he felt the Spirit testify of Christ's suffering for each individual, one by one. The Atonement was not quick, casual, or impersonal. The Savior felt our pains and sins on an individual and personal basis, and He understands, knows, and loves each of us personally. (link)

 

Quote

As I have stated previously, there were many years in which I believed that the atoning process involved an infinite mass of sin being heaped upon the Savior. As I have become more familiar with the scriptures, my view of the Atonement has expanded. The Atonement involved more than an infinite mass of sin; it entailed an infinite stream of individuals with their specific needs. Alma records that Jesus took upon himself the pains, afflictions, temptations, and sicknesses of his people. In addition, he experienced their weaknesses so that he would know how to help them (see Alma 7:11–12). Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would bear “our griefs, and [carry] our sorrows”; that he would be “wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:4–5). Paul explained to the Hebrews that Jesus tasted “death for every man” and woman (Hebrews 2:9). No wonder “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood” coming from “every pore” (Luke 22:44, D&C 19:18). (link)

 

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On 3/1/2018 at 1:20 PM, cinepro said:

This comment from this blog post sums the realities of the situation quite well:

The question is whether or not we have enough "known names" to support the current rate of Temple work.  Since the Church obviously isn't going to tell us, the best indicators we have are when the Church rations the number of names to be used for proxy ordinances.  Since baptisms go much quicker than endowments, this is obviously going to be the first bellwether, and it appears to be happening. 

If we had a billion records waiting for baptisms, then they would be begging people to go and do as many as possible.  But if they tell people they can only do three, that means the list is finite.

Of course, the real question is what will the Church do if this continues to be a problem?  Since getting people to repeatedly return to the Temple for proxy ordinances has become such a huge focus, they only have a few options:

- Duplicate ordinances for existing names.

- Make up names for theoretical dead people (i.e. make up 1,000,000 proxy names for those who died in Book of Mormon battles).  It's not like someone's "earthly name" is some immutable construct tied to their spirit.   It's more of a random, changeable label.  "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" ordinances could then be applied as needed to spirits who lived in the past.

- Change the focus of going to the Temple to be more of a "sacrament" type experience where you are regularly repeating the ordinance for yourself in order to "renew" it.

 

 

The last option might make the most sense.

As for the dead, have the prophet and his wife go through the endowments for all non-endowed people who ever lived at the same time. Problem solved!

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