Martin Harris
Answers
-
First - find the Family Tree record for Martin Harris and click on "view my relationship" - just to confirm the links are not broken between you and Martin.
also you just cant assume all church leaders have actually been marked as "church leader" - only those marked as such would show up. (its definitely not a comprehensive list that is used . . .)
1 -
Wow you have no idea how offensive that last comment is. It was Martin's treatment after Joseph Smith's death that caused Martin to stay behind after the Saints moved West. He lost everything after he mortgaged his Farm to print the Book of Mormon and the Fact he was one of the original 3 witnesses and his few last words on his death bed was to once again Witness to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is Leader enough for me!
1 -
Im not a FS employee - - Im merely a humble user, just like you, pointing out that the list is not comprehensive
I dont know who is on the list and who is not . .
I am in no way whatsoever trying to say whether or not Martin Harris was a church leader who deserves great respect.
Just pointing out the same conclusion that you seem to have come to - that Martin Harris appears to be not included from the list of people - it is not a complete nor comprehensive list of all important church leaders.
no need to get offended . . .
1 -
Were you able to confirm that the "view my relationship" function does indeed show the relationship between you and Martin (from his FamilyTree profile)?
If that does not show the relationship then the problem is not with the list of Church Leaders being incomplete but rather with the "relationship process" being broke or not making the connection for other reasons
1 -
Scanning through the list of Church Leaders seen in the Famous Ancestors activity, it appears they are all members of the First Presidency, members of the Quorum of the Twelve, Relief Society presidents, Primary presidents, Young Women's presidents, Young Men's presidents, and Sunday School presidents. Martin Harris does not fit in any of those categories as far as I am aware and so would not be listed there.
There is not a category for important figures in early church history.
He also would not be listed under Church Pioneers because the general definition is someone who came to Utah by 1868 and he did not go to Utah until 1870.
1 -
Yes, Gordon, I believe that is correct - though basing it simply as you are doing - on the people that you do see and dont see in the group. Thanks for sharing that valid point.
1 -
Since I have 119 relatives in that Church Leader group (guess where I was born and raised), I think it's probably a pretty representative sample of who is included.
1 -
yeh thanks
but even if a person was not born in Utah
since the Relative checker goes back so far (10 + generations and more I think) - even if you are not born in Utah - there is still a high percent chance that you have "connections" - especially if you have New England and British ancestry where many church leaders came from. Its not just the Utah born that have so many connections. Many non lds can also have numerous connections in the LDS Church Leaders category.
(as we both know - its not just checking direct ancestors - its also checking cousins that have a common ancestor up to 10 generations back) there is a pool of millions of possible connections. at some point we are related to everyone . . .
1 -
That is one thing about all these computerized activities that include looking for our relatives. I've kind of started to decide it really doesn't matter who I am related to since I'm related to everyone. With that checking back ten generations and forward to today, View My Relationship really shows how interrelated we are. As of the current moment, Relatives at RootsTech shows I have 39,286 relatives taking part in that feature.
1 -
yep thats not really an out of the norm number - thats actually a pretty common number around 40,000 relatives on Rootstech (if you have most lines that go above and beyond 10 generations)
yeh personally I dont put a lot of weight on "Oh I'm related to so and so. . ."
... and I respond - "yeh and so are a million other people" . . .
(it doesnt mean they are your "ancestor" - it just means among the millions of descendants of some common ancestor way back - both of you happen to be in the million. i.e. they are a very very distant cousin - as are a huge number of the world population.
1 -
Heh. Well, FS and BYU agree that I have no relatives. (That's actually how BYU words it: "We Were Not Able to Find Any Relatives For You".) So despite the impressive numbers that some of you get, it's actually only looking at a very small part of the world's population. Very small.
1 -
it depends . . . how far do you trace your lines back and that they are recorded in FS as such?
if a person can only trace their line back 3 or 4 generations they will have a hard time making many connections (regardless of where they are from)
or if they come from a place in the world where research is difficult OR where there are few people registered for Roots Tech or few records available then yes you can run into your situation.
On the one hand there are are literally billions of ancestors in Family Tree - its no small number
but on the other hand it is surely true the representation is totally skewed for now across the countries and regions of the world and not equally distributed
but no matter where your are ancestors are from . . . the greatest limiting factor is how far back you have traced your lines and how many of your cousins have done the same.
as time goes by that will change . . . the Family Tree is growing . . .
but I would still say a very high percentage of RootsTech participants have cousin numbers in the tens of thousands. . . for the simple reason of math - that they have their lines traced back 10 or so generations and so do many of their cousins who are also registered on RT.
but . . . I dont think anyone should be bragging about how many cousin numbers they have . . .. thats not the point.
1 -
the current world population is about 8 Billion people
but for the vast majority of the history of the planet the population of earth has been less than 1/2 billion.
the current family tree database is somewhere around 1.5 Billion
(also most extant genealogical source records from which to build family trees - don't go too much beyond 800 years or so in large number of cases)
so that gives some perspective - but yes there are entire regions of the planet that have few people yet recorded in Family Tree
that will change with time.
1 -
it's actually only looking at a very small part of the world's population.
This.
As a genealogist I am far more interested in the fringes of the One Big Tree and the isolated fragments that so far no one can connect to the One Big Tree than in the well-researched interior. How many cousins do you have? 40,000 or more? Meh. None? Yay, lots of research left for us to do.
1 -
Perhaps you will find more relations in this 'activity':
1 -
Thank you for this link.
1 -
By the way, RelativeFinder.org tells me too that "We Were Not Able to Find Any Relatives For You" but that is only because I have not attached my own profile to my ancestors.
0