Has God Ever Visted Plagues? (1 Viewer)

[Isaac]

When it comes to 'older' fossils, it's helpful to also remember there is an entire world of geology and archeology which proves that the human life forms (the ones many scientists claim are millions of years old, or whatever) existed in the same strata of rock as something we know is much younger....These finds have been actively buried by the evolutionary community, but they're still out there and I've read about them considerably. Just like there is enormous amounts of evidence that huge canyons were made in the space of minutes - Something that makes evolutionists very uncomfortable when mentioned in the context of a conversation about how they believe the grand canyon was made. There is actually much evidence relating to the biblical flood vs. canyons that we've been told took "millions upon millions of years" - that phrase is the magic bullet, it makes people go "Well, I guess it might be true" on things that they otherwise would question.

In other words, certain scientists have made up their minds: They now see and find what they want to see and find. The human tendency to look for bias-confirming results is powerful. Any 12 step program will teach you that self-deception is the most powerful, effective, AND widespread problem of the human race. It is something we all struggle with, bar none - including 'none' professionals, too.

Very well said, I needed a double like button but there was none. Go Pascal, I'd land on the safe side too.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Has God ever visited Plagues?

He did give us Joe Biden

 

[conception_native_0123]

part of my Ancestry research

i don't know why ancestry research is such a big thing with the older crowd. why is this? i know a lot of grandparents that are doing the same thing nowadays.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

i don't know why ancestry research is such a big thing with the older crowd. why is this?

Adam, it's a fair question. I can only answer my own personal reasons because I haven't spoken to THAT many grandparent+ types, but...

Several research sites, most notably Ancestry.COM but there are others, have developed pretty decent web based interfaces for searching through old records in an intelligent way. They look at each person based on first name, last name, date of birth, date of death, and then some other factors like place of birth, place of death, census info (for USA residents), etc. They then let YOU enter some name that you know to be a member of your family. (Person has to be deceased to make it efficient.) Then they search through (obviously, indexed) lists of names and dates and do a "fuzzy math" match. They present the possible match as something they call a "hint." Sometimes it is obviously wrong. Sometimes it is so right that it is perfect. Sometimes its in the middle. So you review your hints, accept the ones that fit in with your knowledge of the family - and the process recurses. I have recursed back to as far as the late 1500s in England and the 1600s in both France and Spain. Plus the 1700s in the Acadia region of Nova Scotia, for my dear wife who IS, absolutely and categorically, Cajun from one of the oldest families in south Louisiana.

This ease of their new interface makes it easy to "scratch that curious itch" to learn more about your family. So the first part of the answer is that "new technology, tools, and methods have made it so much easier."

The other motivation is that kids DO get curious about their ancestry. They want to know things about their family. Therefore, I'm putting together a bunch of stuff so that my grandsons will know about their families. If you've ever been around a curious child starting from age 4, you KNOW they have no end of questions. But at least for family issues, I have answers.

Then, there is the "lost" side of the family. For some reason or another, there is some issue that causes a family rift. My father's mother was the "black sheep" of the family and as a result, I lost track of a lot of my 2nd and 3rd cousins from her side of the family. There is a rich heritage there but with the death of my Aunt Renee' - more than 45 years ago - I lost my last link. So instead I have turned to Ancestry to help me fill in the blanks.

A friend of mine out at work, only a few years younger than me, had started research because he was adopted and was FINALLY learning more about his birth family. With the new interfaces, he had started to make serious progress and was excited to learn that his folks (like my father's father's family) had come from the Virginia Colony through the Carolinas, Georgia, and eventually, Louisiana.

Finally, organizing it through Ancestry (plus some home-grown tools) has allowed me to track families through multiple marriages. In fact, during my recent visit to Bessemer AL (after H. Ida chased us away from home), I met a cousin (probably 4th, once or twice removed) who was able to fill in some MAJOR blanks on my mother's father's first wife. Mom had some half-brothers and half-sisters we had never heard about until my cousin G. filled in some blanks - because she was the Great x 2 Granddaughter of one of the half-sisters.

As a side note, the reason Ancestry.COM has become so thorough has to do with Mormon faith issues. Like Judaism, where you technically cannot be considered Jewish unless your mother was Jewish, the Mormons have lineage issues for being a "true Mormon." Not as familiar with those as with some others, so I'll just say the issues exist and Ancestry.COM was originally set up to help them prove lineage. It doesn't hurt them that there is a subscription fee so they get funded for doing something their religion incidentally requires them to do anyway.

 

[Isaac]

I might try ancestry.com again, inspired by your post. I tried it once and got frustrated, it seemed like the website wanted ME to input everything, rather than 'telling' me. I may try this again, understanding that i put some in, and the website gives me back hints - there is some free layer to it too, right?

 

[conception_native_0123]

I know a lot of people that use Ancestry.com for this purpose. A previous customer of mine was using their trees and their interfaces to map out his ancestry history

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I might try ancestry.com again, inspired by your post. I tried it once and got frustrated, it seemed like the website wanted ME to input everything, rather than 'telling' me. I may try this again, understanding that i put some in, and the website gives me back hints - there is some free layer to it too, right?

Free layer? With Ancestry, if you are trying to build tree, it isn't free. I've never tried to browse it without logging in. It is NOT cheap, but if you have reasonable goals, the number of people you can find grows pretty fast. I have a few cases that need cleaning up, but I'm over 2250 people in the expanded-family tree that includes my wife's first husband (who is the biological grandfather of two of my grandsons), my family, and my wife's family. Some of those Cajun families were prolific, but then, so were some of my Alabama country family members.

 

[Isaac]

Free layer? With Ancestry, if you are trying to build tree, it isn't free. I've never tried to browse it without logging in. It is NOT cheap, but if you have reasonable goals, the number of people you can find grows pretty fast. I have a few cases that need cleaning up, but I'm over 2250 people in the expanded-family tree that includes my wife's first husband (who is the biological grandfather of two of my grandsons), my family, and my wife's family. Some of those Cajun families were prolific, but then, so were some of my Alabama country family members.

Wait - recalling, I think I was on a 30 day trial or something, so it still should have worked. I'll have to give it another go.