Saturday, February 27, 2016

It Pays to Speak Up

I recently made the discovery, while researching the ancestry of my daughter-in-law, that one of her distant cousins was married to a Flanders. My mother's maiden name was Flanders and the United States Flanders residents are the descendants of one Stephen Flanders, who immigrated to America before 1636. So I assumed her cousin was married to a cousin of mine. When I mentioned that discovery on Facebook, my second cousin Kate Keller commented that she had photographed several Flanders gravestones near her hometown of Marshall, Michigan. She asked if I'd like to see the photos and documents she had on the Flanders name. Of course I said YES!

Kate and I share photos and documents via Dropbox so she set up a folder and deposited the Flanders items in it, and shared it with me. I finally had time today to review what she gave me.
The first document I opened was this very brief notice from a newspaper of the death of the infant son of "Roy" Flanders and his wife. Based on the time frame, I determined the infant was actually the son of "Ray" Flanders. 
That son was named Carlton. Kate also sent me his death certificate, that shows he died at age 19 days of meningitis.

I added the headstone photos that Kate shared to the appropriate individuals on the Family Tree at FamilySearch. These screen shots shows how many photos I was able to add.

As I added the photos and documents on Family Tree, I also added Sources from the Record Hints provided. In doing so, I found this death record of another infant, Harry Flanders, son of 
William Raymond and Mary Emeline "Lina" Rich Flanders and uncle of the Carlton Flanders mentioned above. 





I noticed the entry of Amarilla Flanders right above the entry for Harry. Amarilla was the grandmother of Harry. It shows that Amarilla died of Typhoid Fever and Harry died of Spinal Meningitis. 

With the information that cousin Kate had, along with what's available through records on FamilySearch, I've been able to add really good documentation to the records of my distant cousins on the Family Tree. And it all started when I mentioned in a Facebook post that I was related to all the Flanders's in America. Kate realized she was holding information that would be useful to me and was willing to generously SHARE it with me. This is the spirit of genealogists across the country and I'm blessed to experience it right in my own family. In this case it paid for me to SPEAK UP on Facebook!

Sunday, February 21, 2016

My One Minute in the Spotlight with The Lower Lights


On February 6, 2016 the very popular family history conference RootsTech concluded in Salt Lake City. It was attended by about 26,000 genealogy enthusiasts in the Salt Palace in downtown Salt Lake City. The hosts of the conference incorporate good entertainment during the 4 days of classes and presentations. The final event at this year's conference was a musical concert presented by the group "The Lower Lights".

My husband Larry Jamison and I really enjoyed their concert, "A Hymn Revival", as did the several thousand people in attendance, judging from the applause and enthusiasm. Larry left his seat near the end of the concert to purchase some CDs of their music and to return to our motel room for rest after a long and physically demanding day. The group ended their concert with a beautiful rendition of "God Be With You Til We Meet Again". But a standing ovation brought them back to the stage for an encore of "This Little Light of Mine". 

As you view the brief video at the top of this post, you can see how I was surprised to become involved in the singing of that final song. It brought back memories of the days when I was 6 or 7 years old attending the Christian Church in Stafford, Kansas, while visiting my mother and grandparents, as I learned to sing "This Little Light of Mine" in Sunday School. 

Thank you to my dear friend Renee Zamora for thinking to make a video of the selection and thank you, The Lower Lights, for putting a big smile on my face at the conclusion of a very successful and enjoyable family history gathering with my friends and family members. 

Friday, February 19, 2016

Connecting my mother's family to my husband's daughter-in-law


Recently I was looking on the Family Tree at FamilySearch.org for ancestors of our daughter-in-law. Her name would appear in the yellow squares above. Her grandfather Henry Eddington had a brother Marshall, whose wife was Dorothy Tanner. I was reviewing that Tanner line since my (adopted) son has some Tanner ancestors. I didn't find a connection to his ancestors, but noticed a spouse in the Tanner lineage named FLANDERS. That piqued my interest because my mother's maiden name was Flanders and those of that name in the US are my cousins. 

You can see in the chart above that Marshall Eddington's wife was Dorothy Tanner. Her father George had a sister named Jennie Mable Tanner, whose husband was Collins Lee Flanders. 

Collins's grandfather, as you can see in the blue box above, was Collins Eastman Flanders. I did a Google search to learn more of this man and discovered a very nice blog with his name, prepared by Jacque Bluth Gurney. The title of the post that appeared is "The mysteries of Collins Eastman Flanders". I was hooked. Here's a Flanders, a blog featuring only him, and a story about a "mystery"! 

The mystery involves his direct ancestry, thus the empty two boxes in my chart above. There may be more generations missing, but the blanks represent the unknown. You can read about Collins here

Of course I usually come upon these interesting discoveries when it's time to go to bed at night! It was difficult to do when I read on Jacque's blog that Collins Eastman Flanders was baptized into the LDS church in Salt Lake City on July 17, 1854. I had no idea any of my Flanders ancestors were members of the LDS church, as I am today. And 1854 was significant since the "Mormons" had only arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. These were the very early days in the history of the Church. Ground had just been broken for the construction of the Salt Lake Temple on April 6, 1853. 

By the way, at this link you can read a good recap about the life of John Tanner, husband of Elizabeth Bestwick and grandfather of Jennie Mable Tanner, above. 

I'm still quite amazed at the facts that were uncovered with the research of Jacque Gurney. I'm so grateful to know more and to also have the opportunity to "meet" her as a new Facebook friend. 

You can see at the bottom left of the chart above where I am: M Rebecca Margheim, second wife of Larry Jamison. My Flanders ancestry goes up to Stephen Flanders and Abigail Carter (and beyond), and Collins also presumably descends from that couple. I'll update this information if anyone is able to document his direct ancestry.

But for now, I'm still in a state of awe at the discovery of the connections from my Flanders family to the Eddington family. 

Don't tell me "It's a small world". We can't just establish connections to anyone we want to, so these connections are significant to me. And I feel blessed to make their discovery.