Jeff Westover

Family History in a New Year

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We are at that time of the year where we look both backward and forward.

As I contemplate our efforts here I feel a mixture of both pride and frustration. 2015 was a year when I finally did something new with my family history. We started this little website last January. We have created new content in an effort to reach other members of our family and they have responded. It is a good start.

But I’m frustrated at how life gets in the way of moving forward. For all that was accomplished last year there were areas where we missed our target. There remains a lot of work to do and not enough hands, time or resources to move the work along as quickly as it could.

So, as with so many other things in life at this time of the year, we have reached a point of reflection and resolution. We take inventory of what has been accomplished and make fresh plans for what we can do in the months ahead.

For me it starts with Roots Tech, which comes along the first week of February. I have reviewed the many classes and resources available at that event to try to grasp what is new and coming in Family History and to learn where I can learn this year in attending the event.

Just doing that rejuvenates me. But for as full of light as I feel in reviewing that material and for as much as I know what is in my head about our Family History and the work that must be done I want to refrain from saying much more and invite any of you out there to join me in setting some goals for 2016 for our family history and family temple work.

We should have individual pursuits. And we should have collective projects that better coordinate the overall family effort.

I want to pause for a week or so to give folks a chance to respond. I know we’re all busy and we hesitate to commit to time for yet another important priority in life. What I’m asking for here isn’t a large scale commitment — what I’m asking for is feedback.

What do we want to accomplish in 2016?

Already we have some ambitious plans. We are moving forward with a trip to New England next fall — a trip that will land between September 16th and October 8th — to visit places uncovered in our family history in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. What will we find? What can we find? We just don’t know yet.

But what else is there? What more can we do?

That’s what I would like you to contemplate with me over the next week or so. By the time the calendar rolls over into the new year I’d like to list some comprehensive goals for 2016 for this site. And I do this because I want to be held accountable. A year from now I want to be able to see a record of what we set out to do and to account for whether or not we did it.

We want to share more, engage more, learn more and accomplish more. In my mind, some sort of temple connection must now be made. We must find a way to communicate a plan whereby needed temple work can be identified and some how passed out to the family members out there that can help accomplish it.

That is, after all, what this is all about.

But there is more. We need to learn new stories. We need to find ways to reach more family members and work to engage them with our ancestry.

Please share your thoughts and ideas. Again, I’m not asking for commitments. I’m asking for your ideas, thoughts and wishes as it relates to Family History.

Email me at jeff@westoverfamilyhistory.org this week. Let’s set some goals for the new year together.

Jeff Westover

Family History through Photographs

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I had an opportunity to prepare a presentation at a Stake Family History Discovery Day. My assigned topic was Working with Old Family Photos. Being a life long photo geek and a late life family history enthusiast this was for me an easy topic to present.

I struggled with how to begin the class because I wanted the Spirit of what we were doing to be behind the conversation as much as possible (I’ve taught this before and it can get quite technical and I was trying to avoid that).

It dawned on me that my own journey of family history could be told through pictures. This was the result of that realization, and what I used to kick off the presentation:

Jeff Westover

Telling Your Own Story

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For the past several months I have watched my father go to work on his mother’s history. My Grandma, Maurine Westover, was a shining example of one devoted to the work of genealogical research, temple work and family history.

In the early 1980s while serving as a missionary with Grandpa at the Martin Harris Farm Grandma took to writing her own story — more than 12,000 words of text telling of her life from 1916 forward. It is wonderful.

A few short years later she was diagnosed with a terminal disease and my Dad, who had the means of broadcast-quality television recording equipment through his work, asked Grandma if she wouldn’t video tape her memories even though she had already made the effort to write them down.

Not only did she agree but she embraced the idea wholeheartedly. For several hours over a period of a couple of years she sat in a recliner and just talked — answering questions to individuals unseen on the screen.

Those recordings have for the most part remained under wraps. I believe my Dad had them digitally transferred and gave them as a whole as Christmas gifts a few years back to a few individuals. But until now there has not been a wholesale method to share them or to place them in context with her other records.

Now there is.

When Dad began the process of working on her history his first effort was to populate the history with images Grandma and Grandpa had taken and collected over the course of their lives. Most of these images were digitized at a family gathering at Keith’s house in Atlanta in 2009 — hundreds and hundreds of images we all worked to salvage.

As Dad dropped in the pictures he added a couple more elements — here and there his own comments have been added to Grandma’s manuscript. He also asked Aunt Evie to help him remember the layout of early homes and properties and together they added drawings to accompany the story Grandma was telling.

These efforts changed the record considerably. Grandma’s 12,000 words now spanned more than 150 pages in Microsoft Word and yielded files so massive they crashed the computer time and again.

Dad and I started to talk about the project and how to get it into the hands of the rest of the family — including the video. The only way that really works is by way of this website.

So slowly, page by page, we are editing and adding the video Grandma sat for nearly 30 years ago — and posting it all here. Over the course of the past several days we have extracted more than 40 video segments that go with Grandma’s manuscript.

As we look at it now it is a stunning record. And it is all her.

While the written manuscript tells her story the pictures and the video make it come alive. You can see her smile, laugh, and with great energy tell the story of her life and the people in it. It is like she is here again. You get a feel for her personality and for what was important to her.

These videos have the added gift of having Grandpa jump in here and there. He changes the tone by not only adding his perspective but by being himself — and the dynamics of their relationship emerges. Aunt Aldyth makes an appearance in a segment remembering Christmas as children. Frequent she and Dad are heard off screen making comments or asking questions. Because of this it gives the video in places the feel of a visit to my grandparents’ living room.

I can recall being present when some of these videos were recorded.

They were made at a time when I had regular contact and frequent visits with my grandparents. But it has been almost 30 years since I have heard their voices or felt their presence or heard them laugh. Seeing these videos brings them back.

Of course, instead of seeing them as a 20-something young man I’m now in my 50’s and have the life experience lens to seem them through now — and what a revelation it is!

Seeing Grandpa in his rumpled shirt — which may or may not be buttoned correctly — while at the same time seeing him in tears talk about giving a ring to Grandma during their courtship brings a delicate combination of emotions to me.

How simple it all is and yet how precious a record to have so that my wife and children can get to know these wonderful people who just happen to be my grandparents and theirs, too.

As of this writing I’ve only posted through their meeting and courtship – less than half of what Grandma originally wrote in her manuscript. But I feel a need to highlight it now. For as long as it is taking to edit the videos and put this all together it will take others out there a while to catch up to me.

But I want you to see it.

This is how telling your own story is done. In our modern age in technology there is no reason why each of us can’t leave behind a comprehensive record that uses text, images and videos in telling our story. Grandma here is showing us the way — as was her way with lots of things.

To see this you’ll need to log-in and go to her profile page. The links to her record are beneath the pictures.

Jeff Westover

Attending Roots Tech 2016

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It has been announced that registration for Roots Tech 2016 opens in about a month, on September 15, 2015. Roots Tech will be held Wednesday, February 3rd through Saturday, February 6, 2016. We want to encourage as many family members as possible to register and attend as their resources and time allows.

Roots Tech is the world’s largest Family History conference. Every major vendor and resource in Genealogical and Family History research is represented at the conference and there are dozens of classes on all kinds of topics related to family history research.

If enough interest exists we would like to sponsor a family gathering in advance of Roots Tech to discuss family history opportunities and strategies for getting the most out of Roots Tech. We would propose a gathering either on the weekend before Roots Tech or on the evening of Wednesday, February 3rd, the first day of Roots Tech.

We would really like to encourage those with teenagers to especially prepare for Family Discovery Day at Roots Tech, which is a free all-day event on Saturday, February 6th. There are speakers from Church leadership, usually a youth challenge related to family history and temple work, and plenty of learning activities for getting our kids involved in Family History. We think it might be awesome as well just to get as many of our young cousins together as we can.

The world of Family History is changing fast. We understand how daunting it is to just even start. We are willing to help any interested family member learn enough before Roots Tech to make attending this event in Salt Lake City worth their time and energy. Please contact us if you would like help or more information. The more we add and involve other family members the more fun and productive this work is.

Jeff Westover

Dealing with Controversy, Flaws and Failures in our Ancestors

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I have probably studied more about the life of Edwin Westover than I have any other of my ancestors.

For the past three years he has occupied a lot of my family history time. Truth be told, I’ve had the bulk of his story “done” for the video for some time but we wanted to release his video in the right order.

I’m glad we waited.

Not only did we discover “new” history but I also cleared a big hurdle.

The stumbling block is this: when you find out something negative or “bad” about an ancestor…do you talk about it?

What about controversies?

It wasn’t the fault of Edwin or Charles or Electa or Ann or Sarah Jane that they happened to live right in the middle of where the Mountain Meadows massacre transpired or during the era of polygamy. Do we go there?

Edwin forced the issue.

I found it a couple of months ago, researching information about Electa. I was actually researching images, trying to find whatever 19th century images that are out there and Google had me visiting all kinds of Utah historical resources I hadn’t heard of before.

Any time I get to dig into the archives of Utah State or BYU I try to be as careful as I can – there is much to be found in such places. But it was a State of Utah archive that caught my eye and it came in the publication of something called Utah Historical Quarterly.

In two different issues, one from 1999 and another from 2007 — I found the story of Edwin and the death of Thomas Fuller.

These articles are now available in our download area for your review.

I don’t mind admitting that my heart sank a bit to read of Edwin’s involvement in so terrible a tale. After all, I had come to idolize him a bit for the part he played in my trek experience.

But as I read what the articles had to say, and after reading the Hebron ward records at the LDS Church history library, I think I understand more of what I should be feeling. Edwin was human. He was guilty of nothing more.

Here are the quick facts: Thomas Fuller was a 50-year-old man working for Edwin on his ranch in Hebron.

On a winter’s night Fuller went out to check on the sheep and didn’t come back. They found him the next day. As they were preparing his body for burial they were shocked at the man’s condition: he was rail thin, his clothes were filthy and he was covered in lice from head to toe.

Two of the leading men of the settlement tended to his body, besides Edwin. In their angst over the man’s state they desired answers and after burial they demanded them from Edwin.

Edwin was clearly in shock by their inquiry.

After all, this person was a grown man. Edwin had taken him in when nobody else would have him. And here he was getting called on the carpet for the deplorable state this man was in.

As with most new details about an episode of family history the result is more questions than answers. This episode happened around 1867.

How much did this influence Ann’s departure from Edwin to go to Mendon to live with her parents (which happened a full two years later, at least)? Was Edwin disfellowshipped or excommunicated? How did this change things for his family and those living with him?

Disturbing to me as well was the inclusion of the name “Pulsipher” in this affair.

That’s a pretty big name in Church History, and I think it was Zera Pulsipher who brought the gospel to Wilford Woodruff.

But in researching things Hebron was kind of a Pulsipher family compound – Zera came to the settlement only after two of his sons led out in establishing the community.

In fact, though the records seem confused, it may have actually been John Pulsipher who took the lead in prosecuting Edwin.

I read as much about Hebron as I could. It turns out that whoever the head Pulsipher was in town it didn’t last much longer beyond the Thomas Fuller episode.

Elder Erastus Snow changed the leadership within months due to the heavy handedness of “Pulsipher” for his forcing a school teacher on the town without bothering to go through due process.

Clearly not all was well in that part of Zion and maybe that is why there is no mention of the whole thing in the written histories of Edwin Westover.

I also don’t think we will ever get to the absolute truth about the trial that was polygamy.

In Legacy of Faith, which details better the history of Charles Westover, it isn’t shy is telling the story that there were problems between his two wives.

At one point, while living in St. George, Charles set up house in Pine Valley at the same time to placate his 2nd wife, and to separate the two to reduce family tensions.

It isn’t recorded anywhere but I wonder what conditions were like for Sarah Jane and Ann – they were close to the same age (separated by about four years) but Sarah Jane was first with Edwin, that much is absolutely clear. They had been together better than 8 years before Edwin and Ann were paired together.

How did Ann respond to that? What was life like for them?

In some records it shows that Ann couldn’t take the living in Southern Utah and wanted out. But she had four children during that time span and other records indicate she only left when a crisis developed with her parents due to the death of her brother in 1869.

The letter from grandmother Electa to Ann’s son William is, I think, very telling in that it appears there were congenial feelings among the various family members.

Plural marriage, no doubt, was difficult for them all to get into and to maintain. I wonder why there isn’t more said from them in journals and diaries at the time – given the controversial nature of it all both then and now.

Another nice thing about this generation especially as members of the Church is the availability of recorded patriarchal blessings. After not finding anything on record for William and Ruth I was doubtful that they existed for Ann and Edwin. I was wrong – and the Church recently sent me what they had. I will add those to the archive soon and add another post with observations soon.