Monday, August 19, 2013

John Morgan and Joseph Standing Mission (1876)

Don't miss Bessie's series at Ancestral Ties about John Morgan and Joseph Standing's mission travels:

The first linked post also contains links to her other posts about the two men.

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Additional note: John Morgan didn't ever seem to go by the name "John Hamilton Morgan" or "John H. Morgan." I have only looked at about a dozen vital records, but one of the first pages of The Life and Ministry of John Morgan notes that he may have been christened as "John Hamilton Morgan." No proof is given, though, so I am considering switching over the labels on my posts about John Morgan to reflect the name he used throughout his life. 

However, the "Hamilton" name can be useful in distinguishing him from thousands of other John Morgans, as in the case of his Wikipedia article, so I'm really of a mixed mind about this.

A similar case of a similar era involves the Apostle Erastus Snow. After his death, some people started calling him Erastus Fairbanks Snow since he seems to have been named after Erastus Fairbanks, but his family has been making an effort in recent years to stamp out the use of the extra middle name.

Another case involves George Jarvis. At some point many years after his death, someone called him "George Franklin Jarvis" somewhere and the use of the false middle name spread like wildfire. I'm still trying to put that one out. Here's the post I've written about it. [Did George Jarvis Have a Middle Name? No.] My dad put a link to the post in George's FamilySearch Family Tree entry, and so far no one has tried to change his name back.

Theoretically I could give John Morgan the same treatment, but there are too many more pressing items on my to-do list, so I'll just have to raise the question here and then leave it.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Genealogy Help for United Kingdom Research

Miles Brown, a Cripps/Baker cousin in England, just put up an excellent post on his family blog about ordering a family record from Belgium. He couldn't read the record, so he submitted it to a website called Rootschat. Rootschat is a self-described "rather friendly totally free family history forum" dedicated to providing help for family research questions. This is a resource I'll need to remember for any questions I have regarding United Kingdom sources.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Blue Jarvis-DeFriez Book: Exciting News from FamilySearch Family Books


If you're not familiar with FamilySearch Family History Books, you may want to familiarize yourself with this amazing resource. Family History Books.


As my father noted yesterday, FamilySearch now has more than 100,000 family history books and collections available in this digital collection. Many Americans who have ancestry in America going back at least a few generations should be able to find resources on at least one family line: diaries, family history books, local histories, collections of letters. The collection is extensive and amazing.


One item of particular interest that FamilySearch just added is Grandma Margaret Overson's blue Jarvis-DeFriez history. My father inherited the original copyright, so he signed a copyright release, and now anyone can download all 710 pages of family stories and pictures. Here is a link to the downloadable pdf:
Overson, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis. George Jarvis And Joseph George De Friez Genealogy. Mesa, Arizona: Margaret J. Overson, 1957.
Note, 9/2/13: the link doesn't seem to work. Go to the link for Family History Books and type in "Margaret Overson" to see or download the book.