ABSTRACT
Ancestor veneration has been a feature of ancient and even some modern cultures, and such practices recognise the apparent human need to respect and sometimes revere those who came before us. Many religions, while not going as far as ancestor worship, make much of honouring parents, charting family histories and recording forebears. Examples include the long list of ‘begats’ in the Hebrew Bible, and the tradition of recording births on the flyleaves of family Bibles. Probably the most well-known religion that places a high value on family history is the Church of Latter Day Saints. This religious group keeps the world’s largest collection of genealogical records (more than 4 billion records) in a man-made bunker that stretches nearly 700 feet into a mountain of granite near Salt Lake City, Utah. In this chapter, we describe the extent of religious and spiritual interest in genealogy, explore the theological reasons behind it and discuss the implications of this emphasis.
