McVey, McFarland, Goins and more

I finally got a break in tracing my Spears line, thanks to my mother-in-law. I still haven't broken the Spears line itself but I was able to get the names I needed for my Great-Grandmother Lula Belle Goins. Through her line I was able to discover that we are German (a lot of it), English (royal as in Sirs and Ladies) and Scottish (Och, to the Moors Lads and Lassies). At least one branch has been broken, now to just try and figure out the rest of the branches.

Cheers!
Sammee

Family Pictures

Now that I have tracked down ancestors, I have also tracked down photographs and stories. I am going to relay one such story now, this is about my son's Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparent's William Prince and Louisa Evaline Lee Prince (she was the daughter of John Doyle Lee and his first wife Agatha Ann Woolsey Lee).

Story written by another descendant of Louisa and William

When Louisa was six years old, she moved with her parents from Big Cottonwood to Cedar City, Utah where they lived for only a few months before moving south. They eventually settled at Old Fort Harmony. Thick walls enclosed the fort which were made of adobes molded without straw and dried in the sun. The fort was destroyed a few years later by an unceasing storm which continued for many days. The adobes disintegrated and fell apart.

Several miles away a new townsite was chosen. While it was being erected, Louisa, her mother and brothers lived in a dugout for two years without even the simplest of comforts and only the barest of necessities. Her mother became ill due to the hardships and meager rations. Louisa then assumed the care of the family and herself for seven years before her mother's death. 

Of necessity, Louisa learned to do all kinds of work very early in life. She carted wool for yarn which she also dyed. She learned to spin while yet so young that her father had to make a ramp in order for her to reach the spinning wheel. This was fashioned from a plank with two holes bored in one end near the edges into which wooden legs were inserted of the required height, while the other end of the plank lay on the floor. Forward and back she went, up and down the ramp, turning the wheel with a swift motion of her right hand and as she stepped backward drew out the wool thin and even, then forward again to wind the twisted thread onto the spindle.

After the death of her mother, she came to realize that her health was impaired and her father sent her to Fillmore, Utah for a rest and to recuperate. She lived with an older sister, Sarah Jane Dalton, who gave her every care and comfort possible. When she returned to Harmony after a year's absence, she met William Prince whom she later married. Her father was very much opposed to her marrying "that young, unsettled boy", whose prospects in life seemed not too bright at that particular time. Her father had chosen an older and well stablished man for her. She had no desire to be a polygamous wife and refused to accept the arrangement and for the first and only time in her life, she defied her father's wishes. He said to her, :Do you not think you owe me something? I have planned this marriage for you for years." To this she replied, "I owe you everything, Father, but the right to choose my husband and I am going to marry William Prince."

The only wedding gift she received was a pet lamb and a sack of wool from George Dodds, an old friend of the family. From this wool she wove cloth for a dress for herself and a pair of pants for William. The dress was not difficult to make but the pants were a different problem. When they did not fit, they resorted to Aunt Polly's grab bag where they found a piece of red flannel, the only thing big enough. She inserted a three-inch red stripe down each pant leg. William wore those pants until they were completely worn out, declaring he had started the fashion of striped pants. :)

Their first home was a dugout in Middleton. They later moved on to Kanarraville and then settled in Panguitch. They lived in the fort until spring then moved out with a few of the more hardy and venturesome families onto government land entries. The Princes built the first brick home in Panguitch, they also homesteaded at Panguitch Lake, about twenty miles west of Panguitch. During the summers while the homestead was being developed, their brick home in town was also in progress. With the supervision of both homes, William and Louisa were a very busy pair.

Little by little they had acquired some stock. With stock raising, dairying, cooking for the ranch hands, making hundreds of pounds of butter and cheese, harvesting hay, etc;, they had all they could possibly care for. Though their family was steadily increasing, Louisa found the time to nurse the sick, help officiate at births, wash and lay out the dead, assist in the making of the burial clothes, suits for men, dresses for women and children and many articles of temple clothing. Never was there a more industrious woman that Louisa, nor one who had a greater love for beauty, especially growing things.

She married William Prince on January 23rd, 1868 in New Harmony, Washington, Utah. He was born October 23, 1848 in Elephant Hooks, Cape Colony, Africa. He was the son of George Prince and Sarah Bowman Prince. William died on January 11, 1937 in Panguitch and was buried on January 13, 1937 in Panguitch. They left behind 13 children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Mountain Meadows Massacre and More!

Pictured is my husband's Great-Great-Great Grandparent's Phelix and Sarah Byrum......I now know what my husband will look like at that age, LOL. They are my husband's Grandfather's Great Grandparents....I have found (so far) hat two of the Grandfather's from the maternal and paternal lines fought for the Confederacy (boo) I found that Felix's Grandmother died in Afghanistan (I can't wait to track down that story), I learned that my son is related directly to John Doyle Lee (through my mother-in-laws line), the man who was tried and executed for the Mountain Meadows Massacre (google it), he had 17 wives and his daughter (my son's direct decendent) refused the polygamous match he had made for her, followed her heart and married the love of her life (to which she was completely turned out). They in turn founded Panguitch, Utah and were much beloved by everyone that new them and apparently that my husband and son are related to Robert E. Lee (through this line) via a cousin.......I am now going to take a step away before my poor brain implodes again.

One of the funniest things I have come across is that my Mother-in-law's line and my daughter's Dad's Maternal line were both living in the same village in Scotland within 100 years of each other...I have a gnawing in my gut that somewhere I am going to come across one of my daughter's ancestors marrying one of my son's ancestors, LOL.

Tonight I am emailing my own family information to my mother-in-law. Her Aunt in St. George does family research for the ancestry library and she is going to send it too her and see what she can find out. Fingers crossed she can break down the wall surrounding my family before they came to the United States.

Cheers!

Sammee

Husband's Family Line

I opened an email this morning with a chest full of excitement and anticipation as to what the email held. I have been waiting for this GED file from my husband's cousin for a few days. I took that precious file and uploaded it to my ancestry.com account and voila!

My cousin and her husband had gone back to the late 1400's and since I uploaded I am not in the mid 1200's, and this is just Grandma's line. I haven't had the courage to look at my husband's grandfather's line yet, LOL. The only thing that saddens me is that I still can't find any information on my own blood line, aside from finding my two cousins who are missing the same information I am.

I keep hoping that one morning I will wake up and there will be a breakthrough waiting for me online. Oh well, the excitement of tracing my children's families on their fathers' sides fills the void quite nicely right now.

Cheers!
Sammee

Seventeen hundred and sixty, what the heck?!

My daughter had to do a family tree for a school assignment and it got me to thinking that I didn't have her dad's family information on the family tree. I called her Grandma this evening and got all the pertanent information pertaining to her Grandma's parents and their parents. If  I knew Ancestry.com was going to start spitting out family trees and censuses and birth records and baptism records like there was no tomorrow...I would have waited. Just by adding her Great-Grandfather's name onto my family tree I am ending my evening in 1760 with her GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDPARENTS in Froyle, England! I am totally blown away, I am also blown away by the fact that two sets of her grandparents had OVER 13 childen....which is why so many family trees popped up, LOL.

I am proud, I am proud that I am able to give my children what I didn't have. I am able to give them the names and stories of the people they come from. I didn't have that growing up, my childhood was surrounded by secrets and I won't do that too my kids. So now we know that she is Scottish and Irish on her Dad's Dad's side and English (through and through) on her Grandma's Dad's side...this is pretty damn exciting!

Cheers!
Sammee

Where is it????

I spent the night trying to find the box of photographs that my bio dad sent me so I could get them in photo albums......I can't find the box! I am FAREAKING out because there is a notepad in there with family names on them...I suck:(.

On to the Goldman Side

I took a slight break from researching the family so that I could get to know my newly found, flesh and blood, directly related to me cousins. Can I just tell you how frigging awesome they are? I really wish that my Grandfather could have known Warren as he grew up. He is a really cool guy and his daughter is absolutely AWESOMESAUCE!

Last night I jumped back into the ancestral pool but started researching the Goldman side of the family. Now somewhere amongst my 3rd cousins is the "Goldman Family Saga". I had heard of this as I grew up but I have never laid eyes on it. Apparently it is the family history, the last person I know of that had it was my cousin Vic Teich....he passed away at the end of last year and now no one knows who has the family history. So I sent out requests among the relatives who I have emails for, BEGGING them to find out where it went. That is the easy part, the hard part is once I find it, convincing the person to hand it over to me so that I can catalog it and upload it to flash drives so that EVERYONE has the family history.

Never the less, onward I pressed and found out why I had not been able to find any census records with my Great-Grandparents on them, I was looking for the wrong names. My Great Grandfather was named Simcha (but he went by Samuel), my Great Grandmother was Pauline Nussbaum (maiden name) (but she went by Peppie). I had been randomly searching for my Aunt Lulu (Lillian) and low and behold up pops the New York State census for 1905 with......my Grandmother's whole family on it:). She was only 10 months old and my Uncle Seymour was still 4 years away from being born. Once I found that everything started falling into place, I found the 1910 US Census with Peppie as head of household (Simcha had passed on already). After that I found my Great Uncle Sam's marriage record (to a Julia and my aunt has no idea who that is...maybe she died and he remarried, maybe they divorced, who knows). I also found my Great Aunt Ida's marriage record and the death record for my Great Uncle Arnold, who it turns out was named Emanuel Arnold, we never knew that:). Thanks to the 1905 New York State census I was finally able to get a peek into my Grandmother's family's life. My Great Grandfather sold Pocket Books and one of his sons Sandor (Samuel) also sold pocket books. My Great Aunt Ida was a dressmaker (at 16 years old) and my Great Uncle Samuel (yes, there were three Samuel's in the family) was a painter. Now I am not sure if that means house painter or actual "art" painter. I don't know if I will ever find out the answer to that little question.

So tonight, instead of researching more I am going to turn my attention back to the Hess side and get all of the paperwork that I now have filed away by family group. There are A LOT of copies of the same information, but you have to make sure your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed right?

Cheers!