To all family history people

[Craig Jessop]

I have an ancestor I just found who apparently is sealed to his wife already (in like 1960), but he's not even baptized yet! I printed his card and am planning to do his ordinances this week, but I'm wondering how this happened and what the chances of duplication are. FamilySearch says that there isn't and potential duplicate person, and I'm 100% certain that my family are his only descendants that are members.

[Tao]

I'm 100% certain that my family are his only descendants that are members.

Mmmm, that's quite a steep call to make, unless he's a fairly recent ancestor. Both my parents are converts, in one of the slowest growing areas in the United States, church-wise. Yet when doing family history we've found a number of chains that were done by distant relatives. You do realize that not counting China and India, ~1 in 300 people are LDS? It doesn't take many generations to start getting a significant number of descendants. Even if there was no growth in the family and you only average two kids that marry and propagate per generation, 2-300 years gives you over thirteen times that threshold. The US average ranges up to double this rate in the past 100 years, that would put the 4,000+ descendants potentially within one lifetime (5th generation photos aren't that uncommon, my great grandmother has 5th gen descendants that are fast approaching dating age). A big family early on also push those numbers up; an average (caucasian) US female in 1800 had 7 kids. You could see an ancestor of that era with over a million descendants.

[Craig Jessop]

I found out who it was, it was somebody doing descendancy research. I e-mailed her and she gave me all she had on the line and said to take it to the temple, considering it was my great-grandmother and her siblings. I also have a lot more information than her (two other wives, children, etc, whereas she only had the man and his first wife). That means that all her descendants are my mom's cousins, and my mom and her brother are the only living Mormons in the lot; my uncle didn't do the work, and it certainly wasn't my mom. Apparently, the cousin of my great-great grandfather joined the Church and has active family still around.

Man, this work is so rewarding! I refuse to age prematurely and tell family history stories all the time, but it doesn't mean that I don't think them.