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.