Finding Family Through Strangers Online

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We have enjoyed KBYU’s new reality series called Relative Race, on every Sunday night now. The premise of the show is that four couples compete for a cash prize as they travel from San Francisco to New York over ten days, searching for family members through DNA matches. My favorite part of each episode is when they actually get to meet their mystery relative they never knew they had. They meet a new one every day during the race.

It’s fun to see that moment they meet as total strangers — and how quickly they realize they are family. Truth be told, we have more cousins out there than we really know.

Case in point: we’re close to wrapping up our video about Ann Findley Westover. I’ve delayed this project because I’ve had a nagging feeling there was something more about her to uncover. Since coming to that conclusion I’ve found LOTS more about her that I didn’t know a year ago. And some of those new details have come from total strangers I have contacted either via FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com.

On either site you can see who has contributed information about any given person. I have learned to seek out siblings and children of people I am researching and contact others who have either obtained the same info I have or have contributed something new. In the case of Ann Findley Westover, I’ve been contacting the great grandchildren of Ann’s children.

It’s a little nerve wracking reaching out to total strangers online. “Hi, don’t think I’m a weirdo but give me everything you got on Grandma…”

But in every case I have run into people just as anxious to learn from me as I am to learn from them. And the information has been so very much appreciated.

For example I found an individual who did some research on my wife’s paternal Grandfather. This grandfather is the brick wall in that family line — there’s little information to be had about him and we don’t know who his parents are or where he was born.

But I’ve got his death certificate and this individual on Ancestry had the same information.

I wondered what else he had so I just clicked on his name and asked him. He was so very helpful. He was able to give me where this grandfather is buried and how to find him. Since there are no known pictures of his grave I plan to stop by this cemetery on our trip this fall. Who knows where that road will lead?

In the case of Ann Findley Westover I’ve found other great-great descendants who are just like me — wanting to know more.

They each have had something just a little different that has added to Ann’s story and made it even more compelling. Both of these contacts were found through Family Search.

I have found it very useful to every few weeks take a good look at the “Gallery” feature on Family Search to see what new photos people have added. I usually find one or two I don’t already have — and many times those photos contain information about an individual I did not have before. Every picture has a link to the person who uploaded it so that you can contact them.

I love the information I get from doing family history in this fashion. But I love even more the joy of discovery of family members I didn’t know I had. And I don’t have to go on a reality TV show in order to do it.

emmadora

About the picture with this post: Ann and Edwin’s eldest daughter was named Emma Jane, born in 1858 in Big Cottonwood, Utah. (She is William R. Westover’s big sister). Emma Jane was about 12 years old when Ann moved to Mendon, Utah and years later Emma Jane married a man from nearby Hyrum, Utah named Walter Paul. Emma had 11 children and, in fact, died several months after her 11th child was born in Rexburg, Idaho. You thought the William Westovers were the only family in Rexburg? You may already know that when Emma Jane passed away Grandmother Ann Westover took two of Emma Jane’s children into her home. One of them was Dora, pictured above — Emma on the left and Dora on the right. That picture of Dora was taken around 1916 when she was about 18 years old — and not long before Dora died. She lived in Rexburg and HER story dovetails with the hardship story of the Westovers of Rexburg around the same time. I learned all this — and more — by just asking about Dora’s growing up years with Grandma Ann of one of Dora’s grandchildren via Family Search. Dora’s story is compelling and we’ll tell it as soon as we complete telling Ann’s story. The Westover cousins in Rexburg cast a wide net — and pioneer Grandma Ann, as miraculous as it seems — was a frequent visitor to her many grandchildren in Rexburg.

Westover Pioneers

Plotting a Family History Tour

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We are quickly approaching our 2016 Family History tour in New England. For more than a year we have had this marked on the calendar to visit sites of Westover Heritage in New England.

One of the more enduring mysteries we are hoping to make progress on will be the lives of Amos and Ruth Westover, and their son, Alexander.

Amos Westover was caught between generations. His father, John Westover, was a mainstay in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Amos was one of several brothers, among the youngest, in fact. A few of his older brothers were loyalists. After the Revolution life got pretty rough for those loyal to the crown and a few of the Westover brothers took off for Canada, where the King was handing out land grants.

We know that by 1790 Amos had married Ruth, had several children, and then took off for Canada with his brothers to claim land as well. It paid off more than a decade later — in 1802 — when he was give 200 acres of land. The records show that Amos was torn for some reason about his Canadian homestead. He returned to Sheffield for a time but then went right back to Canada. Sometime after 1812 he left altogether and pioneered his way to Ohio.

In those years Amos and family spent some time in the Lake Champlain area of Vermont — perhaps close or in association with the Beal family. During these years — from approximately 1795 to 1805 — Amos and Ruth had a few more children, inclusive of son Alexander and daughter Olive. Where these children were born is in dispute. There is some evidence that maybe Olive was born in Canada. But a child or two may have been more in Vermont.

Around 1815 the Westovers and the Beals staked claims on the Ohio frontier — in a place called Rush Township. They had to know each other well because within ten years there Alexander Westover would marry Electa Beal — and his sister Olive Westover would marry Daniel Beal. Olive and Daniel stayed in Ohio, eventually burying his parents and taking over the family farm. Alexander and Electa would suffer from the breakup of their family due to Alexander’s untimely death in 1834.

So our tour this fall will include stops in Ohio — little Rush Township and area — where we hope to find graves and land records. Then we will press on to Sheffield — where we will explore John Westover’s home and the close environs of Simsbury, Connecticut and Windsor, Massachusetts in pursuit of Westovers and Griswolds and Cases and Mortons — then we’ll go up into Burlington, Vermont and even across the border into Sutton, Quebec, where the Westover name in Canada took root not from Amos but from his loyalist brothers.

Along the way on this winding trail we will divert to explore some not-so-ancient history of my mother’s side and find a few graves from my wife’s family. Of course, where we can visit family on the road we will take every opportunity to do so.

To see our rough path for this fall’s travel please click on the animated map below….

Seeing Yourself in Time

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My Dad sent me a scanned copy of a newspaper clipping from a school event when I was 11-years old. I’m pictured and mentioned in the clipping.

On the surface, it is no big deal — just a fun moment from my history as a kid.

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But it kind of sparked a bit of anxiety within me.

What of my personal history? What am I leaving behind of myself to tell some descendant of mine hundreds of years from now about my life and times? And what will they discover about me – and will I like it?

We are pioneers of a different sort. We are the first in the age of information and each of us leaves behind a mighty amount of stuff about our lives. I suspect that in the future vast databases of information may survive of our lives that could easily tell of our travels, our food purchases, and even our taste in movies and books.

I thrill in the hunt of discovery in trying to piece together the lives and very personalities that come from our family past. Every new connection I make with someone that provides a new piece of the puzzle makes knowing our ancestors so much more valuable to me.

But it is hard to see my life, my thoughts, and my experiences being meaningful to a future family historian.

I vow, of course, to make it easier on them to find information about me than some of them have left for my generation to discover.

But where do we really begin?

The ageless answer to that question is a journal or a diary.

We have so very few, at least that know, from our family past who kept a journal of some sort. The journal of Albert Smith is a rare example of how valuable such a record can be. Reading it I can almost sense the anxiety he had about Mormon crickets alone. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read it).

I have kept a journal. It is incomplete, full of holes and, frankly, embarrassing at times for me to read through. I don’t know, honestly, if I want to leave it behind. I know I should. But part of me wants to burn it. I wonder if Grandfather Albert ever felt the same way?

My mother, who basked in the work of family history, didn’t leave a journal. What her thoughts were for the most part are embedded in my brain and the record of her that I leave behind and that others of my siblings and my Dad make a record of. As we approach a year now since she passed it stings to think that the whole of what my mother was – is lost.

That makes the work of personal journaling and history so sobering. It is important, it is hard, and nobody, honestly, can do it for us.

The Internet and especially social media gives us a giant online footprint that will no doubt one day be considered an invaluable family history resource. In my family, it already is. My mother’s meager Facebook postings are precious to me.

Mom was smart with her social media though. What she left behind is pleasing, inquisitive of her children and grandchildren, and well reflective of her role as mother and grandmother.

My social media is, by comparison, a cesspool of reaction. It is full of political rants, opinions on the news, links of dubious quality, and chock full of endless babble that mean even less in the future than what it means right now (which isn’t much).

It pains me to think that my descendants may comb through a virtual encyclopedia of Facebook and Twitter in trying to figure out me.

That highlights, I suppose, the need to create and craft a personal record. It’s kind of like what J. Golden Kimball used to say about how people would respond to his speeches. He said, “It used to be I could get back to Salt Lake to deny what I said before the people complained. But the damn telephone changed that and now I have to deny what I said long after I actually said it.” Technology, it seems, has long been a burden to the imperfect.

A lot of this, of course, comes from a genuine desire to be seen as a good person – both now and in the future.

The answer is to just be a good person, I suppose. But even better, I think the idea is that we can better craft the record of who we truly are if we take command of the project – and actually write and organize that personal history.

Personal history suffers from the same bad press that family history does. I don’t have time for it. My kids will do it for me. Nobody wants to hear from me. Yada, yada, yada.

For me though none of those excuses stand. I’m going to need a defense attorney. And it is best to get started on that defense now.

Chuckin’ Chickens

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The final day of Rootstech is known as Family Discovery Day — a day when the Church sponsors the event for youth and families. I was able to get two of my daughters to come for a visit.

The effort is obvious. The more we engage our youth in family history they more inclined they are explore it on their own. There were a variety of activities set up, my favorite being a booth where the kids could call a grandparent or other loved one to hear a story. Here is my daughter Allie hearing a famous story from my Dad:

The preservation of stories — even simple goofy stories like this one — helps to connect our generations. In fact, the telling and the re-telling of stories was the constant theme of the entire conference. That is one of the more powerful ways that family history touches the hearts of every generation.

We also got to hear a presentation from Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve who told us that engaging in the work of family history would give us the promise of protection in these Latter-days:

“Brothers and sisters, I promise you protection for you and your family as you take this challenge, to ‘find as many names to take to the temple as ordinances you perform in the temple, and teach others to do the same.’”

How does this happen? Elder Renlund and his family gave an entire presentation, which is summarized at this link.

But for me the protection that comes from doing family history is achieved by recognizing how it connects to nearly every aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In all my studies of Christ family is squarely in the middle of it. He taught of love and being like His Father. The scriptures, which at the end of the day end up being nothing more than the history of families, continually emphasize the idea of being perfect. The Prophet Joseph taught that when Christ said “Be ye therefore perfect” a more correct translation of the word “perfect” would have been “complete”.

That changes the whole phrase — “be ye therefore complete” — can you indeed be complete without your family?

For me, doing family history is gospel living. It allows the life lessons of those we love from the past to be shared with us. We gain from them their wisdom as we come to recognize their trials and challenges in their efforts to build a better life for us.

My experience last year of running into the man in the wheelchair remains a pivotal moment in my family history experience. Like last year, I heard at Rootstech this year the testimony of the unbaptized and the unconverted of doing family history. They cannot fully explain their drive or desire to do the work.

But they do it.

As members of the Church, we have some context for that. And I’m grateful for that knowledge.

I may not yet have my children fully engaged in this work — or even have captured that vision entirely for other members of our family. I feel sad they don’t have this element in their lives and not just for safety’s sake alone. There is a level of happiness that comes from doing this work that would bless the life of anyone.

We will press on. Hopefully in time others in the family will come to grow in awareness of the treasure that this work is.

Who are the storytellers?

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Today was another inspiring day at Rootstech. The best featured keynote of today’s conference agenda was Daniel Isay of StoryCorps.

You might recall a posting we made on our Facebook page about them around Thanksgiving. At that time they were driving an initiative to get kids to record talking to their grandparents about their memories.

That was just part of an overall ongoing project by StoryCorps. For more than a decade they have recorded the stories of people from all over – just two people talking, in most cases, about their lives and experiences. They take these usually brief conversations and stories and send them to the National Archives, where they have stored 65,000 stories like this one:

It is pretty clear to see how such recorded memories are such a powerful family history tool. It is inspiring a lot of ideas within me.

But as I attended today’s events with the present on my mind as much as the past I had to wonder – who are the natural storytellers of our family?

Well, obviously, we’re all storytellers in our own right.

We each have memories of times, places and people we eagerly recount. The closer to any such situations or people that we are the easier it is for us to tell the story.

But some just seem to have a knack.

One of the best storytellers I know is my father-in-law, Gary Gillen. He’s a legend with my kids for being able to tell the funniest stories. Of course, what makes the stories so much fun is the fact he can’t get through them without laughing like crazy himself.

Another who comes to mind is Gerald Quilter. My experiences with him were quite limited compared to others but he could tell great stories. He had the twinkle in his eye that always kept you on the edge of your seat. Long before I met my wife he told me the story of his rock garden, a story I thought for a long time was exclusive for just me but that I later learned was legendary among many in the family.

These thoughts and memories were all over me today as I explored the topic of our present Westover Family History. While our first year last year produced a lot of our family past we didn’t do a good job recording our family present. We lost a few last year but also saw a good share of new babies, graduations, weddings, missions and travels – all that should be noted in family history for generations to come.

I thought today how we can address this. It’s a big job. Some of the classes I took today talked about that and especially how to reach out to the Millennials in our family who can help preserve our present happenings. More on this down the road.

One of the great diversions of the day came from previewing the first episode of a new reality game show produced by KBYU called Relative Race. What a kick in the head.

The premise is this: four couples compete in a race across the country by first taking Ancestry DNA tests that are used to identify relatives unknown to them across the USA. Each day they are given a destination and a challenge that will lead them to the doorstep of these unknown relatives – where they will then spend the night. They are racing from San Francisco to New York and the prize is $25,000.

The show is a hoot, if just for the married people dynamics alone. But when you toss in the mysterious element of family connections a lot of magic happens. KBYU is putting out some creative stuff and this one is a lot of fun and should do well. It debuts on Sunday evenings starting February 28th.

I spent plenty of time today again learning about Church history resources for family history research. The Joseph Smith Papers are included via a Family Search integration now, a tantalizing prospect for the future as they are now starting to work on the Brigham Young Papers project. I find that a tantalizing prospect for years to come as these resources come out that could help tell even deeper stories from our family members whose lives were so connected to early Church history.

In all, today was a day that left me bursting with ideas. It also left me painfully aware that I need help – and a lot of it.