Elizabeth Hayward's Notebook

Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward left a notebook detailing the vital information for all her children: birth dates, LDS ordinances, the death dates of the six children who died as children, and the marriage information for the three children who survived. I have transcribed the text from a photocopy and added pictures, most of them provided by cousin Emily.

Henry John Hayward (1852-1927) and Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward (1854-1942) with two of their children.

Henry Gammon Hayward

Son of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born October 16th 1876

Blessed by T McKean December 7th 1876

Died December 23rd 1879 Aged 3 years 2 months and 7 days

Our first born his Fathers image his mothers pride and joy

Emily Inez Hayward

Daughter of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born February 11th 1878

Blessed by T McKean April 4th 1878 

Died December 18th 1879 Aged 1 year 10 months and 6 days

Our first girl

Elizabeth Hayward with Philip Pugsley Hayward (1880-1891). Picture taken in San Francisco.

Philip Pugsley Hayward

Son of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born June the 5th 1880

Blessed July the 1st 1880 by T. McKean

Baptised September 4th 1888 by Joseph Keddington

Confermined September 6th 1888 by Bishop [Frederick] Kesler

Died April 23rd 1891

Aged 10 years 10 months and 18 days

Oh Phil Phil child of hope given to me in time of sorrow and trouble

Left: Sidney Allen Hayward (1883-1886). Right: Philip Pugsley Hayward (1880-1891). 

Sidney Allen Hayward

Son of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born September the 4th 1883

Blessed October the 4th 1883 by Bishop Kesler

Died February the 4th 1886

Aged 2 years and 5 months

This is the mother life

To bear to love to lose

Martha Hayward (1885-1886)

Martha Hayward

daughter of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born July 8th 1885

Blessed September 4th 1885 by Bishop Kesler

Died August 27th 1886

Aged 1 year 1 month and 19 days after four weeks of suffering our baby went

suffer little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven

“Oh the stillness of the room

Where the children used to play,

Oh the silence of the house,

Since the children went away.

This is the mother life—

To bear, to love, to lose;

Till all the sweet sad tale is told

In a pair of little shoes,

In a single broken toy

In a flower pressed, to keep,

All fragrant still the faded life

Of them who fell asleep.”

Left: Leah Merle Hayward (1889-1905). Right: Hazel Jean Hayward (1887-1959).

Hazel Jean Hayward

Daughter of Henry J. and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born March the 30th 1887

Blessed June 5 1887 by Bishop Kesler

Baptised June 6th 1895 By Elder Hilton

Confermd August 1st 1895 by Bishop Kesler

Married November 25th 1908 To Henry R.E.Wessman

Leah Merle Hayward (1889-1905)

Leah Merle Hayward

Daughter of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born December the 8th 1889. Blessed February [missing] 1890 By Bishop Kesler

Baptised Feb 5th 1898 by Elder Thomas Maycock Confirmed Feb. 5th 1898 by Concilor William Langton

Died Nov 12th 1905

Endowed Dec 21st 1906 her Mother acting

Elizabeth "Bess" Cripps Hayward (1892-1989)

Elizabeth Cripps Hayward Daughter of Henry J. and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born June 12th 1892

Blessed November 1892 by Bishop F. Kesler

Baptised July 1905

Married July 18th 1917 to Lewis Robert Edwards. Married by Bishop F. S. Tingey

John Ewing Hayward (1895-1988)

John Ewing Hayward

Son of Henry J and Elizabeth A Hayward

Born June 19th 1895

Blessed August 1st 1895 by Bishop Kesler

Baptised July 1903

Ordained a Deacon April 1908

Married Nov 1925 To Mildred Corson

Amanda Hall Wessman Gravestone

While we're talking about all things Wessman, I thought I'd mention that cousin Emily and I are going to be heading an effort to provide a grave marker for Amanda Hall Wessman's grave in Salt Lake City. Here's the draft of the proposal we'll be sending to family members this spring.

(The grave marker will look different than the one shown; we're planning on including an engraving of the Salt Lake Temple on the marker.)

Henry and Jean Wessman's Stillborn Son

The family records have never had a birth or death date for Henry and Jean Hayward Wessman's stillborn son, but I just chanced on a burial record for him, and have updated his information in Family Tree (the replacement for NewFamilySearch). His birth, death, and burial date is September 23, 1913.

Here is his death certificate. It was filed under "Wissman."

Here is the page showing his entry in the Utah Death Register.

The baby is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery in plot J-12-12-W-2 (or J-12-12-2-W). Is this by the graves of Henry and Jean Wessman?

It was a little emotional for me to suddenly come upon this record due to a similar loss in the Wessman family this past week; our thoughts and prayers are with our cousin and his wife and children.

Mary Ellison Birth Record

I've been spending some quiet time on Christmas Day looking at the hints in Ancestry, and saw this new document, the birth and baptismal record for Mary Ellison.

It shows her birth on August 13, 1799, and her christening on September 15, 1799. Her parents, Adam and Ellen Ellison, were from Welch Whittle, three miles southwest of Chorley, the town where the LDS Temple is currently located.

Mary and her husband, John Sutton, were baptized in 1851. They emigrated two years later, crossing the ocean in the Elvira Owen, and crossing the plains in the Joseph W. Young Company.

Here is some other information about John and Mary Ellison Sutton.

Ann Prior Jarvis in Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 2

Deseret Book is producing a series of biographies called Women of Faith in the Latter Days. Until recent decades, historians have mostly written about the male experience, so this series is shining some much-needed light on the experience of the women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The editors are calling for submissions, asking primarily for stories of women who left their own accounts of their experiences. My fourth-great grandmother Ann Prior Jarvis was a good candidate for the series since she left several interesting autobiographies and a lengthy journal, so in January 2011, I submitted a proposal for a chapter about her. I was delighted to get an email saying that the editors accepted my proposal for Volume 2.

Not long after the chapter was accepted, I became ill and fainted and hit my head and suffered a serious concussion. I could barely focus on the computer screen for several months, and I still needed to convert Ann's most interesting autobiography from a holograph (handwritten) copy to a digital copy. My parents and brothers and sisters and sisters-in-law came to the rescue. From their locations all around the United States, they each downloaded several pages of the autobiography and typed them and sent the text to me by email.

Then the hard work began: condensing 18,240 of Ann's words down to less than 3,500 words, and trying to keep the story cohesive and true to Ann's experience and voice. To help with the process I summarized the major themes in her story: conversion, the experience of gathering to Zion, the gift of healing, and the pain of separation. And complaining! She tended to complain and she had very good reason to do so, so I wanted to make sure the story had a flavor of that, as well as her humor and her elegant turn of phrase despite her lack of education.

Along the way I had a delightful time visiting with the president of the Washington County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, since that organization has a nice picture of Ann Prior Jarvis in their collection, and although copyright has long since expired, it was necessary to get permission to publish the picture.

It was a real pleasure working with the editors at Deseret Book. I've never worked with an editor before, and I was impressed by their professionalism and attention to detail.

* * *

My husband gave me a copy of Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 1 for Christmas last year (link), and Volume 2 was recently released and is available at Deseret Book (link). I'm reading through a copy now, and as I read through the biographies, I've been touched by the experiences, and I've also been touched by the affection the authors seem to have for the women they write about. 

It's quite a collection, subjects and authors both. The authors include a number of academics and well-known authors in the field of Mormon studies as well as many descendants (like me) familiar with their ancestors' life writings.

The authors approached the material differently. A few chapters, like mine on Ann Prior Jarvis, consisted almost entirely of the life story; others, like Todd Compton's chapter about Mary Dart Judd, framed her writings in context and provided a survey of the academic literature on the topics raised by her life story.

Since I don't see a list of the chapters online, here are the contents of Volume 2:

• Patience Loader Rozsa Archer (Andrew Ventilla)
• Sarah Maria Mousely Cannon (Madelyn Stewart Silver Palmer)
• Hannah Last Cornaby (Craig C. Crandall and Cathleen C. Lloyd)
• Cordelia Calisa Morley Cox (Patricia H. Stoker)
• Janetta Ann McBride Ferrin (Rebekah Ryan Clark and Marcus Patrick Ryan)
• Lucy Hannah White Flake (David F. Boone)
• Mary Jane Dilworth Hammond (Alisha Erin Hillam)
• Elizabeth Anderson Howard (Steven L. Staker)
• Jane Elizabeth Manning James (Margaret Blair Young)
• Ann Prior Jarvis (Amy Tanner Thiriot)
• Jane Cadwalader Brown Johnson (Patricia Lemmon Spilsbury)
• Mary Minerva Dart Judd (Todd M. Compton)
• Susanah Stone Lloyd (David R. Cook)
• Rosa Clara Friedlander Logie (Marjorie Newton)
• Elizabeth Graham MacDonald (Lowell C. "Ben" Bennion)
• Julia Sophia Raymond McKee (Jennifer Pratt Reidhead)
• Mary Goble Pay (Christine Banks Bowers, Virginia H. Pearce, and Patricia H. Stoker)
• Sarah Ann Nelson Peterson (Jennifer L. Lund)
• Esther Romania Bunnell Pratt Penrose (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich)
• Emeline Grover Rich (Rosaland Thornton, Deborah R. Otteson, and Teresa S. Rich)
• Aurelia Read Spencer Rogers (RoseAnn Benson)
• Margaret Condie Sharp (Emily B. Farrer)
• Rachel Emma Woolley Simmons (Laura F. Willes)
• Bathsheba Wilson Bigler Smith (Heidi S. Swinton)
• Anstis Elmina Shepard Taylor (Andrea G. Radke-Moss)
• Emmeline Blanche Woodward Wells (Carol Cornwall Madsen and Cherry B. Silver)
• Helen Mar Kimball Whitney (Jay A. Perry)
• Catherine Elizabeth Mehring Woolley (Jay G. Burrup)
• Emily Dow Partridge Young (Sherilyn Farnes)
• Zina Diantha Huntington Young (Jennifer Reeder)

Early British Mormon Emigrants

A question arose on an LDS website about the concentration of emigrants from northern vs. southern England, so I quickly made the following using data from the website Early LDS. As I understand it, the database would just show the Nauvoo-era emigrants, so just those who were in America by 1846. It is not a particularly elegant database, but I can't think of any other site which provides similar data.

This is a Creative Commons 1851 map of English counties.

Yellow shows the lowest concentration, followed by orange, red, purple, blue, and green. The counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire had the highest number of converts emigrating to Nauvoo. Wales, Ireland, and Scotland had similar numbers, but I did not break them down by county.

Other counties of note with higher concentrations of emigrants include Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire.


A couple of notes about the shortcomings of this map:

1) There is not a single county without at least a handful of emigrants, but some of the emigrants may have been born in those places but joined the Church in London, Manchester, Birmingham, or Canada, which could skew the data.

2) I know there were significant early missionary efforts in London, because I have a variety of ancestors who joined the Church there in the early days. And of course, there is also Susannah Mehitable Rogers Sangiovanni [Pickett Keate] who joined the Church in London in 1840 due to the missionary work of Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt. Even though many converts joined the Church in the 1830s and 1840s, many didn’t emigrate until the 1850s or 1860s, and some left their native land as late as the 1880s, so they wouldn’t show up on the map.

Cyrus Hubbard Wheelock

It's a long story, and I won't bother telling here why I started the project, but I've been working on a major tangent, the history of early Mormon missionary and leader Cyrus H. Wheelock (1813-1894). (No relation.) 

I'll be guest posting all week on Keepapitchinin about his history, his family, his well-known hymn, "Ye Elders of Israel," and the poetry of Hannah Last Cornaby, a member of his 1853 pioneer company. One of the stories featured in the material for the week comes from the collections of my great-great grandmother Mary Linton Morgan.

Cyrus Hubbard Wheelock Week
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Hurricane Sandy

Last Monday about this time, we were checking updates on the National Hurricane Center website as the winds continued to pick up. The latest predictions showed Hurricane Sandy going directly over us.

In Memoriam

Remembering our beautiful niece, cousin, granddaughter, daughter, and sister Allison Ann Bowers (January 21, 1999 - October 26, 2010).

(Obituary. Thoughts from Jared, November 1, 2010.)

We are, as ever, grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the promise of the resurrection and that families can be together forever after death.

The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame. And now...this is the restoration of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets—And then shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of God. (Alma 40:23-25.)

Patricia Lucille "Patty Lou" Wessman (March 13, 1957 - October 20, 1957)

Patty Wessman: Condolences

A sample of cards sent to the Wessmans.

Patty Wessman: Family Memories

Blessing day: Patricia Lucille Wessman and Grandmother Lucile Green Glade. 

From Ann:

On March 13, 1957 my mother had another baby – a girl and I was thrilled to finally have a sister after 4 brothers. We named her Patricia Lucille and called her Patty Lou. That summer my mother started looking for a new house since we had a 2 bedroom house with 1 bath, living room and kitchen and a basement. It was cramped with 8 people. She found a house closer to her mother on the east side of the valley. We moved in August a week or two before school started.

Patty Wessman: Congestive Heart Failure and Endocardial Fibroelastosis

My aunt Patty died in 1957 when she was seven months old. I never heard my grandmother Beverly talk about her until I was in college, 35 years after Patty's death.

I should have written her story down at the time, but as they say, our hindsights are better than our foresights, and when we're young we don't realize that people won't be around forever.

Besides the memories she shared that day, Beverly gave a short account of Patty's birth to granddaughter Eliza, who was collecting family birth stories. So here's what I've pieced together. First, from Beverly's account.

March 13, 1957, our sixth child was born. A beautiful little girl....

Patty was a good baby but I tried to nurse her and supplement the feedings. She did not get enough. She seemed hard to feed but I worked at it. At three months she had Roseola. I gave up nursing her. She gained barely enough to be within normal bounds. She wasn't thin or malnourished...

Patricia Lucille Wessman (March 13, 1957 - October 20, 1957)

Patricia Lucille Wessman was born on March 13, 1957. She was a cute, chubby-cheeked child, the sixth of eight children born to John and Beverly Glade Wessman the year they moved from the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City to a new home in the Sugar House neighborhood.

March 13, 1957, our sixth child was born. A beautiful little girl. After four boys we were thrilled for a change, especially [oldest child] Ann. Our small house in Rose Park seemed to burst at the seams. It was a four room home. John had built two bedrooms in the basement. We needed a bathroom which was a major expense. It was logical to me that this would be a good time to move as I wanted the children to go to school on the east side of town.... 

Patty was a good baby but I tried to nurse her and supplement the feedings. She did not get enough. She seemed hard to feed but I worked at it. At three months she had Roseola. I gave up nursing her. She gained barely enough to be within normal bounds. She wasn't thin or malnourished... (From an interview with Beverly's granddaughter Eliza.)

Two months after the Wessmans moved to their new home at 1839 Bryan Avenue, Patty became very ill and Beverly took her to the doctor. The doctor's first diagnosis was influenza, but Patty was very sick. She was taken to the hospital where she died on October 20, 1957.

Since this week is the 55th anniversary of Patty's death, this week will include a series of posts about her, concluding on October 20.

Wednesday: the cause of death

Thursday: family memories

Friday: cards and memorabilia

Saturday: a collection of pictures

Another Wonderful Jarvis-Overson Picture

It took awhile to figure out the identities of everyone in the photo, but once I realized this was Margaret Jarvis and her four daughters, it was fairly easy. Identifications were made by a few prompts from my father; looking at photos in George Jarvis and Joseph George DeFriez; and looking at identified photos in my father's digital collection.

Standing, left to right: Annie Jarvis Oveson*, Margaret Jarvis Overson

Sitting, left to right: Lois Jarvis Graham, Margaret Jarvis Jarvis, Stella Jarvis Peterson 

*No, this is not a typo. Annie and Margaret were married to brothers, but Annie's husband dropped the additional "r" that had been added to the original Danish Ovesen. (Why didn't he also switch out the "o" for an "e"?)

Here is a more recent picture of the sisters.

Back: Annie, Stella, Lois. Front: Margaret.

I've been looking at Lois's and Stella's very distinctive oriental-looking eyes (even more striking in other photos) and wondering where those came from. All four grandparents were English. Their uncle Ebenezer Godfrey DeFriez had the same eyes. Now that I'm looking closely at Grandfather Joseph George DeFriez, it looks like he was the source of those distinctive eyes. (More distinct in a different photo than the following, which is what I have already scanned.) 

It would be interesting to see a DNA test from a male in the direct DeFriez line to see where the family originally came from. Margaret Overson states in George Jarvis and Joseph George DeFriez:

The tradition in our family is that one Isaac De Friez, a Dutch Jew, was the earliest ancestor who settled in England. So certain was our Uncle, Ebenezer Godfrey Dr Friez, who was the first of our kindred to hear and embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (1873) or the correctness of this tradition, that soon after the work for the Dead was begun in the St. George Temple, he and his brother William had Temple ordinances performed for Isaac De Friez, Great, Great Grand-Father. But 'tho' research has continued on our lines both in person and by employed researchers for at least twenty-five years, his name has not been found in the English Records (ii:5-6).

October 18, 2012 -- Here's another picture of George, plus a picture of his son Ebenezer and his granddaughter Lois Jarvis. Lois certainly didn't get her eyes from the Jarvis side of the family!

Well, this is actually the same picture! The contrast is greater, though.

Lois's father was a DeFriez, but he took the name Jarvis and married Margaret Jarvis.

John Morgan Gravestone Update -- Photo Added

Bessie at Ancestral Ties headed an effort to add information about John Morgan's wives to his gravestone, since they are not all buried in the family plot. That project was finished several months ago, and here is her description. (John Morgan Gravestone Project completed.) Thank you, Bessie!

[Original post July 30, 2012. Update September 29, 2012—My mother found a photo she took of the newly completed gravestone during a recent visit to the Salt Lake City Cemetery and I have included it here. Many thanks to her for sending the photo!]

Henry Overson and Sons

This is another picture from my father's digitization of the Jarvis-Overson photography collection. It's one of my favorite pictures so far.

This shows Henry Overson surrounded by five of his sons. I can tell who some of them are; others are guesses. From left to right: Peter, Evan, Victor, Henry, Ross, Pratt. Let me know if I have anyone wrong.

My father is continuing to post pictures from the collection on his blog Genealogy's Star. Here are the latest two posts. (Not so much of a mystery.) (Mystery photos of the week.) Many of the people in the pictures are not identified, and he is requesting identifications and has gotten a number of identifications.

High Society St. Johns, c. 1937

Here is a good percentage of the town of St. Johns, Arizona, at the Ritz for what must have been the opening of the 1937 movie Fight For Your Lady. It was a grand affair. (See the brass band to the right of the theater.)

A few questions from looking at the picture.

How many people did the theater hold??

Was it a segregated theater? (I can't see any Hispanics and although I've never done an actual count, I'd guess about half the town was of Hispanic descent.)

This was, of course, during the Great Depression. What was the price of admission?

Anyone know what kind of cars those are? Studebaker? Ford?

And, here is a bootleg Youtube copy of Fight For Your Lady. I've had it running in the background, and it is no classic, but could be enjoyable if you were watching it with the right crowd. There's a pleasant little tune at about 33:15, but that's about as far as I watched.

The picture is from my father's continuing monumental digitization of the historic Jarvis-Overson photo collection.

Maps, Glorious Maps

I've been looking for an online copy of a map of the early Salt Lake City wards, so I was interested to read my father's post yesterday on his genealogy blog (Update of Maps Online). 

I didn't find the map I was looking for, but what marvelous resources he lists! The most useful one I've seen so far is the David Rumsey Map Collection which includes the MapRank Search.

I enjoyed this map of Rhode Island, since I visited the state recently. (Very briefly!)

For other map resources, see the post at Genealogy's Star (Update of Maps Online).

Morgan's Commercial College

After John Morgan decided to stay in Salt Lake City on his cross-country post-Civil War trip, he opened a school called Morgan's Commercial College. Google Books now has a copy of an advertisement for the college. (View and download here.)

The advertisement includes a list of the students at the college with many notable names among them. One person I noticed in particular is John Morgan's future beloved colleague, J. Golden Kimball. With the exception of the Cannons and the Youngs who are rather underrepresented, the list reads like a "Who's Who" of Salt Lake City.

[Update: See further notes about this pamphlet on Bessie's blog. John Morgan's Commercial College.]

Traffic Driven by Pretty Pictures and Information about Old Wars

It never ceases to amaze me that three of the most popular posts on my site are:

• George Jarvis and the Second Opium War. People arrive at this post from all over the world. Just today, someone from Australia spent awhile reading the post. I assume many of them are students, and hope they're finding what they're looking for. If students do use this post, they should cite it as a source. In Chicago Style, the citation would read something like:

Thiriot, Amy Tanner. "George Jarvis and the Second Opium War." TheAncestorFiles. October 31, 2011. http://theancestorfiles.blogspot.com/2011/10/george-jarvis-and-second-opium-war.html.

• Early Salt Lake City Flowers. People arrive at this post through Google Images while looking for a picture of hollyhocks. One of my sisters noted in the comments that she arrived at my blog while looking for a picture of hollyhocks.
• Christopher Columbus and Me. The picture of Columbus drives the traffic for this post. This one was a throw-away post for Columbus Day a year ago, so it irks me that so many people visit this post. Come on people, the picture's from Wikipedia! Just go to Wikipedia and use the Creative Commons-licensed pictures there!

The substantial Google-images driven traffic has convinced me of two things:

• I know how to find legally usable artwork online, and 
• People like some of the pictures I've chosen for my posts.

Too bad I can't turn these skills into a paying job! (Not that I can imagine where I'd find the time.)

Here are some hints about finding images online.

• First, go to Wikipedia. The pictures there are out of copyright or available for public use under various Creative Commons licenses.
• Second, go to Flickr. Many of the photographers have made their pictures available for public use. Do an "Advanced Search" and select whichever Creative Commons restrictions fit your intended use. (Commercial use? Need to edit the picture?) Most of the pictures require attribution, so when you use a picture, list its source. I always copy the Creative Commons license information into the file information on my hard drive so I have it available in the future and don't have to go looking again.

Photo of the hollyhocks provided under a Creative Commons license by knottyboy at www.flickr.com/photos/knottyboywayne/3797067268/#/. The picture is available for sharing and remixing with attribution.

The Colonial Heritage of the John Tanner Family

My family and I were in Massachusetts recently, and we drove home through Rhode Island, the historical home of the Tanner family. I was surprised by what an emotional experience it was to visit since I have never done any genealogy on the line past John Tanner (1778-1850).

This small cemetery doesn't seem to have any ancestors, but it does have relatives.

By about 1790, the Tanners left Rhode Island to settle in Washington County, New York, but previous to their departure, the family's connection to Rhode Island goes back to the founding of the colony.

Disclaimer: I am using others' work on the family lines and have not independently verified any of this information.

A marker telling some of the history of Hopkinton, Rhode Island, the birth place of John Tanner.

One ancestor, Philip Sherman, became interested in the teachings of John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and left Massachusetts to found the community of Portsmouth. He was one of the signers of the Portsmouth Compact in 1638, "the first document in [American] history that severed both political and religious ties with mother England." (Wikipedia.)

"The Portsmouth Compact." In Isaac Backus, A History of New-England, with particular reference to the...Baptists, Boston: Edward Draper, 1777.

A distant uncle's gravestone in Hopkinton, Rhode Island.

Here is a list of some of the family names in the Tanner line accompanied by their locations as listed in the genealogy:

• Brownell (Portsmouth, Little Compton, Newport).
• Jenckes (Pawtucket, Providence, Warwick). A son of this family, Joseph Jenckes, was an early governor of Rhode Island. Here is a short but very interesting article that includes some information about his father and grandfather, our ancestors: Joseph Jenckes.
• Kenyon (Kingston, Westerley).
• Sherman (Portsmouth). See above.
• Mumford (Kingston). The Great Swamp Fight, a crucial battle during King Philip's War, took place on ancestor Thomas Mumford's land.
• Potter (South Kingston, Portsmouth). I took a quick look around a Potter family cemetery in South Kingston and saw a distant uncle's grave marker in Hopkinton.
• Sheldon (South Kingston).
• Sprague (Smithfield).
• Stanton (Newport).
• Tanner (South Kingston, Hopkinton).
• Tefft (Richmond, South Kingston, Providence).
• Tibbetts (Kingston, Portsmouth).
• Tripp (Portsmouth).

As you look at maps of Rhode Island, many streets and physical features are named after these families. It was an impressive experience to see the family homeland.

This South Kingston book store is run by a very distant Sherman cousin. The proprietor was very helpful.

Since these family lines include founders of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and of our nation, many of the family lines have been thoroughly and accurately researched. Over the next several years I will start exploring this colonial American family history and its connection to the history of the Baptist churches in America and confirming the relationships (as possible). I will present the research here.

Who is Mary Tanner? How is she related to John Tanner? What is the meaning of the text on the gravestone about the Civil War?

To be continued (eventually)...

Did George Jarvis Have a Middle Name? No.

George Jarvis (1823-1913), Mormon pioneer and original settler of St. George, Utah, did not have a middle name.

I will explain a possible reason he is sometimes shown with a middle name, and then I will list all the proofs that he did not, indeed, have a middle name.

WHERE DID THE ERROR ORIGINATE?

George and Ann Prior Jarvis named their first son George Frederick Jarvis. George Frederick was born in London in 1847 and he accompanied his parents to America. George Frederick Jarvis and his two wives were influential figures in early St. George history.

George Frederick Jarvis participated in Utah's Black Hawk Indian War. Many years later, the federal government granted pensions to the men who fought in the Indian Wars. George received a pension and it was later paid to his widow Eleanor. Due to some government error, George's name was listed in at least one record as "George Franklin Jarvis."

"Veterans with Federal Service Buried in Utah, Territorial to 1966," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FLR7-HWP: accessed September 7, 2012), George Franklin Jarvis, 01 Jan 1919.

Did someone confuse this entry for George Jarvis (1823-1913)? This record is not about our common ancestor; it is for his son, George Frederick Jarvis. This is the only record I have ever seen with the name "George Franklin Jarvis."

PROOF THAT GEORGE JARVIS HAD NO MIDDLE NAME

Here are the records showing that George Jarvis was never known by the name George Franklin Jarvis. I start with his marriage record since I have never seen an official birth or christening record.

1. Marriage record of George Jarvis, Bachelor, and Ann Prior, Spinster. October 19, 1846.

2. George Jarvis married fourth quarter 1846, St. Saviour Southwark, London, Vol. 4, Page 527. Other people on the same page are shown with middle names. George is shown with no middle name. FreeBMD. England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index: 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

3. The church record of his emigration shows his name as George Jarvis. Mormon Migration.

4. The record from the Boston port of entry shows his name as George Jarvis. Boston Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1943. Ancestry.com.

 

5. The Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel previously showed his name as "George Franklin Jarvis," but that was because that's how he was shown in Family Search. None of the records associated with the overland crossing shows his name as anything but "George Jarvis." Due to that fact, the database has been changed to show his name as "George Jarvis." As I have said before, the database is an amazing resource, almost without peer in the genealogical world.

6. Every time George shows up in a census he is listed as "George Jarvis."

1851 England Census. George Jarvis, head, married, 28, mariner.

1880 United States Census. Jarvis, George, white, male, 57, farm laborer.

1910 United States Census. Jarvis, George, head, male, white, 87. To date, no one has been able to find George Jarvis in any census but these three.

7. He calls himself George Jarvis in his personal histories. He is quite formal in his writing and would undoubtedly refer to himself using his middle name if he had one. ("The Journal of Ann Prior Jarvis, 1884-1899 Book C," n.p.)

8. He is listed as George Jarvis in a list of the Thomas and Elizabeth Billings Jarvis children in Ann Prior Jarvis's diary. ("The Journal of Ann Prior Jarvis, 1884-1899 Book C," 254 12.)

9. He is called George Jarvis in his patriarchal blessings on April 15, 1870 (Patriarch William G. Perkins), October 30, 1892 (Patriarch Joseph Mecham), and September 23, 1894 (Patriarch William Fawcett). I will not reproduce those here, but they are found in Ann Jarvis's diary. ("The Journal of Ann Prior Jarvis, 1884-1899 Book C," 159, 195, 197.)

10. He is called George Jarvis in the formal correspondence regarding the sealing of Charles DeFriez to the Jarvis family. A number of the other men mentioned in the correspondence are listed with middle names. ("The Journal of Ann Prior Jarvis, 1884-1899 Book C," 190.)

This is the first of the three documents reproduced in Ann's diary.

11. His wife Ann Prior Jarvis calls him George Jarvis in her personal histories. ("The Journal of Ann Prior Jarvis, 1884-1899 Book C," document 207.)

12. He is called George Jarvis in histories of St. George, Utah. See, for example, "St. George Tabernacle and Temple: The Builders" by Church historian Leonard Arrington.

...George Jarvis, the British sailor who erected the scaffolding..

13. He is called George Jarvis in Wilford Woodruff's Temple records. George Jarvis and his sons George Frederick Jarvis and Brigham Jarvis all helped with Woodruff's Founding Fathers and Eminent Men temple work project. George Jarvis did the temple work for Edward George Earl Lytton Bulwer (yes, the "it was a dark and stormy night" author) and Thomas Chalmers; George Frederick did the temple work for David Garrick; and Brigham did the temple work for Frederick von Schiller. Brian Stuy, "Wilford Woodruff's Vision of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence," Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 26, No. 1, 85-86.

14. He is called George Jarvis in newspaper articles during his lifetime.

The Union (St. George), April 16, 1896, 1.

"A Dixie Patriarch: Seventy-two Descendants Celebrated George Jarvis' Birthday," Salt Lake Herald, April 4, 1898, 7.

"Birth at St. George," Salt Lake Herald, December 25, 1898, 18.

15. A copy of his citizenship certificate shows his name as George Jarvis.

16. When George Jarvis died, Dr. Frank J. Woodbury filled out his death certificate with information provided by George Frederick Jarvis. In the space for "Full Name," Dr. Woodbury wrote "George Jarvis."

17. His obituary lists his name as George Jarvis.

18. His gravestone lists his name as George Jarvis.

George and Ann Jarvis grave marker from the St. George City Cemetery, St. George, Utah. Picture from FindAGrave, courtesy of "TB."

19. About 40 years after his death, George's granddaughter Margaret Jarvis Overson wrote a book about her Jarvis and DeFriez family lines. She called the book George Jarvis and Joseph George DeFriez Genealogy and used the name "George Jarvis" throughout. She listed one grandfather, Joseph George DeFriez, with a middle name and her other grandfather, George Jarvis, without. Her research and family connections were extensive enough that if her grandfather had a middle name, she would have known it and used it.

20. George Jarvis does not show up in any contemporary vital or legal or church records with a middle name.

21. As late as 1949, the family organization called him George Jarvis with no middle name.

"Jarvis Reunion," Washington County News, June 15, 1922, 1.

"Jarvis Family Reunion," Salt Lake Telegram, March 28, 1949, 26.

CONCLUSION: NO MIDDLE NAME

If anyone can provide a single contemporary record (a record made during his lifetime) that shows his name as "George Franklin," I will reconsider my conclusion. Otherwise, I will conclude that the middle name "Franklin" is due entirely to a genealogical error and the spreading nature of such errors in online family trees.