Famous Dead Mormons

Temple ordinance information is no longer updated in the International Genealogical Index (IGI). Church members who wish to verify completed temple ordinances for their deceased ancestors may contact a family history consultant, or visit a local family history center for assistance.

LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter said on May 6th, 2009, “The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us, and it is counter to church policy for a church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related”
They also emphasized, saying

The LDS Church has counseled its members to request temple baptism and other temple ordinance work only on behalf of their relatives, but it recognizes that sometimes well-meaning members bypass the instruction and submit the names of non-relatives.

The church also recognizes that due to pranks or carelessness, names of famous or infamous individuals or even fictitious names are sometimes submitted for temple work — all contrary to policy and often resulting in pain and embarrassment.

With millions of members providing names for proxy work worldwide, the church acknowledges the difficulty in preventing such incidents and often learns of them after the fact.

FDM has not yet been able to find any reference to this policy.

Some time in 1842, the prophet Joseph Smith introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a temple ceremony called Baptism for the Dead, followed shortly by a full complement of salvific ordinances by proxy for dead ancestors. But as these things often do, the original purpose of the ordinances seemed to be forgotten by some members of the church and they began trying to ‘redeem’ everyone they could identify. Since this was quite a daunting genealogical task in the days before computers, (and for several years afterward) it seems that some members took a shortcut and performed proxy baptisms and other ordinances for any name they could find, which meant a lot of famous people got baptized. It appears that some time in the early 1990’s there was a fad, or at least a hobby, of finding famous people to baptize. In fact, many times, ordinances were duplicated.

This web log is a tribute to that fad.