Productive research leads to new ancestral questions

Hello everyone!

We had a marvelous time on our field trip to the Family History Library Saturday, 7 June 2008.

ORIENTATION

• Using the travel time for a pep talk, Myrt provided a handout with a map of each floor of the library.


• We discussed the importance of labeling each printout from film/fiche with the film number.


• When consulting a book, we should copy the title page & copyright pages, and any of the front pages that might explain abbreviations, etc.


• Enter the information on a research log for each surname, to avoid duplicating the same search in the future.


• Make notations even if we do NOT find anything on our ancestor in the film, fiche or book.

BISHOP LINE

• Shannon and Carrie worked on Shannon’s supposedly French Canadian Bishop, Davis & Spicer lines, eventually finding a surname book with the compiled genealogy going back to the 1500s. Carrie reminded Shannon that sources for each generation in the compiled genealogy book would be advisable to begin to prove relationships, as a printed book is merely second hand information. Fortunately, the book’s title page includes the contact information of
  the compiler.


• Note that the big breakthrough on the Bishop line was on Isaac Bishop, the brother of
  Shannon’s ancestor, pointing up the necessity of keeping track of the siblings whenever possible.


• Shannon also found endowment and sealing records for the a photocopy of the original Nauvoo Temple Register mentioning her ancestors.


• Shannon discovered an ancestor in Pioneers & Prominent Men of Utah. This book is also scanned and searchable at Ancestry.com under the title Utah Pioneers and Prominent Men, Ancestry.com’s citation reads as follows: Source Information: Ancestry.com. Utah Pioneers and Prominent Men [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. Original data: Esshom, Frank Elwood. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Co., 1913.

WILLIAMS LINE

• Nadine referenced her photocopy of the 1897 Salt Lake Tribune obituary of her ancestor John Williams, from the Family History Library's collection of Salt Lake Tribune issues on 515 microfilm.


• She studied books including indexes of records for Missoula, Montana. This was John’s last known residence before being brought to American Fork, Utah to die. There are 2 categories for Missoula, and she have to check all sorts of resources listed under:
  
  Montana, Missoula (referencing the county of Missoula)
  Montana, Missoula, Missoula (referencing the town of Missoula)


• Nadine had previously found a Montana entry for John Williams in the 1880 US Federal Census Index at http://labs.familysearch.org . However, on checking the entry, where the census said he was born about 1823 in England, we couldn't be sure this was her ancestor because there weren't any recognizable children or spouse names to narrow it down.


• Though the 1880 US Federal Census Index lists several John Williams circa 1823 , +/- 5 years in Utah, Myrt found Nadine's John Williams with the known wife and children in the at
  http://pilot.familysearch.org in the Territory of Utah in Tooele as follows:
  
  Name: John Williams
  Residence: Vernon, Tooele, Utah
  Birth date: 1825
  Birth place: England
  Relationship to head-of-household: Self
  Spouse name: Sarah H. Williams
  Spouse birth place: Ireland
  Father name:
  Father birth place: England
  Mother name:
  Mother birth place: England
  Race (Term on Certificate): White
  Ethnicity: American
  Gender: Male
  Marital status: Married
  Age: 55 years
  Occupation: Farmer
  NARA film number: T9-1338
  Page: 107
  Page letter: C
  Entry number: 4438
  Film number: 1255338 [This is a Family History Library film #]
  Collection: 1880 United States Census
  
  Though the Family History Library has free access, we used Myrt's membership to Ancestry.com to locate the scanned image of the census page referenced in the index listing above. We were then able to add the item to Myrt's Ancestry.com "shoebox" for future reference in addition to saving the file on a flash drive.
  
  
  
  We should have emailed the following information (copied from the Ancestry.com website) to Nadine, so she could use the text to compile an appropriate source citation in her genealogy management program. Since we didn't, she will have to go online to Ancestry, and redo the search in order to find the text to copy & paste.
  
  1880 Census Place: Vernon, Tooele, Utah; Roll: T9_1338; Family History Film: 1255338; [Ancestry.com] Page: 107.3000; Enumeration District: 79.
  
  Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. 1880 U.S. Census Index provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © Copyright 1999 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. All use is subject to the limited use license and
  other terms and conditions applicable to this site. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1880. T9, 1,454 rolls.


• Myrt checked the previously mentioned SL Tribune obituary and noted that John Williams was listed as a "teamster in Johnston's Army" so she set out to discover more about the history of the military unit. Since the unit marched on Utah in 1857 (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War), we want to find evidence of his enlistment most likely through records at the National Archives, or unit history in the US Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
  
  The military unit originated in Kansas according to information from and acted on orders issued by S[amuel] Cooper, Adjutant General, by order of the Secretary of War. GENERAL ORDERS No. 12. Washington: War Department, Adjutant General's Office, August 29, 1857. The
  scanned image of the order is included on this site.
  
  See also: Richard Dole's http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/u/UTAHWAR.html referencing Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859 (1960, 1977); Richard D. Poll, Quixotic Mediator: Thomas L. Kane and the Utah War (1985).
  
• Oddly enough, in the 1856 Territorial Census of Utah, John Williams is listed as living in Vernon,
  Tooele, Utah. Is it likely that Jo0hn Williams was like Curtis Allen's "great-grandfather was a member of the Nauvoo Legion, the Mormon militia sent up to the high plains of present-day Wyoming to delay (or perhaps prevent) the army from entering the Great Salt Lake Valley in autumn 1857" ? Did John William not ride for Johnston's Army, but against Johnston's army? Things do get confused when it comes to obituaries, so they cannot be taken at face value.


• Myrt located a John Williams October burial date listing in the Utah Cemetery Burial Database from the Utah State Archives & History website providing known John’s exact burial plot in the American Fork Cemetery. The database had an apparent typo of 1997, rather than 1897 for the year of death. Fortunately, Nadine already knew exactly where John Williams was buried in the cemetery, and spotted the typo and has documented it in her notes.
  
  
  

This is my report.

Our next meeting will be held 17 June 2008, when we will discuss "citing Sources & filing challenges." If you'd like to join our merry group of researchers, and live in the Salt Lake City vicinity, do let me know.

Myrt@DearMYRTLE.com