Tuesday, October 27, 2009

I am the Holy Grail

The Gospel Doctrine lesson this week is on temple and family history work. Since the Church has the fabulous New FamilySearch, I was using it to trace my family line. I had read earlier this week a teacher can't be a hypocrite (bad news for me!) so since I had asked two others in the class to do something in family history this week, I should too.
So, through one of my lines, I descend from the Birds in early Virginia (founders of Richmond). They descend from a long line of nobility going back all the way to Edward Longshanks (the bad king in "Braveheart"), William the Conqueror, and Charlemagne. Pretty awesome. Another ancestor clear back there is a descendant of the Merovingian kings in France. If you've seen "The Da Vinci Code," you may remember the Merovingian line was purported to be the descendants of Christ's daughter Sarah, who grew up in France and married Antenor, King of the West Franks, making the Merovingian kings descendants of the Son of God, and the Holy Blood line. It was an interesting story, but kind of weird.
So I keep hitting the little button to go further back in time and see who each person's father was. I come to Antenor, King of the West Franks, and his wife, Sarah-Damaris Bat Yeshuah. I think, "Man, that's a Jewish name if ever I heard one!" I go back to see her parents, and they are listed as "Jesus Christ, lineage of" and Mariame migdal eder. I think, "No way! They have Jesus on the New FamilySearch?" And they do. I click on His name, and look in the box below the pedigree for more information. I click the link for LDS ordinances.

It says they are not available.

And I laugh and laugh and laugh.

You can't make up stuff that good!

To summarize:
  1. New FamilySearch is fully awesome and user friendly
  2. I lucked out and am related to royalty so I can trace my family history WAY back.
  3. It appears I am a descendant of Jesus Christ.
  4. No one knows the date of His baptism or other priesthood ordinances.

Maybe I'm bad for thinking that's hysterical....but I bet He thinks its funny too.

UPDATE! I kept clicking back for ancestors of Antenor, and after going through Russia, Turkey, Troy, ancient Greece, and more, someone has decided that the first king of Troy was mothered by an Israelite, Judah's daughter-in-law whom he impregnated when she pretended to be a prostitute. Well, with a lineage like that, its easy to go back to, you guessed it, Adam. I have a family line that goes all the way back to Adam. I am that Mormon.

I realize these connections are spurious at best, but it's still interesting. Plus, kind of funny!

4 comments:

Julie said...

That would be so awesome to do His work, just so it's in the system.

Just me said...

Lol so true! May I just say that after reading this I have decided that we have an crazy cool family line. Whether or not it's all true, it's fun to think about!

Troy and Lisa said...

Which side??? I'm just hoping you did some work for me and I could claim some cool relatives....

Unknown said...

I, too, have traced my ancestry, just recently to Sarah-Damaris Bat Yeshuah. I was also amazed to see that Jesus Christ was her father and Mary Magdalene was her mother, according to these records. What is upsetting me is that someone seems to have erased their marriage date and place,as well as the name of Sarah's siblings. The first record even showed him having a second wife- Martha. Ok, we both know that these records may not be completely accurate, but I'm upset if someone just erased all that! Do you have a copy of those original records by any chance? I would love to know if you can still find the record I first discovered, the complete one. Please let me know at my email if you can- loriaslanian@gmail.com