Google "Family Search" or try the link below .

Here is a link that might be useful: LDS genealogy

You could try the free 2-week trial membership on Ancestry.com and see what you get. You should also know that the LDS Family History centers will help you locate and retrieve (for free or for a very small fee) gen. info that is available on microfilms that circulate out of enormous LDS genealogical files in Salt Lake City. (and if your relative is a Mormon, he may have already submitted what he knows, which may be available to you, if you know what to ask for.) They welcome non-Mormons doing research in their files at the FH centers. You can locate an LDS Family History Center by calling your nearest Mormon Temple. I think that gen. details about living people (or those who might be) are not available, for obvious privacy reasons.

There are also tons and tons of public records kept by towns and states and the Fed. gov't. Ancestry is a good place to access these outside of your own area as they have copied, and make available to members, incredible amounts of data. Ancestry saves the cost of traveling to locations and looking up stuff yourself on site.

There are also Fed. Archives Library branches at various places around the country. Research there is free and some help is generally available.

I am sorry you have an annoying relative. Genealogical research is quite fun to do, and pretty accessible, more so than you may think. Why not just do your own searches and then you'll have the info yourself?

Aside from simply being manipulative one other reason (valid, IMO) to withold some genealogical information might be that living sources set that as a condition for disclosing it, particularly if the information might be what they felt was embarassing or shine a less than great light on a branch of the family.

All kinds of family "scandals" can come tumbling out of the closet if you open the door wide enough.

Some are merely embarassing (Uncle X who everybody was told died in the War, actually was a skid-row bum who lived to be 86 and got sent money every month to stay away, or Aunt Y actually had six kids when everybody thought she just had five - and the extra one is a few years older than her marriage.)

And sometimes the secrets can be disturbing (Charles Manson is in the family or involve really irregular intra-family sexual relationships.)

I think the best thing is to do the research yourself. You might get a real kick out of it. There are usually community groups who welcome newbies and will help you get started. Ask at your local library.

I can't imagine that there is any LDS church official who could order anyone to disclose anything. The point of LDS focus on genealogy is to fulfill their goal of organizing everyone into families (even non-LDS people) so they can be reunited in Heaven. I am not a Mormom, so I may not have that quite right, but that's my understanding.

At any rate, you can easily start by writing down what you know: names, birth dates, death dates and places. And then sign up for the free membership on Ancestry and see where it takes you. Information on 20th c relatives earlier than 1940 is pretty easy to find. (1940 Fed. Census was recently released but is not entirely indexed yet, so not quite fully useful, yet.) There is an unfortunate hole in @1890 when an entire census was lost to a fire, but things pick back up again from 1880 back to 1850, which was the first year a full-name-of-everyone-in-the-household was done. From there back you will need more skill and experience as the info is less complete, but it really isn't hard to do. It takes patience and doggedness, mostly.

I have no personal financial interest in Ancestry, but I have found that their free-membership works just fine. You can quit, if you like. But they know from experience that people get "hooked" on finding out about their families so many people keep the subscription going after the free trial period. They usually have one or two free weekends per year where anyone can use the site. (Easter and Thanksgiving, I think.) Also some libraries have subscriptions and you can do your research there, w/o paying a dime.

Good luck and HTH,

L

I don't think this had anything to do with the fact that the relative is a mormon ... the real issue is that the relative is a jerk. Do you have another relative that can help DH and the "jerk" communicate? I would not contact the jerk's boss, as you would be mixing work and personal issues and would make the situation worse.

Why genealogy can be fun it takes a lot of time - I've been doing ours for a few years. And it does seem senseless to duplicate work.
Even if you sign up for the free 2 week Ancestry your family member may have opted to keep his family tree private which means you won't be able to access it.

Is the family member planning a family book or something on what they have researched?
I spent years and years and with the help of ancestry.com traced my fathers side. It was so interesting and addictive; I even have copies of old wills and found the original family name, baptisms, the boat they came over on and you name it. I made many a long distant call to all remaining relatives as there was very little to go by at first. A few years after I had finished I was contacted through ancestry by a second cousin whose mother had always been a bit estranged from the family. She was estranged because of her wild past and I was not aware that she had kept any of her children, but she did, two, a boy and her daughter. Well any way, the daughter had seen my name in her search on ancestry and wanted me to share my info, which I gladly did at the time. I gave her all of my research. A short time later she compiled it all as her research and sent it to all the relatives. Now granted she did put it all in a much orderly fashion...but, she never mentioned me or my YEARS of work. I would have been mad if not for the fact that everyone knew I had done the work as I had communicated with them all numerous times throughout my work.
So, is it possible the relative wants to put it all together in a family book? Maybe they want to talk privately before certain sensitive parts are put in? Maybe they want money? Or maybe they just want to protect their research until complete. It is a lot of work!

The problem is that the person and my husband share a father who died when my husband was really young. He was a good father to my husband but not so much to his other child (or childen). My husband desperately wants as much info about his father as he can obtain but no one is talking. We know he has a wild past but my husband does not care--he only cares that his father was a good father to him. Since his father is no longer living, my husband would like to know as much about his life as he can. My mother-in-law isn't much help because she entered the picture after hubby's father had already lived a lifetime. My husband's grandparents are dead and all the information he's gotten from other relatives is sketchy rumors at best. We were wanting to find out how many marriages he had (supposedly at least 6) and how many other half-siblings my husband might have. Since his father lived in numerous states I don't know of any way to track down the marriage licenses.

I think his sibling cut us off when we didn't automatically say what a horrible man their father was. My husband's opinion of his father isn't going to change no matter what his past was--he was a good father to him and that is what he will remember.

The whole situation isn't very Christian in my mind to withhold information about a shared deceased parent.

De

Dktrahan, it is very common for siblings to have opposing views on their upbringing. Even in a so called perfect family setting the views can be at far ends of the spectrum. So many things come into play as far as personal problems, marital problems, and financial problems and maybe in your father-in-laws case a whole much of stuff. This "stuff" may have come to a head during the other sibling's upbringing and not so much at the time of your husbands young age...or perhaps he was just too young to notice. Maybe the other siblings just need some justification from your husband that their pain is real. They want some acknowledgement for their pain and not necessarily that your husband must feel the same way personally. They have a pain and it has nothing to do with their Christianity.
In my family, my sister was the baby and got much attention and love from everyone during our parent’s turbulent marriage. As the youngest her upbringing was very different from mine. However, she remembers the bad too and I would feel so alone and hard done by if she didn’t acknowledge how bad it was for me being the oldest...in fact I think it would really be rather horrible.

I really think you and your husband are missing something here.
Use this to become closer and understand each other.

Well, you could try to start with your husband's grandparents (whose names, places and birth and death dates you know, right?) Searching their records may reveal your FIL's other sibs and their families, and they may have useful info, too.

You can easily retrieve your husband's father's death certificate which will likely give his parents' names and birth places and dates. It may list how many times he was married, too. (Or at least all that told his then-wife about, if she survived him!)

Your husband's own birth certificate may indicate what number child he is for each of his parents. (This relies on accurate reporting by parents, though.)

You can search public reoords for marriage and divorce decrees in states where you believe he lived. (Doesn't always work if one of his ex-spouses filed in an unknown state and she was granted a divorce when he failed to respond.)

Doesn't your MIL have any clue? I'll bet she does, though she may be reluctant to talk. Wives know tons of stuff their husbands' don't think they do!

Is your husband the only ch of that marriage? Sometimes female ch know more than males.

Soc. security records may tell you who else has filed a claim based on your FIL's social security (divorced spouses can claim as dependants if they were married 10 years.) Your MILs social security survivor's benefits may contain some info about this.

I would still start with a simple gen. search. I don't know how old your FIl may have been, but since the 1940, 1930, 1920 census are available on-line that may give you some hints. If he was in the military, there may be some clues about then-spouses' names. His HS yearbook may even be a place to start. My parents were born in 1923 so I can see them in the 1930 and 1940 census, WW II military records, street directories in the 50's, property and voting records in the 60's, 70's 80's etc. Newspaper reports during that era, too. They didn't belong to social or church organizations (Elks, VFW, sports clubs, fire department/auxilliary, agricultural groups, etc.) but those are other sources to look for. Passport applications and immigration (for traveling, not just arriving in this country) are also helpful; educational records (HS, college, etc.) can offer clues. In short there really is tons of info to be found - you just have to start.

The LDS family history centers may be very useful, as well, because if your relative is a Mormon, chances are he has contributed at least some of what he learned to their files as a record of his own lineage. They have micro-filmed their info and you can retrieve the micro-films through your local FHC. (There may be a small fee to postage to the center.)

Also although some people keep their data on Ancestry as "private" (and no living person's data is viewable by anyone who didn't enter it, or agree to share the file) the data entered is not really un-findable, it's just not linked back to its source.

I do genealogical research on behalf of my town's historical society which is studying the old buildings and patterns of settlement. Since almost none of this is related to my own family, I keep all my Ancestry family trees private (not my data to share in its organized form). But I can see what I've entered showing up in the general files that anyone can access. So you may find more than you expect.

Don't let the silly family quarrel keep you from looking. No one owns their familiy's genealogical info, but everyone has a right to keep what they have gleaned from thier own efforts to themselves for whatever reason.

If your husband is truly desperate to find the info out, there is a lot he, or you, can do to get the ball rolling.

HTH

L.

De,

I sent you an email with a way to contact me. I will be happy to look up your FIL and grandparents on Ancestry to see if there's much to be had there. To reply use the email in my message as the email acc't connected to my GW user-name is long-ago-abandonned and inaccessible.

My research keeps me on the Ancestry site for hours every day, so it will be no trouble to take a quick pass at a few fresh names.

L.

I don't mean to derail the thread, but maybe my husband's experience can shed some light on what's very likely happening:

Your husband's father sounds a LOT like my husband's father... We know of five marriages and eight children, but Hubby and the siblings he grew up with were the first -- we only met the others when his father died.

After 'Daddy Dearest' deserted Hubby's family, he'd pop back in every few years and whine about his poor financial condition, having to support his new children... You can imagine how well this went over when Hubby's family was struggling even more and their father had essentially disappeared. So there was a fair 'emotional hurdle' to overcome when Hubby finally met his half-siblings. After all, they had been provided for (private school, college, etc.) while he and his siblings did without... The only things they had ever heard was how great Dad's new life was and how wonderful the new kids were.

Except, as it turns out, Daddy gave them the same 'poor me' whine, blaming his first ex-wife and first kids. He told kids 5-7 that all his money went to college for kids 1-4. He appears to have been the same selfish person to all of his kids -- with the possible exception of #8. When the first seven adult kids finally met at Daddy's funeral (#8 was too pregnant to travel), the only thing we had to talk about was Daddy -- and very little of that conversation was kind. He'd never thrown a baseball or built a dollhouse with any of them. Never attended a school play or graduation. Never helped with college. We actually had rather a lot to bond over...

The point of all this is that the older children very probably have legitimate grievances, even if your husband's father was a 'different man' -- which I am not doubting, by the way. Sometimes people do grow up...

What I'm trying to get at is that if your husband wants to learn about his father, he's going to need to hear some pretty bad stuff, because that is their truth. He can meet his half-siblings and bond over that truth, or he can maintain his my version was different stance (even if true) and get only their resentment. They may eventually be glad to hear that their father 'finally got it' -- but not on the front end.

I know if 'kid #9' ever turned up -- it's certainly conceivable (wonder if it's your husband?) -- Hubby would be more than willing to talk to him or her about Dear Old Dad -- on Hubby's terms. But if #9 ever mentioned what a wonderful father she had that she hardly got a chance to know -- would Hubby just send the paperwork so her memories wouldn't be tarnished? I can tell you, that wouldn't be happening...

His attitude would be a straight: You want to know the truth? You're gonna get the whole truth.

Hi sweeby, I think I already derailed the thread :) Well sort of, I think we are both on the same wavelenght though. It all might be going a bit deeper than the genealogical research.

Thank you for all your input. L, I will contact you with the info I've gained thus far.

I completely understand his sibling's feelings but my husband does not (difference between how men and women handle feelings). My husband is also very untrusting in why his sibling is requiring an in person meeting. He would be willing to talk by phone but numbers were never exchanged. He is afraid of being bullied about being converted to another religion. We live in another state and it would not be easy to uproot our household for this visit just to get information that could be emailed. The location is not one we would visit for any other reason.

My husband knows that the past will be ugly but wants to know it all the same because it was his father. He refuses to judge anyone by how they lived--he just wants the hard facts so he has a feel for his family history. He really has no interest in the "feelings" side of things (which his sibling wants to impart)--he just wants the names, dates, etc. My husband carries his own baggage and truly believes no one has all sides of the story when all parties are deceased. It's frustrating. It would be so much easier if this particular sibling was a male.

De

I can't relate to this particular situation (how amazing that sweeby could!). But I can relate to what it's like to have family not speaking to one another for more than a decade because of different opinions on how and whether new feelings about old situations should be discussed.

In my family's case, it is even inverted as to the female and male "roles", so it gets even more frustrating. My stepbrother (4 years younger) in his early 30s started trying to make peace with/reconcile some of his feelings about his mom (my stepmother). This is when he was a young father trying to work out how his own family would function. It turns out he was very troubled and bothered by my stepmother (who was a Vietnam war widow) working outside the home and/or occupying herself with any number of things (horses, in particular) rather than spending time raising/nurturing my stepbrothers. He wanted to talk to her about the choices she made and try to understand, and I'm sure also vent to some degree and try to get her to "realize" how her choices had affected him.

My stepmother wanted to communicate by letter, or email, etc. She didn't want to be backed into a corner, or forced to react immediately to anything. She also felt, pretty much, that there wasn't much for stepbrother to complain about, and he turned out pretty good, right? Spilled milk and all that. He needed to man up. My dad and stepbrother's wife at first tried to broker some sort of discussion, but then that went south, and all sides were firmly entrenched.

I wandered in about a year later and also tried to broker something, to no avail. With the exception of my wedding in 2002, my stepmom and stepbrother have not been in the same room in about 15 years. Nor have they spoken or communicated. Nor has she communicated two wonderful grandchildren.

All I can say is that sometimes it is necessary to bend, even if the other person isn't going to meet you halfway. That is, if it is important enough to you. In this case, the information must not be important enough to your husband.

How badly does your DH want this information?

It's not uprooting the entire household for him to take 48 hours to get on a plane and fly to see this relative and get the info and fly back home. It's a cost, in both time and money--but if he has no other way to get this information, that may be the cost he has to pay.

Try all your other options first. And then if your DH can't find what he's looking for elsewhere, he may have to go and visit this person. He can always walk away if a conversion attempt is made (why is he so worried about this?), knowing that he did his best to find out more about his father.

De; I watch the show Who do you think you are? & am amazed at the things they're able to bring up about people.

One of the last ones was a news reporter who was married/divorced multiple times; but the facts didn't get passed down. I think it was Edie Falco. Watch a few of the episodes; it will give you an idea of the amount of work involved.

I've never done my roots; mine are not in America. It looks like a very time consuming "hobby". I can understand why this relative doesn't want to just give up information & even if they did; you don't know how much of it is really accurate. While they may have been able to speak directly to some relatives; the stories or names may not have been confirmed via actual records; so they could just be "family stories". I was told a few things by my dad that my uncle has said did not happen. lol

It sounds like your hub doesn't want a relationship with his 1/2 sibling & they could feel like they're only being contacted for the information. It also could be that it's easier to do in person; depending on the type of documenting they've done. You would not believe some of the paperwork that's dug up on the show that they copy for the celebrities. They have old photos; birth; marriage & death records; some have a family tree on nice paper. Possible that seeing some of it in person would be easier then sharing via email or over the phone.

I don't understand the comment about being bullied into converting to another religion & why it would even come up in a meeting. I know some people are passionate about their religion; but it's very easy to steer conversation away from it.