Freeing the Spirits of Family

I have been troubled by something for quite a while. This week I finally did something about it.

I released hundreds of names to the temple that I had held in reserve.

Over the course of the past five years I have worked with family and my ward members to do the temple work for hundreds of names. When the youth needed names for baptism, I had a ready supply. When we would go to the temple or when other family members would enquire we have had our family work to do.

I have stated before that my least favorite part of family history is the data mining of names and dates and part of that includes making names temple ready. My mother collected and organized thousands of names through her lines over the course of decades and all I have done with them is make them temple-ready. But doing so had caused my reserved names list to blossom.

Stubbornly I hoarded those names thinking I would get to them through the same old efforts of working with family and my ward groups. Instead of making headway with that list through these efforts the list has only grown.

I rationalized this with good things, of course. I want my family to have family names to take to the temple. I want to be able to support our ward and stake with work that needs to be done as well. I want to do some of this work myself.

I was also bothered with the idea that I might upset someone by doing this. After all, don’t my brothers and sisters and cousins deserve an opportunity to do this work as well?

They do. But, frankly, if they were all that interested in it I would have heard from them by now. Over five years I have tried over and over to engage others in the work of our family history — and what is temple work if it’s not family history? — but my success with those efforts has been very soft. They say that less than 2 percent of Church members are seeking out their family names and taking them to the temple. I would say our family participation rate has been about the same.

Why wait for them when we have other members of the family waiting for me?

All along I have been nagged by the thought that I was holding things up and not helping things out. I was baking only part of the cake.

In the end, isn’t the Temple the point? Aren’t the ordinance works the only point?

Could I be supressing the forward progression of loved ones only because I was sitting on names?

This week I set the captives free.

Finally, I can tell you, I am at peace with this. Never will I allow the names to pile up again. As soon as I get new ones I’m going to release them.

I still want folks to work with when it comes to these efforts. You know where to find me. From now on though I will be putting names in the express line and not holding back. There is so much work to be done and there is no time to hold back for spurious reasons.

The time is now.

I have come to think of my family in much broader terms these last five years. In five years time I’ve become a grandparent. I’ve watched my children mature into adults. I’ve lost my mother. I’ve engaged in this noble work and have come to know those family members of my past that made my life possible. The height, width, depth and breadth of who my family is, including my-law family, leaves me in awe and feeling burdened with responsibility.

I want to be able to face them all — now and into the future.

I will continue the work of outreach with my family and especially my children through this website and other efforts. I feel this is not only a critical work for our family on the other side but the revelatory nature of doing family history, the sacred learning that envelopes us as we work on these things, the new influences we feel and the higher teaching given to us through temple and family history work is, in my mind, one of the greatest parts of the gathering.

We tend to think the souls we’re helping are others. They are not. This work is for us. One way or the other, the work for “them” is going to get done — whether we do it or someone else does. But if we do it we gain that much more. There will be no spirit prison for us if we do this. If we neglect it, we do it at great peril.

I sometimes wonder where the ceiling is in these lessons. I keep thinking that maybe I won’t continually experience something new and exciting as I press forward. But now I don’t think there is a limit. I believe Heavenly Father so wants to bless us that what lies in store cannot be predicted, anticipated or even imagined.

We are told that. We are promised that. But like all things associated with the gospel until we put that faith in action — not just sticking our toe into the water but jumping head first into the pool — we will never reap the blessings that faith promises.

I tell you, those blessings come. They come in not only great abundance but in ways that will stun you and leave you breathless.

I hope those names now freed are experiencing the same kind of blessings now for their faith on the other side.

When the Worlds of Westovers and Smiths Collide

My great grandfather is Arnold Westover. He married Mary Ann Smith.

Both the Westovers and Smiths have great histories. You will learn a lot more about the Smiths in an upcoming video about another Utah pioneer named Albert Smith, of Manti, Utah.

But for now I want to focus on his great grandfather, a man with one of the great names in the family, Chileab Smith.

Albert’s history speaks of his Ashfield, Massachusetts roots and the strong religious history of the family in the Baptist faith.

Chileab was the man in Ashfield, hugely influential and a founder of the Baptist church there.

When he died at the age of 93 in the year 1800 he had at that time 145 living descendants – eleven of them were Baptist ministers and ten others had married ministers – at least when they stopped counting in the 1850s.

(Just one, our Albert Smith, was once a resident of Nauvoo, a member of the Mormon Battalion, and a temple pioneer. What a rebel).

Anyway, I was reading this morning yet another history of Sheffield, Massachusetts — looking for a little new information about our Revolutionary war generations of that area.

But in reading again of the founding of Sheffield – and the contributions there made by Jonathan, Nathaniel, Jonah and John Westover – I can across the name of another area settler in the 1730s.

His name was Chileab Smith.

Could it actually be possible that the grandfathers of Arnold Westover and Mary Ann Smith were actually neighbors in settling Sheffield, Massachusetts? Could they have possibly known each other?

The answers: yes and yes.

Chileab Smith and John Westover sat on a town council together, it turns out.

But wait…there’s more: Chileab Smith married a woman named Sarah Moody.

Where have we seen that name Moody before? Well…Moody was the maiden name of Electa Beal Westover’s mother.

(You following all this?)

So…is it possible that Chileab’s wife is related to Arnold Westover’s great-great-grandmother?

I haven’t solved this one yet. Sorting through all the Sarah Moody’s in New England of the 18th century is like trying to find a Wong in a Chinese phone book.

But nothing shocks me anymore.

This is a good genealogical mystery to solve. It all hinges on who the parents of Daniel Moody are.

Who is Daniel Moody?

He’s Electa’s grandpa.

Daniel and Rebeckah Moody were parents to Rebecca Moody, who married Obadiah Beal. Electa was their sixth child.

Oh…if you’re still following along with this…here’s another mystery to solve:

Obadiah Beal was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts (say that fast) but moved at some point to northern Vermont, not far from the Canadian border.

It was there, I believe, that the Beals and the Amos Westover family came to know each other. This was around the year 1800. Alexander was born in 1798 – likely in Canada – and Electa was born in 1802 in Bristol, Vermont (not far away).

Curiously, the Beals and the Westovers somehow both next appear near each other in Ohio – in about 1810 or so.

Alexander and Electa would marry in 1823. In Ohio.

Electa had several older siblings, including a big brother named…Daniel. His full name was Daniel Moody Beal. (Named after guess who?)

Just to add to your confusion…big brother Daniel married a girl named Olive Westover. Who was Olive? She was Alexander’s little sister.

Want more?

How about this one: Amos Westover – Alexander’s Dad – married Ruth Loomis.

Her parents were Timothy Loomis and Mary Morton.

Where have we seen that name Morton before?

Well, Amos’s mother – Rachel – her maiden name was Morton.

Yep – Rachel and Mary are sisters – making Amos and Ruth first cousins.

It’s a wonder any of us were not born with six heads.

(By the way, if you want to dig into the early history of Sheffield to see the link between Chileab and John, click here). It is “Western Massachusetts, a History 1636-1925” Volume II, published in 1926.

None Knew Them

None Knew Them But to Praise

The generation of my grandparents is rightfully known as The Greatest Generation.

They have been so identified because of their sacrifices and contributions during the years of the Great Depression and World War II.

We likewise are free with our praise of the Pioneer Generation, those pre-and-post Civil War era ancestors who conquered the West

We marvel as well over the Generation of Emigrants who crossed oceans and continents around the turn of the 20th century.

In greater measure, we identify our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors of the Great Migration generations of the 1600s.

But as I continue to work family history it occurs to me that there was a generation just as great as all these yet they seem to escape any recognition. I have come to call them the Unheralded Generation.

This is the generation of ancestors born from roughly 1790 to 1810, or so – the children and grandchildren of early colonists of the American Revolution.

We just don’t give them the credit they deserve.

This thought came to me as I pondered over the graves of ancestors this week in Mendon, Utah.

There, between the tiny markers for William and Linzey Findley, is a monument erected in their honor by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

The monument clearly says “None knew them but to love them. None named them but to praise.”

Curious, I began to poke around looking for where those words came from. I wanted to know why these words are assigned to a marker to these 5th great-grandparents of mine.

The all-knowing Google could only point me in the direction of an obscure 19th century America poet by the name of Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Halleck was something of a mover and shaker in early American publishing circles in New York. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe.

A New York Times article described his poetic works as “ranging from the incomprehensible to the awful”. Yet there Halleck is, immortalized on the great Literary Walk of Central Park with William Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Robert Burns.

His one claim to poetic greatness comes from a work he penned for another poet, Joseph Rodman Drake, when Drake died. This poem made Halleck’s name widely known in the 19th century:

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, who truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine.

It should be mine to braid it,
Around thy faded brow,
But I’ve in vain essayed it,
And feel I can not now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.

I have pondered all week why the Daughters of Utah Pioneers would put those words on that monument above the graves of the Findleys.

I have shared the history of the Findleys before in telling the story of Ann Westover, her brother William, Jr. and his wife, Sarah.

But I’ve not said much about their parents, William Sr. and Linzey, because there is honestly little known there to share.

I have a feeling it is the story of a great love between two people. It is clearly a story of tremendous sacrifice. And it is certainly a story that has never been told nor rightfully recognized.

William Sr. was a Scot, a coal miner and quite nearly an old man when he pushed the family handcart with Linzey and Ann to Utah in 1856.

He was 47 years old that year and he would spend the last 30 years of his life toiling on the farm in Mendon in obscurity.

The town of Mendon has a plaque honoring the founding families of the city near the town square and the Findley name is on it. But that is a reference to William Findley Jr, who came to Mendon in 1859 and claimed some of the best farm land there to be found.

It was William Findley Jr who was well known in the community. He was the one with the impressive team of 12 champion horses. It was William Jr who on the High Council. It was William Jr. the journals of visiting Church authorities would mention as a leader in the Mendon Ward.

William Sr. and Linzey settled next door to William Jr. and Sarah.

When William Jr. unexpectedly died in 1869 it was William Sr. who sent for daughter Ann.

We know William Sr. was faithful. He appears on the records of the Mendon Ward in various activities all the way until about a month or so before his passing in 1887.

When Ann received her patriarchal blessing it was mentioned that William Sr. had just previously given Ann a father’s blessing, and was standing in with the Patriarch as Ann received her patriarchal blessing.

There can be no doubt of how close Ann Westover was to her parents. She named her first son William.

When she came to Mendon it was to help William, Jr.’s widow – Sarah, and her children – but she lived in the home and on the farm of her parents next door.

Their place, in time, became “Sister Westover’s house”, where the school children would pass each day and stop for cookies and storytelling.

Throughout all this drama the steady influence and presence of William Sr. and Linzey is evident – but never mentioned.

We know that Linzey was a beloved Matriarch. Generations of granddaughters after her carry her name. We know the little iron that Sarah carried beneath her skirts across the plains has been passed down in the decades since only to daughters named Lindsay.

Yet no stories or known written history of William, Sr. and Linzey Findley exist.

“None named thee but to praise”, indeed.

These honored and beloved pioneers are not the only ones of their generation whose true stories are not really known.

Alexander Westover – Edwin’s father – is practically unknown as a man. His wife, Electa, we have a little more about but she too lived a life of incredible loneliness and sacrifice.

David Rowe and his wife, Hannah – grandparents to Ruth Althea Rowe Westover – were of this generation as well.

Their son William’s stories of service in the Mormon Battalion and great spiritual experiences are documented well. But the stories of conversion and sacrifice for David and Hannah are not known or remembered.

Levi Murdock, and his wife Elizabeth, are significant figures in the settlement of the north Ogden area of Utah. But they were considered among the oldest and wisest of Mormon pioneer families yet they left behind no family records, relying on their history to be recorded in the journals of others.

David Smith and his companion, Deborah Alden – parents to Albert Smith, are better remembered not for their own history but for their distant heritage among the pilgrim and puritan settlers of New England.

Grandma Sophie’s parents – Johan Frederick and Sophie Catrine – have no known history. Perhaps all the records from Denmark are yet to be found.

From the Humble side of the family we do know a little more of those of this generation. George and Mary Ann came over from England in about 1850. But while we know their travels a lot more could be known of their story.

We do have a few from this generation whose stories we know.

Notably we know the stories of Gardner Snow, Horace Roberts and of Elam Cheney. These are all notable characters in early LDS history. But without outside record keeping from Church events we might not know anything about them at all.

I think of this generation as unheralded because they were truly the first to push westward. They may have first settled in places like Indiana, Ohio and Illinois before pressing forward towards Utah but they aren’t celebrated for that.

They were, if truth be told, pioneers to many of those WE consider to be pioneers.

So I find the DUP marker between William and Linzey in Mendon to be quite appropriate in its sentiment.

But I hope to one day make that sentiment obsolete. Their story should be discovered, shared and celebrated. They were, by all evidence, greatly devoted to family and grandparents I would be proud to know.

Influencers in My Family History

Two very separate events have kind of taken over my thoughts this past week.

A while back I was downstairs in the treasure room and I came across a letter written by my grandparents to the Church asking a question about how to pursue a family line in England.

Attached to the letter was the response from someone in the Genealogical Department of the Church in Salt Lake City. The letter was dated around 1974.

The instructions included an address for a contact at some library in London who they were certain could put them in contact with someone at a library somewhere else in England.

This whole thing made me think of how far family history research has come. 1974 was not all that long ago. Yet look what they had to do in their search for information!

Another thing that has given me reason to think are the many new contacts I’ve made recently as a result of the DNA testing I’ve done through Ancestry.

All of the people I have met are distantly related but they come with fresh energy and almost excitement in our shared worked.

One of them, after contacting me at Ancestry and then coming here to our little family history website, asked: “Who are your influences? What is there in our history that makes you want to do this?”

As I’ve thought about it I have enjoyed a spirit of thanksgiving – almost a counting of the family history blessings, you could say – that has brought many tears this past week. There are so many influencers for me. I think they are worthy of recounting here.

GrandparentsThese are my grandparents, Leon and Maurine Westover. I count them as among the greatest influences upon me in many ways, not just in family history. As a grandson they invested in me a great deal of time and love in just teaching me I was part of something greater – my family. Both of them have been gone from this life for 30 years now and yet their influence is still so very profoundly felt and appreciated. My Grandpa was so smart to talk to me about both the past and the future. I can remember him many, many, many times telling me about the Westover Ranch in Idaho. I had never gone there as a child and I regret to admit it took me many years – after most of my own children were born – to get there. He knew that yet he planted those seeds and dang if he didn’t prophetically foresee what a symbol it would become in my life. Grandma’s approach with Family History with me always so wisely focused on my Mother and her insistence that I had to help my mother with that work. While she was free with the details of the Westover and Riggs family history she knew and had worked on she let me know what a great work waited for me on my mother’s side. Grandma was so very wise.

MomThis is my Mom. I’ve told you her story many times before. It is, quite honestly, a miracle and I’m convinced she remains a guiding force even from the other side for her family. Some days what I wouldn’t give to be where she is, sharing in the conversations I know she is having. But at the same time I enjoy now a connection with my Mom that is entirely unique. It is a closeness I cannot quite describe but it is all about family and all of my family – past, present and future. I very keenly feel that influence.

Gary and Barbara GillenThese are my in-laws, Gary and Barbara Gillen. I’ve not shared much of the Gillen family history here that I know and I’ll tell you why: it’s not my place. I’ve worked on it, and I’m interested in it, but that joy of discovery belongs to them, my wife, her siblings and my children and grandchildren. Like my Grandma did with me, I can encourage and advise. Here is what my children already know about my wife’s parents: they are a chosen generation in their family to kick-start the work of family history there and they have done a wonderful job of it already, even if they don’t know it. I have marveled at how they have built a deep relationship with my children though the years and a thousand miles have separated them. This has come from a responsive interest in the lives of the kids and a patient, peaceful and kind representation of all things family. Sandy’s Dad – and everyone calls him Pops – may not be the strongest with names and dates but there isn’t a better storyteller on God’s green earth. I have watched him time and again take the kids back in time and make them part of the family he has always known and appreciated. Nonny, Sandy’s Mom, is a hometown girl who loves where she lives and the life she has had there. She seems to know everyone and can tell you their story. She is a peacemaker who has nothing but love to share and her influence with my children is so much greater than she realizes. That’s just the way it is with grandmothers, I’ve decided.

Gerald and Milda QuilterThis is a picture of my Uncle Gerald and my great Aunt Milda, my Grandma’s sister. Both were a joy to me. Gerald in particular reminds me much of Pops in that he could tell a story that would keep you in stitches. He always seemed to have a tear in one eye and a twinkle in the other. This was man who took joy in every member of his family, who spoke nothing but kindness in each one of them, and whose personal habits were completely unselfish. I can remember, just watching him speak to Milda, and how he spoke to me, that as I child I thought, “I want to be just like him.” Over the years I have contemplated that feeling I had and wondered if I could ever be that kind of giant influence on the heart of a child. Gerald made me feel important, and like my grandparents, he tried to get me to understand I was part of something greater. It humbles me now just to think of him and his goodness.

Aldyth QuilterHere is another one of my Grandma’s sisters, my Aunt Allie. That is how I’ve always thought of her – she was “mine”. I wasn’t able to know Aldyth growing up but I recall so many times my father talking about “my Aunt Allie”. I got to know her when she came to the rescue when Grandma got so sick. She set everything aside in her life and came and just took care of business there at Grandma’s house. It was so like her that nobody else in the family seemed to be phased at her commitment. She just came and served. And while she served she smiled, she laughed, she remembered. For me she was instant family from the moment I met her. Like so many others I speak of here she invested in me and took time to tell me things about her upbringing, my Grandma’s life and my father’s life. She cried when she told me about her children and she laughed and cried some more when she talked about her grandchildren. Aldyth was also committed, just like all of her sisters, to the work of family history and I find her name on things everywhere I look. Her love wasn’t reserved just for me, clearly, but she sure made me feel like it was.

Nana and BumpaHere is a picture of my Mom, around age three with her mother and her step father, Pat Caldwell. As a child and even today we refer to him as Bumpa. Pat Caldwell does not fit the mold of the most of the other men I speak of here. His upbringing was completely different and his journey was entirely unique. But he gave me valuable lessons related to family – how to be a step-parent, how to be a loyal son, how to even be a grandfather. I had unique experiences with him that I never had with my other grandfather. Some of those experiences were physical – working side by side. Other times were just talking, sharing philosophies, man to man. Bumpa was a man who carried great love yet didn’t quite know how to express it. He was generous. He was respectful of differences. If I disagreed with him he would sometimes say, “Well, maybe you know something I don’t know yet”. He was a man who learned his lessons and applied change. He was free with sharing his mistakes. I could see where my Mom got her sometimes brutal honesty and I came to see that as a strength and something to admire. I admired it greatly in him.

Mary Ann Smith WestoverThis is a photo of Mary Ann Smith Westover, my great grandmother. She died before I was born. All that I have heard about her speaks of how she was a force to be reckoned with. I recognize her as one of my influencers because she left a physical record that not only advanced my knowledge of family history on many sides but also demonstrated to me her tremendous faith and hope in the work of temples. Her hand-written family group sheets – complete in many cases with photographs (quite the feat back in those days) are really what remains at the foundation of our total family history efforts. She was visionary in the respect that as a Mother and grandmother she not only took pictures but organized and stored them into albums. She wanted them preserved and I think she would be happy to know what’s become of them and how they are so greatly valued by us, the later generations.

Alber and Sophia SmithAlong those lines are these Smith grandparents of Mary Ann Smith pictured here – Albert and Sophia Smith, of Manti, Utah. Talk about vision. Both of these folks embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ with their whole lives. Family and the love of God was what it was all about and no amount of effort required would stay them from moving that forward. These pioneers built the temples they so desperately came to Zion for and found a way to get generations of their family past through the temple on their behalf. Better than 1500 family names on both sides were researched, gathered and then organized for ordinance work that was completed between 1888 and 1892. What an epic accomplishment!

Darrell and Evie WestoverHere is one of their great grandsons, my Uncle Darrell, with another of Grandma’s sisters, my Aunt Evie. I do not think enough can be said of their many efforts on behalf of the Westover and Riggs family lines (and thus the Smiths and the Snows and all the others). I always felt singled out among my siblings by my Uncle Darrell, whose efforts to advance the deep history of the family seemed to be targeted squarely on me. He sometimes quizzed me. I can recall going to a Priesthood meeting with him when I was thirteen, with him sitting on my left and my Dad sitting on my right. It was quiet until he turned to me and asked, “Tell me what you know about Albert Smith.” And he just never stopped with that stuff. I was nearly 50 years old and he was still doing it to me. Oh, how I miss him and how I wish he would grill me again. Fortunately my aunt Evie has been less inclined over the years to put me on the spot. She’s got the grandma approach down pretty good and it can’t just be because she has a hundred billion grandchildren and great grandchildren now. I don’t know what they sprinkled on the Wheaties of the Riggs children back in the day but I weep when I think about each one of them and their sweet love of all things family.

DadHere’s a picture of my father and I have a million more just like this. Dad would always say he belonged on just one side of the camera and if you look at some of the pictures of him it is clear why he feels that way. From the youngest age I have heard my Dad tell the family stories. He’s not been one to engage in tree making or data gathering of names and dates but he’s got a clear vision of the entire epic family story. From my Dad I have learned to reverence it and to celebrate it. Like my Dad, I have a hard time feeling worthy of them. Dad has always encouraged my work in family history and these days I go to him first with news of any discovery. He advises me on this site and what we store here. But I think the greatest lesson from my Dad has been his involvement with my Mother’s family and the great role he played in bringing them into her life. My Mom would not have accomplished all she did without my Dad doing what he did. Talk about a proxy work! And now, with Mom passed, I work side by side with my Dad in family history efforts that will have lasting impact for those generations that follow us. I also post that picture of him behind the camera for another reason and I’m serious about this. You see, I’ve always given Dad a bit of a hard time about all the photos he’s taken of things like the Grand Canyon. But along with those efforts has been a very dedicated effort to document through photography the history of the family – and that includes many hours as a kid when Dad would copy old photographs and we’d develop them and then share them. Dad was way ahead of his time in all this.

Pete BegichHere’s a picture of my great Uncle Pete. We got to know Pete only after Dad called him while he was on a business trip to Minnesota. Not many years after that Pete and Alice and Bunni came to California to be sealed in the temple. A few years later, on a whim, I made a lone car ride to Minnesota and spent a week in his home. Day and night Pete invested great effort in me to share the history of the Begich family. He shared stories and pictures. And he made a very difficult effort with his mother, who was still living, but who just could not handle the pain of seeing me. He explained to me why it was so hard on her and felt that my effort to come to Minnesota was inspired. I know he wanted his mother and my mother to meet, and my being there trying to break the ice was a step in that direction. It didn’t happen and that fact made Pete weep. But he honored his mother and he honored me with his efforts. He was so very kind to me and I cannot wait to thank him again.

LaRee Westover HarveyHere is my Aunt LaRee, my father’s sister. Like my father she shares a great reverence for her heritage. How could she not, being raised by my grandparents? What LaRee has taught me are lessons in seeing people more deeply and in forgiving their faults. I love this picture in particular of her as she looks up to her father, my Grandpa. In some ways I’ve felt Grandpa was a misunderstood man. LaRee has helped me to better understand him and appreciate him. She has helped me to see that she has that respect for him not just because he is her father but also because he really was a great man. LaRee to me is also one of those family members who always will be family no matter what. I can go years without seeing her and then sit down and chat with LaRee and Will like a day has not passed. I consider her “up there” with all my great aunts and that’s no small thing. That is just how I feel about her.

Jay and Mary WestoverThis is my brother Jay, and my sister-in-law, Mary. I have spoken of Mary many times before because she more than anyone else has been in the trenches of family history research and discovery. But Mary has had to discover her family on her own and she was done a tremendous work. She has brought various members of her still-living family together and made them family again. I love to get messages from her when something new pops up or when she discovers a rich new vein of information. Mary possesses a passionate vision that I equate with that of my Grandmother’s. In fact, I can’t help but think how Grandma and Mary would have gotten along and how they would have thrilled in each other. Mary doesn’t give up. She turns over every stone, hops every fence, and asks every question when she hits a dead end. Miracles happen as a result. It is a joy to witness.

Westover ChildrenThese are my children. They put up with me always talking about family history. I picture them here as influencers on family history because they have in their young adult lives remained so very close and have the vision – every last one of them – to recognize not only the value but real need they have for that in the future. They are all best friends and that makes me weep more than they can ever know. I know that they will eventually see that the safety and the warmth and the love they feel to each other extends to family on every side and it’s here waiting for them to embrace. When they discover it they will take great joy in it. Oh, how I wish to see that day. They will find people just like them and they will find others who are just like they are to each other. These are treasures that await them and they will want for their children to have them too.

Sandy WestoverAnd lastly, this is my wife, Sandy. She would tell you that she doesn’t belong with all the people I’ve mentioned above because she hasn’t done her family history. She would tell you that she’s not organized, that she never made baby books for the kids like my mother did, and that all our pictures were taken by me, and that she’s not worthy and she’s guilty and her book of life is just a book of shame when it comes to all this and blah, blah, blah. Don’t listen to her. Let me tell you where her gift is with all this. Sandy has an ability to walk into a room a connect with anyone there. She sees the heart, feels the pain and she lifts when she can sit down and hold a hand and share a tear. It delighted me to see her get close to my mother and how precious she became to my Mom as a result. Few people knew my Mom like Sandy did. She has a particular “weakness” (if you can call it that) for the elderly, especially little old men. It seems every little old man reminds her of her father. There’s a lot of love in that statement.

These are only some of the family historians in our family. There are many others I could mention. Each brings a little something unique to the effort. But common among them all is realization of what a powerful thing for good the family is. In them is where the real joy of life – both this life and the life to come – is to be found.

Westover Family Tree Back to the Year 985

How does 31 generations sound to you? Awesome, huh?

About a year a half ago I was thrilled to visit Family Search one day to see our paternal Westover line magically extended another 500 years and terminate with the name Siegfried De Sponheim, who was born in 985.

That name was added by Family Search, which means they had actual records from that time and place to stick the name on our line.

That makes it legit, right?

Well, it turns out old Siegfried was just the latest name in the Leiningen family, part of ancient German nobility. They ruled certain areas of Europe until they were annexed by the French Republic in 1793.

How did De Sponheim and Leiningen become “Westover”?

As with many royal families, names were derived from lands they owned and impressive homes they lived in. The Leiningens had family and lands from all over but deep in Bavaria lies a town – and a castle – called Westerburg.

Family Search lists 400 plus years of their history as Count after Count came and went as the wars and generations and diseases of Europe did their thing over time. Most of the names you see in this line are, like Siegfried list above, verified by Family Search.

The line continues all the way to the year 1453 with the name Reinhard I (IV) Count of Leiningen Westerburg.

Now we learn the hard lessons of Family Search.

Reinhard I has two wives. Both appear to be legit and documented.

But Reinhard’s children come from three mothers – not two. We don’t know who the third wife is – if she was a wife – but we do know the name of the child that came of this union.

His name is Robert Westover.

Robert Westover was born in 1480 in Somerset, England.

How do we know this? Family Search lists the source of this information from a GEDCOM file uploaded to Family Search in 2016. We know who loaded the file…but we have no other sources of who Robert Westover is. (Yes, I’m trying to contact the file owner).

So what does this mean? Are we of a royal German line or not? Is there or is there not a castle? More importantly, is there a hidden, royal inheritance that has gone unclaimed the past 500 years or so? I just want to help.

Well, until we can proved definitively that Robert Westover was the son of Reinhard, all this is pure fantasy.

We know that John Westover, Sr. of Somerset county England did exist – and we know we are descended of him.

But that is where the “proof” ends for the Westover line.

So how and why does Family Search allow for the extension of the family tree another 500 years with these key links missing?

The answer lies in the fact that overall our tree extends beyond 500 years.

You see, the Church has a policy that we can do temple work for our family for only the last 500 years. Anything beyond that would take one very extraordinary exception.

It is a good policy.

First of all, 500 years of human history is already a chunk of work to do. Billions and Billions of names have come and gone to the earth in that time span. Family Search hasn’t even scratched the surface – just around 6 billion names from the past 500 years are available on Family Search.

We just need to get those sorted out and the temple work done for them before we move on.

But more importantly there is something really difficult in proving lineage past that 500 year mark. Unless your family WAS royalty the chances of finding them are exceedingly small.

So while the names past John Westover Sr on our tree on Family Search are suspect at best, Family Search is letting them stay there because at the point they fall in history we can do nothing with anyway.

But there is another reason they stay: it’s to spur further research.

Family Search indexed the Westerburg area of Germany several years ago – and they want connections made to it. The Westover line is literally one or two names away from connection to that proven line.

They want us finding out – one way or the other – if the records of southwest England can indeed tap us into the Leiningen family line. They think it is highly probable.

What if you sign in to Family Search and you don’t see this connection? Maybe the names listed on your tree are slightly different than mine. Maybe a merge needs to be made.

I’ll be glad to supply what information I have to anyone who wants it.

Robert Westover