He Ain't Heavy, He's My Companion

 My Third-Great-Grandfather, Matthew Bristow Wheelwright (1828-1891) served two missions to his native Great Britain. On his second, at age 58, he had a companion by the name of  Mayhew Calley (1857-1934). Elder Calley, graduate of Brigham Young Academy, had left his young family and his post as Iron County School Superintendent to serve a mission in the land where his parents had been born. On Thursday, December 9, 1886, they planned to walk to Hopewell from their lodgings in Hereford. 

Gertruida's Cousin

With scheduled consultant duties at the Family History Library and no patrons, I checked in to FamilySearch to see what it had for me. There was a birth record belonging to a possible ancestor. It was in Amsterdam and I thought, "Well, I'm not that good with Dutch records or the language so I'm not so sure if I can confirm this as a good source."

Grandma Cotter Calls to Me

We're heading to Edinburgh on our next Mormon Heritage Association tour of Scotland and Wales in a few weeks. My wife and I are going a week early as a celebration of my retirement. I had planned to travel down to Durham for some Vaughan family visits, but something besides just the longer drive nagged me to stay in Scotland.

We were going to rush through some of my wife's ancestral villages in Scotland just the other side of the Firth of Forth and then swing up through the Highlands just to say we've been. But now, I've planned for a few more days in the Lowlands. Grandma Cotter has been prompting me.

The Mitochondrial DNA is passed from Mother to children unchanged and can be traced on the maternal line back for a very long string of generations. My results show that my mother's mothers' mothers come from Scotland. And Elizabeth Cotter (1787-1860) is along that line.

She was on my FamilySearch Family Tree and married to Thomas Fletcher, who we believe to have been in Lord Nelson's decisive naval Battle of Trafalgar. But with the MtDNA, she is the one who was clearly a Scot.

FamilySearch was all messed up for her. My Ancestry.com research had a lot of good information and I still went to some original sources to dig out her birthday of 29 November 1787. She was born in Carriden Parish, now Bo'ness when it was in Linlithgowshire also called West Lothian. That's a lot of confusion right there!

My Father-in-Law in the Millennial Star

This blog is intended for my ancestors who are not Vaughns/Vaughans or closely connected thereto. But as I've been married to his daughter for 38 years, I think I can stretch to post my findings of my father-in-law in the Millennial Star, the British publication for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1840 to 1970. It had a good run.

The main problem is that as I am not a direct descendant, it will do no good for me to post this on FamilySearch memories. Maybe I can get his daughter to do it in 3rd-hour family study tomorrow.

While out of order, the first one here is a classic:

This is the Cornerstone laying for the London Temple from the Millenial Star of June 1957.

But back to Elder Kimball's arrival in the British Mission:

Gertruida's House

My eldest son, A-2, is in Amsterdam for work. That's Nike-Europe HQ. On video talk with his family Sunday night, we talked about him going to the Netherlands. My Granddaughters thought he was going to "Neverland."

I remembered late last night that I had told him I would send the info on where my 2nd-Great-Grandmother, Gertruida ter Bruggen was born in 1859. I had it plotted on Google Maps from the Dutch census information. I awoke this morning to his email with pics from his visit there!

Gertruida is the one who bore a striking resemblance to my second daughter, A-4. There is that surprising connection and the fact that I knew her daughter, my Great Grandmother, Maria Mourina Roman Wheelwright (1883-1972). Her middle name, Mourina, is from her Dutch family. When I was very young, she would lovingly tease me with two, porcelain kissing dolls, a little Dutch boy and girl. She would hold the Dutch boy and say it was me and in her other hand, the Dutch girl was my girlfriend. Those were sweet hands.

My son took these pictures this morning at 282 Bloemstraat, 1016 LK, Amsterdam:

Lord Nelson's Biscuit

Daniel Maclise: The Death of Nelson
Mural in Parliament, Westminster, London

There are times when I wished I had £3,000.00 to buy a biscuit.

Recently, an interesting lot came up for sale at Sotheby's and was then auctioned off again. It included what is believed to be the world's oldest hardtack biscuit. And not just any biscuit, but one belonging to an Able Seaman who fought with Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar.

And it gets better. The Able Seaman was my ancestor, the father of Mormon Pioneers!

The biscuit gets the news, but it is the other items that are of more importance.

That's one, huge biscuit, by the way!

When did the Thompson Family Arrive in Utah?

Centerville Ward Chapel, Davis County, Utah (1879). Centerville Canyon behind.
Only the center part is original. There have been several additions over the years.

Strolling the streets of Centerville, Utah today, it was nagging me that I still haven't solved the problem of where in town the Thompson Family lived for a few years in the 1860s when my 2nd Great Grandmother, Annie Thompson, was born April 3, 1863. She died as a young mother in 1890, leaving my Great Grandfather at age seven. He died in 1963 and I knew him well, so there is some responsibility here.

Hitting the internet when I got home, I checked out the listing of historical sites for Centerville to see if there is a record of a pioneer home built by a Thompson Family. I'm suspicious there was not. They were hard-working but not with much financial means in life and they likely boarded or shared space with another family in their brief time here. Or because they were here for a few short years, any home would not have been long remembered as belonging to them.

A Death in Echo Canyon

A Mormon Pioneer Wagon Train in Echo Canyon on a day without the rain but otherwise still seemingly miserable.
Likely after 1861 because of the telegraph poles.

No wonder Echo Canyon has always haunted me!

Early in my blogging life, I became friends with a great Mormon historian, Ardis Parshall. You can find her work at Keepapitchinin.org. She kindly corrected me when I told her that my family had a story that my 2nd Great Grandfather, Daniel Bartholemew Roman, had come across the plains in 1855 with a handcart at the age of four. You see, the handcart companies didn't start until 1856.

And I just discovered where that handcart story might have come from.

Daniel came from Piedmont, Italy with his widower father, David Charles Roman. Daniel's deceased mother was Jeanne Malan, of one of the first families to join the LDS Church in Italy. Daniel's father David, remarried in Utah to a widow who came with the Ellsworth Handcart Company in 1856, Suzanne Robert Rochon. She became widowed when her husband, Jean Michel Rochon, died in Echo Canyon on the 22nd of September, 1856, four days short of the Salt Lake Valley. An account of his tragic, though nameless, death is in the journal of William Butler, an Irishman, and Captain of the Second Hundred in the Ellsworth Company:

Upon arriving at Echo, Utah I became very sick and was forced to lie on the ground due to the pain in my stomach. After praying and resting a short time, I was able to continue on. As the company had gone on down the canyon, I was forced to travel alone, there being a terrible rainstorm raging and I was unable to see except when the lighting would flash. While traveling alone, I overtook an Italian and his little girl with their handcart. They also had been left behind to die. This man died before morning. I buried him the best I could, not having a shovel. I then traveled on, taking the little girl and her cart with me. During that day we overtook another man and his daughter by the name of Clark. They also had been left by the main company. I said to myself later, “Had it not been for Mr. Clark and his assistance I could not have continued on.” We overtook the main company the following day. Here we camped to bury our dead. Our provisions almost exhausted, we all cut down to one cup of flour a day.

Brown's Iris Gardens, Kirkland, Washington

Family History can get real strange. I planted irises this Spring. It kept reminding me of a relative/friend of my Mom's that I remember from growing up on Finn Hill. We were far away from family, but mom found one, a descendant of Daniel Wood and she shared some copies of Wood Family history that I still have.

Her name was Alta Brown. And remembering that she and her husband ran Brown's Iris Gardens, a rather beautiful place up there when Finn Hill was not all houses, I thought I would try to find her on Family Search to see how we were actually related. It was a frustrating search as I ultimately found that her name was Hazel Alta McCarty Brown (1909-2003), so she was very contemporary with my grandparents.

I remembered that they sold irises. The internet informed me that they hybridized irises. Her husband, Rex, registered 93 varieties. Alta registered a whopping 237 varieties!

A few of the varieties developed at Brown's Iris Gardens

Daniel Wood - Rescuer of Immigrants

Way to go, Grandpa Wood!

I did not not know this until today. It pays to keep checking back on the LDS Church History Library website, Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, because they keep updating with additional information and sources. Daniel Wood 1800-1892), my 3rd-Great-Grandfather and Davis County Pioneer, is now listed as a "Rescuer" of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies in the early winter of 1856! He appears on a list of teamsters for the rescue in the records of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Co.

If You're in Ogden on Memorial Day . . .

For myself and my kids, I wanted to post about some of the ancestor graves in the Ogden Cemetery. I went two years ago with some of my dad's cousins and met a few more there. As I had remembered correctly (though my wife still made me check the cemetery plot map online before we drove around), our Vaughans, and coincidentally, our Wheelwrights are on 10th Street, just to the East of the entrance on Ninth. For the big Thomas and Isabella Vaughan monument turn right down Tenth to the Vaughan marker on the left or East. You will see several other of Thomas and Isabella's family including the Burnetts who did a lot of family history.

The large marker for Thomas (1850-1894) and Isabella (1858-1919)

My Great Grandfather, George Robert Vaughn, born in England (1886-1951)

Sarah, a Choctaw: Mother of Nations

My latest and last missionary son emailed me some family history work that he was doing for me to check over. It is on the Hartsfield line, ancestors of Carters, to Easterlings, then Petersons (my maternal line). They were Southerners with a family tradition that Sarah, married to Rueben Hartsfield in about 1783, was a Choctaw Indian.

Sabra Ann Carter

The best evidence we have is that Sarah's granddaughter, Sabra Ann Carter (1840-1921), looks like she could be the granddaughter of a Native American.

She appears to have the jet-black hair, high cheek bones, and long, straight nose that could indicate Choctaw ancestry.

This is entirely plausible as the Hartsfields (also "Hartfield"), along with the Easterlings and Carters, ended up in Choctaw Mississippi country. The Choctaw were a large language/cultural group but not united under any particular affiliation until President Jackson ordered removal to Oklahoma. Then there were two distinct groups, the Oklahoma Choctaw and the Mississippi Choctaw, the latter not federally recognized as a Tribe until 1945!

From Access Genealogy the Choctaw were noted:

Grandma Peterson and Meadow Gold (and Billboards)

Went to Dick's Market to buy mayonnaise and came out with a lot of other stuff. I did exercise restraint because I wandered close to the bakery but bought no donuts.

My treat was Meadow Gold Ice Cream which was on sale 2/$5 so I got French Vanilla (fancier than regular and a necessary staple of life - Vanilla is a flavor - not the bland absence of such). Along with that I got Rocky Road which has real miniature marshmallows.

A Son of the Utah Pioneers, Part II

Having tagged my Mormon Pioneer Ancestors with the National Park Service Mormon Trail logo (non-commercial, fair use of trademark), I thought I would show you how that looks on my Ancestry.com Family Tree. I went back a generation to pick up more of them, so first my paternal and then my maternal tree:

Vaughn Family Mormon Pioneers arriving in Utah 1847-1869

You would have to click on the arrow after John Vaughan on the top to pick up Eleanor Jenkins Vaughan, handcart pioneer of 1856. Adding her in with all the other official buffalo skulls makes a dozen pioneers on my Dad's side.

For my Mom:

A Son of the Utah Pioneers

Finally, after checking and double-checking, I think I have the definitive list of my Mormon Pioneer Ancestors (those arriving in Utah between 1847-1869, including the few who didn't stay. . . .)

I have them all identified on my Ancestry.com "glvaughn" tree with the icon for the Mormon Pioneer Trail having lifted it from the Federal Register (OK, don't tell anybody at my work - but at least it's not for commercial trademark exploitation).

The Genetic Leap and Spiritual Ties that Love Binds

My wife says that babies come cute so that we'll love and care for them. Teenagers become obnoxious so we're glad to get rid of them when they leave to go out into the world. Everybody loves or should love a baby. Honorable hearts break when babies are mistreated and unloved.

My share of baby-sitting comes this weekend as I'm no shopper so I stay behind with any number of young ones. This year, it's my two, beautiful granddaughters.

The oddest thing was that the younger of my granddaughters seemed so familiar. I knew I had seen that face before. Genetics are weird in that particular traits can pop up in the genetic scramble that makes us who we are physically. And there's something even stranger in the spiritual genetics that can't be defined by science, at least not yet, and seem so real if only by those intangibles of love and feeling that cannot be denied even if not counted and measured.

"Utah, We Love Thee" (Whatever You Mean)

Look it up. Nobody can explain the origin of the name "Utah." We think it comes from a Native American word but there are all kinds of theories. It could be Navajo or some variation of Ute or Paiute or Shoshone language. It may even be a Spanish term.

My quandary began when I was working through ancestry.com on some relatives I thought I knew pretty well. There is always something more to learn.

Wood Family Cemetery on a rainy Memorial Day

My Mother Was a DJ!

[Previously posted on Keepapitchinin.org]

My family has done pretty well saving old items of personal history. Bless my dear paternal grandmother who saved every letter she ever received and in her later years, returned them to the senders! Going through this and other material transcribing letters digitally into family history records, I found the most amazing thing. A card from 1955 with my mother's name on it:

Wright Pioneers!

[from my other blog 24 July 2014 - Pioneer Day (in Utah)]

So, I got an email message from Family Search listing all my Mormon Pioneer ancestors. There was one name there I'd never known. And I couldn't match her up with anyone in my line. The system may not yet be foolproof. There's no internet infallibility in our church (or any other IT system I've ever heard of).

Yet I was surprised because I really thought my Mom had told me that our Wright Family of Coalville, Utah, were not Pioneers, but had come on the train. But there was Thomas Wright (1830-1909) on the list! His wife Annie Dale Wright (1842-1911) appears in the same Daniel D. McArthur Company, 1868.

Whatever my Mom told me it was at least half right because 1868 was the year before the transcontinental railroad was completed. In 1868, the Mormons heading for Zion rode the train to the then end of the line at Benton, Wyoming, eleven miles east of Rawlins. They didn't have to walk so far but it was still far enough across the most challenging parts of Southwestern Wyoming. Here's the report of their trip from the Pioneer Overland Travel Database:

My Wife and I Are 10th Cousins!

[From my "other" blog 14 Sept. 2014]

The Relative Finder program developed by the BYU Family History people has given me a lot of great connections. It works for anyone who uses Family Search including many non-LDS people. Our good bishop set up a group to allow us to see our relationship to any person in our ward. Everybody is connected somehow with fewer degrees of separation than one might think. This does not directly lead to family names for Temple work, but it does cause a lot of excitement with fun and interesting connections made.

So it turns out that my wife and I are tenth cousins! The program puts it out in this format: