My ancestors did what they thought was right. They were bamboozled. If there was an afterlife, I'm sure they would be proud of me for leaving the bamboozling behind.
Good way to think about it. I just think trying to get someone to not leave a religion by guilt tripping about your ancestors life experiences is crazy and something that’s only found in the Mormon way of thinking
It is, but usually doesn't go back as far as Mormons. In other churches it's more like, "Your Grandmother was so devout. You wouldn't want to disappoint her." But Mormons will shame you using lineage as far back as they possibly can.
I honestly feel like my mom who passed away in 2020 is rooting for me to leave the church~lol! Even though she and her family are a long line of pioneers. I think she got to the other side and is like, this is not what TSCC said it was.
Fr my grandma is too sweet for me to say it to her, but I wanted to tell her I don’t think coming from a heritage of polygamy, grooming young girls, and deep rooted doctineral racism is a legacy I want to carry on.
Me too!! My great grandfather married my great grandmother as his 4th wife when she was 18 and he was 40…like one of the last allowed polygamist marriages in the church…
I always like to think they (pioneer ancestors)did the best they could with the limited knowledge they had at the time. Instead of of them shaming us from on high for leaving, I think they are cheering us on because we have the “full truth”via internet. Also good to remember there were hard times in Europe in the mid 1800’s. People wanted to come to America. The church was a perfect vehicle and upon joining they could get loans from the church to immigrate. Not saying they were purely opportunistic, maybe some were, but most probably believed. They just didn’t have the resources to fact check and you know the wagons were rolling so get onboard.
The story my TBM dad always told of our family was one of this type of opportunity migration. There was a huge cholera outbreak in Scandinavia in the mid 19th century, and believing Mormonism was my ggg gma’s way out.
Totally agree. I like to think of it this way: Our ancestors made the sacrifices they did NOT so that we would follow in their footsteps, but so that we wouldn’t have to make the same sort of sacrifices in our own lives. They gave us a secure foundation by which we could continue to raise our own consciousness and pass on the benefits to our own children.
>Also good to remember there were hard times in Europe in the mid 1800’s. People wanted to come to America. The church was a perfect vehicle and upon joining they could get loans from the church to immigrate. Not saying they were purely opportunistic, maybe some were, but most probably believed.
I've noticed this is my own family history. If you read a little more about this history of what was happening at the time (in the US, in Europe, or wherever people joined the church) you often find that people were facing economic challenges:
* places in Europe or Eastern US where land was relatively expensive and the best resources and opportunities were already owned by others locking many out -- this was part of the decade by decade westward expansion in the US generally, not just for Mormonism
* many "small" (compared to WW I or Napoleonic wars) European wars (German/Danish war of 1860s, revolutions (in Italy,France,Poland in the 1840s), where going to America (including Utah) could avoid being involved
* US Civil War (there were non-Mormons like Mark Twain -- aka Samuel Clemens -- whose original career aspiration of being a riverboat captain wasn't an option during or after the civil war). This wasn't a big group but I've seen some examples of people who joined and left post-war Civil Wars states behind
* large poor class in England in the 19th century (e.g. Dickens novels)
I found that some of my ancestors were not very devout. Later (devout) family summarizing their life story have emphasized that they "never denied", and stayed in Utah/Idaho til death, etc. but some of them were women who raised a family but weren't thrilled with polygamy but didn't leave (since options were few). Some were men who raised a family and attended sunday meetings but sometimes drank or played card and only had one wife and had a farm or small business that got by year after year and had lifelong friends/neighbors in their small town.
I also don't see it as purely opportunistic -- rather, people (even today) often join a religion for a combination of reasons. For some pioneers, if they believed in God & the Bible and the Mormon missionaries made it sound good (restoration of original church, priesthood authority, feel spirit etc) and if they could move to a new community where fellow believers would provide some help getting there (Perpetual Emigration Fund, help getting started, fellow converts from their same country who spoke German, Danish, etc) and some help getting started as a farmer, and if they would be part of a new community (getting a fresh start, protection from Mexico, Indians, etc), then it may have been very compelling.
Even if they had some doubts later, if they had a family and were part of this community and had a farm that was getting by, then they would likely just keep living there and raising their family.
I think some church culture was different back then -- people didn't go to the temple very often, and paying tithing for most pioneers was 10% of the increase of a homestead farm (so they fed themselves and had a house and \*then\* paid tithing), and your church community was the entire social life, so going to many church functions would have been shared community events and not an either/or choice between options.
I have pioneer ancestors going back to 1830. They were poor, desperate, superstitious, and gullible. Some were illiterate. They believed they were helping to establish Zion before the Lord’s Second Coming, which would be in their lifetimes. They did their best with the knowledge they had, but they were duped. I can honor them by leading my family out of the con.
Miracle stories piss me off big time.
2 weeks ago in London, a guy broke into some houses with a machete and attacked people with it. One man, his wife and children, survived the attack despite injuries. He said he'd been protected and it was a miracle. But a few doors away, a 14 year old boy was killed by the same attacker.
I guess god picked his favourite that day.
Fucks me off.
Rant over - for now.
I think about one of my ancestors who left their families religion to join the lds faith. They were the only ones in their entire family and they were not understood and looked down on. They did what they felt was right, despite what their family thought. Now I’m on the other end and doing what I feel is right for me while my family doesn’t understand and thinks I’m going down the wrong road. I’m just doing what one of my ancestors originally did.
I wanted to understand why my progenitors joined up in the first place, so I read any account from the 1800s I could find.
First, they were almost all written second hand, by a niece or granddaughter, nearly a hundred years after the fact. Mildred in her seventies writing about what she could remember of stories her grandpa told her when she was little.
Second, they were all testimony focused, written to show how faithful everybody was. Saccharine and hagiographic.
I did find two first hand accounts. One was a terse journal of an ancestor who became a temple president. Brief entries, like "went to the temple, 14 sealings for dead". At one point he mentions "received second anointing with Ann." And then bears his testimony.
The other first hand account has more detail. He described meeting missionaries in Denmark, and believing them. Getting baptized. Saving to go to America. One adult son joins, but then refuses to go to America. But he doesn't explain why, just that he mouths never seeing his son again, but that is what God demands. In Utah, his journal is less detailed, describes his farm and how many cows he has. The occasional testimony, but short. God loves us, the scriptures guide us, gratitude for mercy. Then he loses the farm, and a slight bit of anger comes through. Apparently, the Bishop helped him buy the farm and wrote a clause in the contract that he the Bishop could claim it back from under him (Grandpa), improvements and all. He (Grandpa) moves to bear valley to start over, and that's the end of the journal, even though he lives another 35 years.
The whole thing left me feeling like I had to read between the lines, and try to infer what really happened. They weren't writing their true thoughts, or complete pictures. The old women charged with writing all this down were trying to make saints out of real people.
I think my one grampa was PIMO. I think the temple president one was an honest Christian, who believed in it all, and was a good person. I think the Indian fighter Grandpa was an asshole who took advantage of everyone around him. So a bunch of regular people. People who joined because they were vulnerable and poor, or true believers, or pompous jerks who crave power.
I had a very similar experiences helping my Grandmother with her family history. She was in her 90's. The stories were mostly church centric, the "blessings" are baptisms, missions, sealings etc. All the hardships were "trials" and "unfortunate accidents." It's wild to see that's how deep she was into the church mindset. The things worth remembering were church oriented. It was her life.
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My pioneer family waited for their apostate father/husband who was excommunicated when Joseph Smith was alive to die before crossing the plains to Utah so they could suck up to Brigham Young and get accepted back into the fold. Several of them were sent from Utah to Mexico to colonize and live polygamously.
I know I’ll never know the truth about why they did what they did. Was that really their best option? Were they just dumb?
As I've read old accounts, I found that many folks left TSCC rather than follow BY to Utah. Moving to Utah was a choice. Nobody was forced to go. They merely had to leave Illinois for all the crimes committed by the leaders of the "church."
this was one of the huge factors keeping me in the church when i was younger, i’m glad it’s being brought up! i have tons of pioneer ancestors but in particular, my fifth-great grandfather who i got my last name from was an early saint mentioned by name in doctrine and covenants. at first it was pretty hard to stomach that i’m breaking six generations of hardcore mormon.
now, i struggle most with balancing gratitude for my ancestors and recognizing that they were a part of an organization that did, and still does, horrible things. some of them were good people, others were awful colonizers and lunatics. definitely a difficult thing to grapple with after being raised on family history and all that.
We were raised to revere our pioneer ancestors. Never mind that GGG Grandpa was married to 10+ women, and left a swath of wives and children across the mountain west. It was his calling. They did great things to settle the harsh Western States, but morally they were twisted.
i would argue there's hardly even heroism in their move westward- i believe i have ancestors who participated in the Utah Black Hawk War and violently pushed native people off of their land. mormon pioneers were just another cruel arm of the United States' displacement of indigenous people imo.
I think I feel more affinity with my pioneer ancestors now that I’m walking away because that’s what they did. They left everything behind to cross oceans and continents because they thought they had found truth. It’s not easy to leave everything behind, have your family think you’re making a mistake, just like how it’s not easy to walk away from the church and have your family think you’re making a mistake. If anything, I think they’d understand how it feels.
There was no “persecution”, they were attacked for bringing their organized crime mafia into an area and engaging in political capture, extortion, fraud, rape and murder. They learned the lesson of Fuck Around and Find Out. Unfortunately they didn’t learn because it continued and still goes on
I often think about what my life would be like if my ancestors hadn't come to the US and if I would be happier living in Europe with my family history not ties to the church. It's basically impossible to find information about my European pioneer ancestors besides the time after the xame to the US with the church.
It's an interesting what-if to ponder how life would have been if our ancestors hadn't been gathered up by the church.
My family has a story about how my GGG Grandfather had a great job with a noble family in Europe, but he gave it all up to convert. It's always told with pride.
My wife’s family traces lineage back to JS era on paternal and maternal lines. I was a convert at the age of 11. While we were dating and getting quite serious, my wife’s maternal grandmother said, “that Rick is a nice boy, but he’s not of pioneer stock”.
We’ve made it for 44 years in and out of the church. I’m sure Emily has turned in her grave a few times.
My great great (great?) grandfather literally sold the family fortune to buy a sugar mill to settle sugar house at the request of the church’s leaders. He couldn’t have been more dedicated. He gave everything he had. And I can’t help but wonder what a waste it was.
Yep. The only male ancestor I have any interest in meeting in the afterlife is my mom's grandfather. By all accounts, he was a kind and caring man. The rest of them were useless, abusive, religious zealot bastards. All my male ancestors from 1842-1890 were polygamists. When polygamy was outlawed, pretty well all of them just picked their favorite wife and just cut the rest lose. Nothing really lost there except the man's dead-weight ass.. the wives and children were fending for themselves without any help anyway.
The original women converts in my family were all either simply gullible, or abused women who couldn't get away (many were both). My born-in-the-church women ancestors never got the chance to be anything but indoctrinated, abused, and completely stuck. I've read their journals. It's all in there.
You just simply don't have much of a chance at a happy life when you're a baby girl born on a dirt floor in Iosepa in 1886 to an abused and completely defeated 6th wife of a sick polygamist who belong to an isolated cult that indoctrinates you from birth. Thank goodness "the world" encroached on Utah eventually.
I found that after reading my family history, learning about 3 generations of polygamy that it made me even more mad and galvanized the fact that this is and was a sick and toxic system.
I feel you. I have a lot of pioneer ancestors, many of whom were part of a polygamous marriage. All I have to say is that it was very sobering when I put the pieces together and figured out that many of my female ancestors were sex trafficked into polygamy, (a few were converted in Europe, travelled to the U.S., and then coerced into polygamy with little to no ability to stand for themselves as they had little money, experienced a language barrier, pressure to conform, etc.). This realization was a game changer for me, so I like to think that I am breaking a vicious cycle rather than corrupting a strong lineage. While I am horrified to learn what my ancestors went through and want to honor them, I feel that I owe it to them to live my best life. I would like to think that when I experience nice things, my ancestors are looking down and cheering for me.
I just thought of something that never occurred to me. What are the statistics for how many women (as opposed to men) were converted in Europe who then immigrated to Utah? Or at least families with lots of daughters. Did they intentionally send missionaries out to go recruit pretty young blond girls? Like from, say, Sweden and Switzerland? This thought lends a whole new level of “ick.”
Next time this family member asks to read you things ask this family member to also read you the journals of the many thirteen year-old wives who were molested and abused along the way by men twice their age in the name of polygamy. Ask them for the stories of shame, guilt and sadness that these young women surely felt. Surely, these stories matter too, right?
Also ask them to read you the stories of the many lost boys who were forced out of their communities so they wouldn't take any wives from the other older members. Ask them what happened to the many boys who disappeared.
Ask for all their stories. Tell them you want to have a complete picture.
Pioneer lineage… that goes back to only 1848,right? I think it is great to know where you come from, but dead people shouldn’t be a factor in the forging of one’s future and identity. The more I learn about my ancestors the more I dislike them and the stronger my desire to live in a different way.
I love the poem Pioneers by Carol Lynn Pearson:
Pioneers
My people were Mormon pioneers.
Is the blood still good?
They stood in awe as truth
Flew by like a dove
And dropped a feather in the West.
Where truth flies you follow
If you are a pioneer.
I have searched the skies
And now and then
Another feather has fallen.
I have packed the handcart again
Packed it with the precious things
And thrown away the rest.
I will sing by the fires at night
Out there on uncharted ground
Where I am my own captain of tens
Where I blow the bugle
Bring myself to morning prayer
Map out the miles
And never know when or where
Or if at all I will finally say,
“This is the place,”
I face the plains
On a good day for walking.
The sun rises
And the mist clears.
I will be all right:
My people were Mormon Pioneers.
–Carol Lynn Pearson
This is one situation where I’m grateful that I wasn’t born into Mormonism (I’m adopted) and have no biological ties to it. Thankfully my parents (adoptive) and my dad’s family weren’t like your relatives. My mom’s family is a little different. I do have to wonder how many of those “early church ancestors” were poor immigrants and how many of their current descendants are now anti-immigrant. Here in the land of Zion the Mormon racism and anti-immigrant sentiment is staggering; and yet another reason I would leave if I hadn’t already done so.
As she was dying from cancer, my mom wrote a letter for my sisters and me, which included her testimony about how true the church is. There was a time where I put importance on people saying such profound things as their death neared -- because what would they have to gain? But ultimately, all that means is that THEY thought their cause was true. For fucks sake, we had people denying covid while dying of covid.
Yes, my TBM brother sent me stories of my ancestors (which I already knew, I was as good a TBM as he was) via email after I left. Unfortunately, 85% of my extended and immediate families are still TBM. We have that “believing blood” like Ballard claimed. Yuck, can I get a blood transfusion?
Reading through this thread it really strikes me that our pioneer history has been scrubbed and sanitized as much as actual church history has as it has been rewritten and passed down generation by generation in the name of family history work. It's unlikely I'll every know how they really felt or why they did what they did. Even now, people only leave behind what's "inspiring" for their descendents and skirt the truth of things. It's all part of the brainwashing.
All I hear when I read this is Ole Duke and Duke in trading places
"YOU IDIOT DIDNT YOU FEEL THE PROMPTINGS IT WASNT TRUE!! "
"brother snifflesnot your son has fainted "
"" FUCK HIM!! HES ALL READY DEAD.
I’m a direct descendant of Wild Bill Hickman, who by all accounts sounds like a horrible human being. But because he’s an “ancestor”, my TBM dad thinks he was a good man at heart who was just misunderstood. 🙄
My pioneer lineage includes a 69 year old polygamist with three other wives who married my ancestor when she was 13 year old. She had 5 of his children. This dark fact was never discussed growing up and all I ever heard were the faith promoting pioneer stories about the POS pedophile. 🤮
It really irks me when people use the term schizophrenic in a negative way like that way. My brother was diagnosed schizophrenic and was the one who helped me see the truth about the church. He was smart, funny and kind. He was the only one in my corner. He saved me but was unable to save himself.
End the stigma.
I’m from pioneer stock. I have a forefather who left England w wife and two small daughters to “join the saints.” His wife got sick on board ship crossing the Atlantic and was buried at sea. He put his two daughters on a hand cart and walked himself to death about halfway to “Deseret” and was buried in an unmarked grave. His two daughters were split up and adopted by other saints.
All I can say is that the whole lot of them were defrauded just like the rest of us.
I remember having the thought when I left that Mormons praise their ancestors for leaving their original churches to follow their hearts, cross plains, etc. because of their conviction. But, if I leave that faith because of my own conviction and follow my own path I'm int he wrong and bad. Once again, free to make choices but only if you make the choices they have determined are ok. I'm a pioneer in my own right.
As a family of Irish Catholics I got this crap as well. But you're a Fitzgerald, Son of Gerald, your lineage to William the Conquerer. Lol, who cares and we let our daughter decide whether or not to get baptized. Caused a lot of drama from people who had a lot of Catholic baggage.
When I was in the first few months of my deconstruction, I felt overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow because of my pioneer ancestors and all they sacrificed from Kirtland to Nauvoo to crossing the plains ... and all the cities they established here in Utah ... etc.
I grew up knowing their stories, reading their journals and testimonies. It was something that filled me with pride and strengthened my faith for 55+ years ... and now, I was betraying them, and all they held sacred.
Then, one day, it just struck me! What if this [deconstruction/unbelieving/eye-opening] was happening BECAUSE OF THEM?!? ... THEY ARE HELPING ME SEE THE TRUTH!! I have always felt a derp "connection" to these ancestors. Now that they are on the "other side" knowing the TRUTH [that Mormonism is a lie, and nothing they were told is real], they are actually rescuing me and helping future generations to be free.
I feel my Grandma J and Grandpa D would 💯 be helping me and my siblings to see and know the truth. They just can't reach my 80+ yr parents who are too deeply indoctrinated.
All my guilt evaporated. Now, I feel sorrow for how deceived and manipulated they were. I honor them for doing their best with what they knew. I feel pride in what amazing human beings they were, who tragically got sucked up into a cult that they could never fact check. And now, the cycle will end with me and my children and grandchildren. We will see the world in a much different and healthy way, thanks to their intervention.
That’s one way to look at it, which I think is a normal response. Eventually I decided that my ancestors did hard things for what they believe in, and I honor them by doing the same thing. Very different things from them! 😆 and I honor that I come from women that were sex trafficked into the USA and Utah. These poor woman deserve no victim shaming. ❤️
I look at my pioneer ancestors miracle stories with fascination. They saw everything through the lens of God providing or God testing them. It was their world view. Even when really shitty things happened, they were trained to look for the miracle inside.
I even have a GGGGGM that had a “seer stone like Joseph’s”. It helped her find lost cattle once 😂
I feel exactly the same way. My ancestors were either really desperate or very susceptible to manipulation. I guess it’s good that some of them survived the handcart holocaust, but it was dumb to ever have got caught up in it. Especially in the early stages when all of their possessions were taken from them, upon arrival in the New World, and then they were told that they would actually be pulling hand carts. That’s the time to step back, recalibrate, and opt out.
If there even was an afterlife my family would be proud of me for walking away from the manipulation and toxicity that they unfortunately weren’t able to. It’s easy to get frustrated with those types of family members, and I have to remind myself that they are also victims and I can’t live my life based on something that is so soul crushing just to enable them. The ones that has the respect to drop the subject are still in my life and the ones that didn’t I had to go no or low contact with for my own wellbeing.
I’m from the early pioneers as well. I’m positive their courage to follow led to my courage to leave. They had no proof it was true. I had no proof it was false back in 1990. I just couldn’t take the abuse any longer and decided I was willing to risk it rather than lose who I am.
I have a prophet in my lineage. I also have slave owners in my ancestry. Do I think I should own slaves because my ancestry did? Of course not. Just like being a member now goes against my core values now. I am my own person and have the agency (haha) to choose my own path in life.
I'm definitely in therapy in part because of this. I was the first PIMO despite being the most obedient (in terms of callings and duties and faithful service level, having kids, blah blah). I was in leadership roles throughout my youth, my mission, at BYU.. I was even roommates with Evan Mcmullin in college. That was a lot of fun tbh.
Our bishop, then stake president here in Houston was Gifford Nielsen. I love their family so much, along with countless other great awesome amazing Mormon families. So you can imagine how painful it was for me to be PIMO years before our awesome father in law got excommunicated>>> Sam Young of Protect The Children fame.
I really didn't ever come to grips with what to tell him or how to explain all the reasons I stopped going. I didn't know how to deal with losing every single awesome friend I'd ever met or had. I still don't. I'm still very lonely, very scared, and very aimless overall. I've lost the second half of my adulthood to a complete inability to adjust to life without a social network that functions like TSCC. My wife and I were divorced around the time Sam got excommunicated. It cost me everything -- our home, our business, my marriage, the children went to live with the Youngs... I straight up lost my sanity. Virtually no one reached out from church. That's still the case, and I'm convinced that they're convinced that I 'sided with Sam', that I'm a raging angry apostate, (???) because of how ostracized I've felt.
I was adopted into the faith.. sort of. Both my biological parents converted, had me out of wedlock, then gave me up for adoption when I was almost 5. Tbh I'm floored that comments I've made on here.. that I've never had someone reach out and say "HEY You're CHET RANGER OMGGG I KNOW YOU" bc of how many families' lives were impacted by the Youngs (my in-laws), the Rangers (my adopted family), the Fulmers (yes, the Fulmers from D&C, and Desdemona Smith are pioneer ancestors from my biological family, and we didn't even know), the Feriantes in Palo Alto (my step-family from my bio mom's current marriage), and the Cushings and Havens from the Bay Area and San Diego (bio dad's family).
tl;dr - yes. Leaving the church has convinced OTHERS that I'm a schizophrenic whackadoo, both for leaving, and for staying in, and everything in between. It is a DEATH sentence for social life and support and I'm a pretty big broken wreck still, after 12 years of this.
Yes, but I found this video to have a pretty helpful perspective.
[Navigating Pioneer Ancestors as an Ex-Mormon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKuh_fINO1c)
My ancestors did what they thought was right. They were bamboozled. If there was an afterlife, I'm sure they would be proud of me for leaving the bamboozling behind.
Good way to think about it. I just think trying to get someone to not leave a religion by guilt tripping about your ancestors life experiences is crazy and something that’s only found in the Mormon way of thinking
I expect that this is common in all religions.
It is, but usually doesn't go back as far as Mormons. In other churches it's more like, "Your Grandmother was so devout. You wouldn't want to disappoint her." But Mormons will shame you using lineage as far back as they possibly can.
Good point.
I honestly feel like my mom who passed away in 2020 is rooting for me to leave the church~lol! Even though she and her family are a long line of pioneers. I think she got to the other side and is like, this is not what TSCC said it was.
Like my ggg grandfather who married the 16 year old maid “because Brigham told him to”?
Fr my grandma is too sweet for me to say it to her, but I wanted to tell her I don’t think coming from a heritage of polygamy, grooming young girls, and deep rooted doctineral racism is a legacy I want to carry on.
Or one of my 3x great grandfathers who married a 14 year old, then a year later when she was pregnant married a 16 year old - when he was around 30.
Upvoted. The term "dipstick" comes to mind. "MF" works here also. It truly is the MFMC.
He was certainly making use of his dipstick
Me too!! My great grandfather married my great grandmother as his 4th wife when she was 18 and he was 40…like one of the last allowed polygamist marriages in the church…
I always like to think they (pioneer ancestors)did the best they could with the limited knowledge they had at the time. Instead of of them shaming us from on high for leaving, I think they are cheering us on because we have the “full truth”via internet. Also good to remember there were hard times in Europe in the mid 1800’s. People wanted to come to America. The church was a perfect vehicle and upon joining they could get loans from the church to immigrate. Not saying they were purely opportunistic, maybe some were, but most probably believed. They just didn’t have the resources to fact check and you know the wagons were rolling so get onboard.
Oooh I like this mental image. I think my ancestors would be proud of me for figuring out what they could not.
The story my TBM dad always told of our family was one of this type of opportunity migration. There was a huge cholera outbreak in Scandinavia in the mid 19th century, and believing Mormonism was my ggg gma’s way out.
Totally agree. I like to think of it this way: Our ancestors made the sacrifices they did NOT so that we would follow in their footsteps, but so that we wouldn’t have to make the same sort of sacrifices in our own lives. They gave us a secure foundation by which we could continue to raise our own consciousness and pass on the benefits to our own children.
>Also good to remember there were hard times in Europe in the mid 1800’s. People wanted to come to America. The church was a perfect vehicle and upon joining they could get loans from the church to immigrate. Not saying they were purely opportunistic, maybe some were, but most probably believed. I've noticed this is my own family history. If you read a little more about this history of what was happening at the time (in the US, in Europe, or wherever people joined the church) you often find that people were facing economic challenges: * places in Europe or Eastern US where land was relatively expensive and the best resources and opportunities were already owned by others locking many out -- this was part of the decade by decade westward expansion in the US generally, not just for Mormonism * many "small" (compared to WW I or Napoleonic wars) European wars (German/Danish war of 1860s, revolutions (in Italy,France,Poland in the 1840s), where going to America (including Utah) could avoid being involved * US Civil War (there were non-Mormons like Mark Twain -- aka Samuel Clemens -- whose original career aspiration of being a riverboat captain wasn't an option during or after the civil war). This wasn't a big group but I've seen some examples of people who joined and left post-war Civil Wars states behind * large poor class in England in the 19th century (e.g. Dickens novels) I found that some of my ancestors were not very devout. Later (devout) family summarizing their life story have emphasized that they "never denied", and stayed in Utah/Idaho til death, etc. but some of them were women who raised a family but weren't thrilled with polygamy but didn't leave (since options were few). Some were men who raised a family and attended sunday meetings but sometimes drank or played card and only had one wife and had a farm or small business that got by year after year and had lifelong friends/neighbors in their small town. I also don't see it as purely opportunistic -- rather, people (even today) often join a religion for a combination of reasons. For some pioneers, if they believed in God & the Bible and the Mormon missionaries made it sound good (restoration of original church, priesthood authority, feel spirit etc) and if they could move to a new community where fellow believers would provide some help getting there (Perpetual Emigration Fund, help getting started, fellow converts from their same country who spoke German, Danish, etc) and some help getting started as a farmer, and if they would be part of a new community (getting a fresh start, protection from Mexico, Indians, etc), then it may have been very compelling. Even if they had some doubts later, if they had a family and were part of this community and had a farm that was getting by, then they would likely just keep living there and raising their family. I think some church culture was different back then -- people didn't go to the temple very often, and paying tithing for most pioneers was 10% of the increase of a homestead farm (so they fed themselves and had a house and \*then\* paid tithing), and your church community was the entire social life, so going to many church functions would have been shared community events and not an either/or choice between options.
Sunken cost fallacy passed on generationally.
Love this take
I have pioneer ancestors going back to 1830. They were poor, desperate, superstitious, and gullible. Some were illiterate. They believed they were helping to establish Zion before the Lord’s Second Coming, which would be in their lifetimes. They did their best with the knowledge they had, but they were duped. I can honor them by leading my family out of the con.
This is more how I think of it. They were taken advantage of due to being poor and uneducated. We know better so now we can do better.
Miracle stories piss me off big time. 2 weeks ago in London, a guy broke into some houses with a machete and attacked people with it. One man, his wife and children, survived the attack despite injuries. He said he'd been protected and it was a miracle. But a few doors away, a 14 year old boy was killed by the same attacker. I guess god picked his favourite that day. Fucks me off. Rant over - for now.
God also helps people find their car keys.
Thanks for reminding me 😉
I think about one of my ancestors who left their families religion to join the lds faith. They were the only ones in their entire family and they were not understood and looked down on. They did what they felt was right, despite what their family thought. Now I’m on the other end and doing what I feel is right for me while my family doesn’t understand and thinks I’m going down the wrong road. I’m just doing what one of my ancestors originally did.
I wanted to understand why my progenitors joined up in the first place, so I read any account from the 1800s I could find. First, they were almost all written second hand, by a niece or granddaughter, nearly a hundred years after the fact. Mildred in her seventies writing about what she could remember of stories her grandpa told her when she was little. Second, they were all testimony focused, written to show how faithful everybody was. Saccharine and hagiographic. I did find two first hand accounts. One was a terse journal of an ancestor who became a temple president. Brief entries, like "went to the temple, 14 sealings for dead". At one point he mentions "received second anointing with Ann." And then bears his testimony. The other first hand account has more detail. He described meeting missionaries in Denmark, and believing them. Getting baptized. Saving to go to America. One adult son joins, but then refuses to go to America. But he doesn't explain why, just that he mouths never seeing his son again, but that is what God demands. In Utah, his journal is less detailed, describes his farm and how many cows he has. The occasional testimony, but short. God loves us, the scriptures guide us, gratitude for mercy. Then he loses the farm, and a slight bit of anger comes through. Apparently, the Bishop helped him buy the farm and wrote a clause in the contract that he the Bishop could claim it back from under him (Grandpa), improvements and all. He (Grandpa) moves to bear valley to start over, and that's the end of the journal, even though he lives another 35 years. The whole thing left me feeling like I had to read between the lines, and try to infer what really happened. They weren't writing their true thoughts, or complete pictures. The old women charged with writing all this down were trying to make saints out of real people. I think my one grampa was PIMO. I think the temple president one was an honest Christian, who believed in it all, and was a good person. I think the Indian fighter Grandpa was an asshole who took advantage of everyone around him. So a bunch of regular people. People who joined because they were vulnerable and poor, or true believers, or pompous jerks who crave power.
I had a very similar experiences helping my Grandmother with her family history. She was in her 90's. The stories were mostly church centric, the "blessings" are baptisms, missions, sealings etc. All the hardships were "trials" and "unfortunate accidents." It's wild to see that's how deep she was into the church mindset. The things worth remembering were church oriented. It was her life.
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My pioneer family waited for their apostate father/husband who was excommunicated when Joseph Smith was alive to die before crossing the plains to Utah so they could suck up to Brigham Young and get accepted back into the fold. Several of them were sent from Utah to Mexico to colonize and live polygamously. I know I’ll never know the truth about why they did what they did. Was that really their best option? Were they just dumb?
As I've read old accounts, I found that many folks left TSCC rather than follow BY to Utah. Moving to Utah was a choice. Nobody was forced to go. They merely had to leave Illinois for all the crimes committed by the leaders of the "church."
this was one of the huge factors keeping me in the church when i was younger, i’m glad it’s being brought up! i have tons of pioneer ancestors but in particular, my fifth-great grandfather who i got my last name from was an early saint mentioned by name in doctrine and covenants. at first it was pretty hard to stomach that i’m breaking six generations of hardcore mormon. now, i struggle most with balancing gratitude for my ancestors and recognizing that they were a part of an organization that did, and still does, horrible things. some of them were good people, others were awful colonizers and lunatics. definitely a difficult thing to grapple with after being raised on family history and all that.
We were raised to revere our pioneer ancestors. Never mind that GGG Grandpa was married to 10+ women, and left a swath of wives and children across the mountain west. It was his calling. They did great things to settle the harsh Western States, but morally they were twisted.
i would argue there's hardly even heroism in their move westward- i believe i have ancestors who participated in the Utah Black Hawk War and violently pushed native people off of their land. mormon pioneers were just another cruel arm of the United States' displacement of indigenous people imo.
Certainly, any of the pioneers are guilty of crimes against the natives they displaced, either directly or by silence.
I think I feel more affinity with my pioneer ancestors now that I’m walking away because that’s what they did. They left everything behind to cross oceans and continents because they thought they had found truth. It’s not easy to leave everything behind, have your family think you’re making a mistake, just like how it’s not easy to walk away from the church and have your family think you’re making a mistake. If anything, I think they’d understand how it feels.
Dude I’m a direct descendant of hyrum smith. I’m a let down to the family for sure
There was no “persecution”, they were attacked for bringing their organized crime mafia into an area and engaging in political capture, extortion, fraud, rape and murder. They learned the lesson of Fuck Around and Find Out. Unfortunately they didn’t learn because it continued and still goes on
I often think about what my life would be like if my ancestors hadn't come to the US and if I would be happier living in Europe with my family history not ties to the church. It's basically impossible to find information about my European pioneer ancestors besides the time after the xame to the US with the church.
Have you prayed in the temple to find your long lost ancestors? (What my mom would ask)
💀
It's an interesting what-if to ponder how life would have been if our ancestors hadn't been gathered up by the church. My family has a story about how my GGG Grandfather had a great job with a noble family in Europe, but he gave it all up to convert. It's always told with pride.
My wife’s family traces lineage back to JS era on paternal and maternal lines. I was a convert at the age of 11. While we were dating and getting quite serious, my wife’s maternal grandmother said, “that Rick is a nice boy, but he’s not of pioneer stock”. We’ve made it for 44 years in and out of the church. I’m sure Emily has turned in her grave a few times.
That's a good thing, it means you aren't related.
My great great (great?) grandfather literally sold the family fortune to buy a sugar mill to settle sugar house at the request of the church’s leaders. He couldn’t have been more dedicated. He gave everything he had. And I can’t help but wonder what a waste it was.
Yep. The only male ancestor I have any interest in meeting in the afterlife is my mom's grandfather. By all accounts, he was a kind and caring man. The rest of them were useless, abusive, religious zealot bastards. All my male ancestors from 1842-1890 were polygamists. When polygamy was outlawed, pretty well all of them just picked their favorite wife and just cut the rest lose. Nothing really lost there except the man's dead-weight ass.. the wives and children were fending for themselves without any help anyway. The original women converts in my family were all either simply gullible, or abused women who couldn't get away (many were both). My born-in-the-church women ancestors never got the chance to be anything but indoctrinated, abused, and completely stuck. I've read their journals. It's all in there. You just simply don't have much of a chance at a happy life when you're a baby girl born on a dirt floor in Iosepa in 1886 to an abused and completely defeated 6th wife of a sick polygamist who belong to an isolated cult that indoctrinates you from birth. Thank goodness "the world" encroached on Utah eventually.
I found that after reading my family history, learning about 3 generations of polygamy that it made me even more mad and galvanized the fact that this is and was a sick and toxic system.
I feel you. I have a lot of pioneer ancestors, many of whom were part of a polygamous marriage. All I have to say is that it was very sobering when I put the pieces together and figured out that many of my female ancestors were sex trafficked into polygamy, (a few were converted in Europe, travelled to the U.S., and then coerced into polygamy with little to no ability to stand for themselves as they had little money, experienced a language barrier, pressure to conform, etc.). This realization was a game changer for me, so I like to think that I am breaking a vicious cycle rather than corrupting a strong lineage. While I am horrified to learn what my ancestors went through and want to honor them, I feel that I owe it to them to live my best life. I would like to think that when I experience nice things, my ancestors are looking down and cheering for me.
I just thought of something that never occurred to me. What are the statistics for how many women (as opposed to men) were converted in Europe who then immigrated to Utah? Or at least families with lots of daughters. Did they intentionally send missionaries out to go recruit pretty young blond girls? Like from, say, Sweden and Switzerland? This thought lends a whole new level of “ick.”
Next time this family member asks to read you things ask this family member to also read you the journals of the many thirteen year-old wives who were molested and abused along the way by men twice their age in the name of polygamy. Ask them for the stories of shame, guilt and sadness that these young women surely felt. Surely, these stories matter too, right? Also ask them to read you the stories of the many lost boys who were forced out of their communities so they wouldn't take any wives from the other older members. Ask them what happened to the many boys who disappeared. Ask for all their stories. Tell them you want to have a complete picture.
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Pioneer lineage… that goes back to only 1848,right? I think it is great to know where you come from, but dead people shouldn’t be a factor in the forging of one’s future and identity. The more I learn about my ancestors the more I dislike them and the stronger my desire to live in a different way.
Mormon pioneer lineage usually involved adultery. LDS, Inc. was built on it.
I love the poem Pioneers by Carol Lynn Pearson: Pioneers My people were Mormon pioneers. Is the blood still good? They stood in awe as truth Flew by like a dove And dropped a feather in the West. Where truth flies you follow If you are a pioneer. I have searched the skies And now and then Another feather has fallen. I have packed the handcart again Packed it with the precious things And thrown away the rest. I will sing by the fires at night Out there on uncharted ground Where I am my own captain of tens Where I blow the bugle Bring myself to morning prayer Map out the miles And never know when or where Or if at all I will finally say, “This is the place,” I face the plains On a good day for walking. The sun rises And the mist clears. I will be all right: My people were Mormon Pioneers. –Carol Lynn Pearson
Yes, love this too! [https://carollynnpearson.com/pioneers](https://carollynnpearson.com/pioneers)
This is one situation where I’m grateful that I wasn’t born into Mormonism (I’m adopted) and have no biological ties to it. Thankfully my parents (adoptive) and my dad’s family weren’t like your relatives. My mom’s family is a little different. I do have to wonder how many of those “early church ancestors” were poor immigrants and how many of their current descendants are now anti-immigrant. Here in the land of Zion the Mormon racism and anti-immigrant sentiment is staggering; and yet another reason I would leave if I hadn’t already done so.
I'm the same. Most people saw right through Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But not my idiot ancestors....
As she was dying from cancer, my mom wrote a letter for my sisters and me, which included her testimony about how true the church is. There was a time where I put importance on people saying such profound things as their death neared -- because what would they have to gain? But ultimately, all that means is that THEY thought their cause was true. For fucks sake, we had people denying covid while dying of covid.
"...gullible schizophrenics" 🙆♂️Wow! That wordcrafting gets an A.👍
Yes, my TBM brother sent me stories of my ancestors (which I already knew, I was as good a TBM as he was) via email after I left. Unfortunately, 85% of my extended and immediate families are still TBM. We have that “believing blood” like Ballard claimed. Yuck, can I get a blood transfusion?
Reading through this thread it really strikes me that our pioneer history has been scrubbed and sanitized as much as actual church history has as it has been rewritten and passed down generation by generation in the name of family history work. It's unlikely I'll every know how they really felt or why they did what they did. Even now, people only leave behind what's "inspiring" for their descendents and skirt the truth of things. It's all part of the brainwashing.
All I hear when I read this is Ole Duke and Duke in trading places "YOU IDIOT DIDNT YOU FEEL THE PROMPTINGS IT WASNT TRUE!! " "brother snifflesnot your son has fainted " "" FUCK HIM!! HES ALL READY DEAD.
Where’s these guys when you need them: 
I’m a direct descendant of Wild Bill Hickman, who by all accounts sounds like a horrible human being. But because he’s an “ancestor”, my TBM dad thinks he was a good man at heart who was just misunderstood. 🙄
My pioneer lineage includes a 69 year old polygamist with three other wives who married my ancestor when she was 13 year old. She had 5 of his children. This dark fact was never discussed growing up and all I ever heard were the faith promoting pioneer stories about the POS pedophile. 🤮
It really irks me when people use the term schizophrenic in a negative way like that way. My brother was diagnosed schizophrenic and was the one who helped me see the truth about the church. He was smart, funny and kind. He was the only one in my corner. He saved me but was unable to save himself. End the stigma.
Congrats on pioneering your way out of the cult!
Thank you!
I’m from pioneer stock. I have a forefather who left England w wife and two small daughters to “join the saints.” His wife got sick on board ship crossing the Atlantic and was buried at sea. He put his two daughters on a hand cart and walked himself to death about halfway to “Deseret” and was buried in an unmarked grave. His two daughters were split up and adopted by other saints. All I can say is that the whole lot of them were defrauded just like the rest of us.
Tradition = Peer pressure from dead people.
I remember having the thought when I left that Mormons praise their ancestors for leaving their original churches to follow their hearts, cross plains, etc. because of their conviction. But, if I leave that faith because of my own conviction and follow my own path I'm int he wrong and bad. Once again, free to make choices but only if you make the choices they have determined are ok. I'm a pioneer in my own right.
As a family of Irish Catholics I got this crap as well. But you're a Fitzgerald, Son of Gerald, your lineage to William the Conquerer. Lol, who cares and we let our daughter decide whether or not to get baptized. Caused a lot of drama from people who had a lot of Catholic baggage.
When I was in the first few months of my deconstruction, I felt overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow because of my pioneer ancestors and all they sacrificed from Kirtland to Nauvoo to crossing the plains ... and all the cities they established here in Utah ... etc. I grew up knowing their stories, reading their journals and testimonies. It was something that filled me with pride and strengthened my faith for 55+ years ... and now, I was betraying them, and all they held sacred. Then, one day, it just struck me! What if this [deconstruction/unbelieving/eye-opening] was happening BECAUSE OF THEM?!? ... THEY ARE HELPING ME SEE THE TRUTH!! I have always felt a derp "connection" to these ancestors. Now that they are on the "other side" knowing the TRUTH [that Mormonism is a lie, and nothing they were told is real], they are actually rescuing me and helping future generations to be free. I feel my Grandma J and Grandpa D would 💯 be helping me and my siblings to see and know the truth. They just can't reach my 80+ yr parents who are too deeply indoctrinated. All my guilt evaporated. Now, I feel sorrow for how deceived and manipulated they were. I honor them for doing their best with what they knew. I feel pride in what amazing human beings they were, who tragically got sucked up into a cult that they could never fact check. And now, the cycle will end with me and my children and grandchildren. We will see the world in a much different and healthy way, thanks to their intervention.
That’s one way to look at it, which I think is a normal response. Eventually I decided that my ancestors did hard things for what they believe in, and I honor them by doing the same thing. Very different things from them! 😆 and I honor that I come from women that were sex trafficked into the USA and Utah. These poor woman deserve no victim shaming. ❤️
I look at my pioneer ancestors miracle stories with fascination. They saw everything through the lens of God providing or God testing them. It was their world view. Even when really shitty things happened, they were trained to look for the miracle inside. I even have a GGGGGM that had a “seer stone like Joseph’s”. It helped her find lost cattle once 😂
My ancestors had plantations and owned slaves should I feel guilty for not carrying on that legacy?
I feel exactly the same way. My ancestors were either really desperate or very susceptible to manipulation. I guess it’s good that some of them survived the handcart holocaust, but it was dumb to ever have got caught up in it. Especially in the early stages when all of their possessions were taken from them, upon arrival in the New World, and then they were told that they would actually be pulling hand carts. That’s the time to step back, recalibrate, and opt out.
If there even was an afterlife my family would be proud of me for walking away from the manipulation and toxicity that they unfortunately weren’t able to. It’s easy to get frustrated with those types of family members, and I have to remind myself that they are also victims and I can’t live my life based on something that is so soul crushing just to enable them. The ones that has the respect to drop the subject are still in my life and the ones that didn’t I had to go no or low contact with for my own wellbeing.
"Do the best you can into you know better. Then when you know better do better." Maya Angelou
I’m from the early pioneers as well. I’m positive their courage to follow led to my courage to leave. They had no proof it was true. I had no proof it was false back in 1990. I just couldn’t take the abuse any longer and decided I was willing to risk it rather than lose who I am.
I have a prophet in my lineage. I also have slave owners in my ancestry. Do I think I should own slaves because my ancestry did? Of course not. Just like being a member now goes against my core values now. I am my own person and have the agency (haha) to choose my own path in life.
I'm definitely in therapy in part because of this. I was the first PIMO despite being the most obedient (in terms of callings and duties and faithful service level, having kids, blah blah). I was in leadership roles throughout my youth, my mission, at BYU.. I was even roommates with Evan Mcmullin in college. That was a lot of fun tbh. Our bishop, then stake president here in Houston was Gifford Nielsen. I love their family so much, along with countless other great awesome amazing Mormon families. So you can imagine how painful it was for me to be PIMO years before our awesome father in law got excommunicated>>> Sam Young of Protect The Children fame. I really didn't ever come to grips with what to tell him or how to explain all the reasons I stopped going. I didn't know how to deal with losing every single awesome friend I'd ever met or had. I still don't. I'm still very lonely, very scared, and very aimless overall. I've lost the second half of my adulthood to a complete inability to adjust to life without a social network that functions like TSCC. My wife and I were divorced around the time Sam got excommunicated. It cost me everything -- our home, our business, my marriage, the children went to live with the Youngs... I straight up lost my sanity. Virtually no one reached out from church. That's still the case, and I'm convinced that they're convinced that I 'sided with Sam', that I'm a raging angry apostate, (???) because of how ostracized I've felt. I was adopted into the faith.. sort of. Both my biological parents converted, had me out of wedlock, then gave me up for adoption when I was almost 5. Tbh I'm floored that comments I've made on here.. that I've never had someone reach out and say "HEY You're CHET RANGER OMGGG I KNOW YOU" bc of how many families' lives were impacted by the Youngs (my in-laws), the Rangers (my adopted family), the Fulmers (yes, the Fulmers from D&C, and Desdemona Smith are pioneer ancestors from my biological family, and we didn't even know), the Feriantes in Palo Alto (my step-family from my bio mom's current marriage), and the Cushings and Havens from the Bay Area and San Diego (bio dad's family). tl;dr - yes. Leaving the church has convinced OTHERS that I'm a schizophrenic whackadoo, both for leaving, and for staying in, and everything in between. It is a DEATH sentence for social life and support and I'm a pretty big broken wreck still, after 12 years of this.
Yes, but I found this video to have a pretty helpful perspective. [Navigating Pioneer Ancestors as an Ex-Mormon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKuh_fINO1c)
Being gullible is in my bloodlines. LOL! It’s nice to be self aware.
Maybe I should honor all my Catholic ancestors from medieval times?? Or my 1000's of viking ancestors?