Jehovah's Witness Project started

I've been thinking about this project all day and want to share why I'm uneasy about it.

1) There are absolutely no publicly available internal records regarding Witness baptisms, wedding, funerals, leadership positions, or anything else that could be used in genealogy. So it's a project based on a subject that cannot be researched at the individual level. There are no resources we can share for folks, nor can we prove or disprove affiliations.

2) Defining who is and isn't one of Jehovah's Witnesses is an exceedingly tricky and nuanced matter, even for members. There are more people who self-define as Witnesses than there are official members, and many of the people you'll see on lists of "famous Jehovah's Witnesses" were never considered members according to the organization's own rules. And again, there are zero documents or databases to use in the process.

3) People commonly move in and out of the Witness world throughout their lives. Someone might've been affiliated as a child but not as an adult. People may have bounced in and out in adulthood. Should we be assigning an identity to their profile if we can't be certain they wanted it?

4) A lot of people are affiliated with the Watch Tower / Bible Students/ Russellite movement(s) but are not of never were actual members of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Eisenhower family, which appears to be what provoked this project, is a good example of that problem. While they get shoehorned in with the Witnesses, they were really involved more with the Bible Students movement -- another lacking public records, and probably not fit for a genealogy project.

I don't think there's any way to do this project with the level of nuance it needs, which is why I've never created one. I understand the desire to make projects for everything under the sun, but in this case, I would encourage you to use the "Religion" field on profiles instead of assigning people into a project. And even there, I'd urge caution for the reasons listed above.

Ashley,
For one I only adding those known to be Jehovah Witnesses. And Genealogical and historical Jehovah witnesses were in WW2 war camps. So historical wise there is basis. If we don’t have this it bit discrimination and all genealogy Religion projects should stop as well under your reasoning Quakers left so did Amish and others should we even have Religion projects at all. As far as Genealogy wise it does give families as others do. I do understand the reluctance of have project. But Jehovah’s witnesses are in my family and I like to represent them. As in WW2 families killed in Holocaust the Jehovah Witnesses wore purple triangles and those didn’t give up thier faith they died for it. Just like those who came to America for religious reasons. There is genealogical history there.

Billie

Ashley,

Here few things that shows genealogical basis.

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/...

https://www.nickiswift.com/132689/stars-who-are-jehovahs-witnesses/

http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jehovahs-wi...

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Jehovahs_Witnesses_in_the_Unit...

Billie

Ashley, I understand your point; but I follow Billie June’s as well.

For our near families we can work with them to decide if they should be in the project or not. But for the deceased, it will be useful, and partly for the documentation reason you mention. My late uncle has few public records for example, but I have first hand knowledge that he was a JW missionary and church elder. This project is a place to share that knowledge, and I’ll be adding him.

As I said: it requires a deep level of nuance. I'd ask that you re-read what I said, particularly points 2 and 4, before adding any "known to be" Witnesses to this project. (For example, I can already tell you that the inclusion of David Eisenhower is going to be contentious to say the least -- and that's one of the *very* few examples where there are public congregation records to work with.)

For Bibelforscher imprisoned or murdered during the Holocaust, we have a project at https://www.geni.com/projects/PURPLE-TRIANGLE/51494

I sincerely appreciate you wanting to include and honor everyone on Geni. All I can do is ask that you understand that some of us know a lot about this subject and the intricacies involved, and we should be able to say our piece on it. I can tell you that the subject of creating a project for Witnesses has been discussed several times by active, actual Witness Geni users in the past, and the decision has always been to not do it. But obviously, no one can stop you if you feel a need to proceed.

Thanks Erica,
I just think there historically basis for this project. Many gave there lives for beliefs whether I agree or disagree it not issue it history of families.

Billie

Erica, we cross-posted.

Billie, those links actually support my argument. The Eisenhower finding aid, which I'm very familiar with, indicates little to no involvement by David. It uses a lot of terms and abbreviations that will likely be unfamiliar to non-Witnesses, which is why I think it gets so misinterpreted. The Watch Tower Society itself indicated in writing in the 1950s that Ida was the only one with meaningful involvement.

The Nicki Swift listicle, like virtually every list I've ever seen, includes numerous people who were never baptized as Witnesses and never had any level of congregational privileges. The Watch Tower Society has sued over inaccurate reporting like that; it's not a road I want Geni to go down. Adding Prince (Brother Nelson) is fine; adding the Williams sisters, the Wayans brothers, and somebothers is simply inaccurate.

Deeply, deeply familiar with the treatment of Bibelforscher during the Holocaust.

The FamilySearch wiki demonstrates what I already said -- there are no public internal record collections to use.

This is not the kind of thing where I'm going to bang my head against the wall over it, but again, I'm going to say my piece, because it's important.