In two of the classes I attended at the RootsTech 2017 Conference, the speakers mentioned who their fathers were. You have to know that, armed with that information, I'm going to see if you might have a family connection to me or my husband!
Two of the guest speakers on Discovery Day were Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife Wendy Watson Nelson. Wendy told us her father's name was Leonard David Watson and her family lived in Alberta, Canada. From previous research on my husband's ancestry, I knew he had family connections at McGrath and Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada in the early 1900s. They were sent by authorities in the LDS church to settle communities there. So I was curious if some of Wendy's ancestors might have been acquainted with Larry's ancestors.
When I attended the highly enjoyable class that Ron Tanner, Product Manager of the Family Tree for FamilySearch, taught on the future of the Family Tree, I heard him tell us that his father's name was Cleon Burnell Tanner. I have Tanners in my RootsMagic database, so I looked for Cleon Tanner. He wasn't already there, but a bit of research on the Family Tree showed me how he connected to those I already had in my database.
With that information at hand, I was able to prepare the chart at the top of this post, using Microsoft Publisher to draw the pedigrees and connect them where appropriate. When I finished the tree, I added a few photos for visual interest.
I won't go into the detail of every family connection, but you can see at the bottom left that I start with Larry Jamison, my husband, and end at the bottom right with ME!
Take a couple of minutes and study the pedigree charts, with the directional arrows showing the descendancies. It probably doesn't matter how we're all connected, but I always find it fascinating to make these discoveries. I don't go along with the adage, "We're all related anyway!" because there are families who can't find a connection to anyone else's ancestry. And we can't simply make them up or force individuals to tie together. I'm blessed to have a pretty good recall of names, which helps me as I discover these connections. And I find them significant.
As I've done research on my family history and made interesting discoveries of family connections, I've used my skill working with Microsoft Publisher and my interest in seeing things visually to create dozens of charts like the one above. For the past two weeks I've been organizing those charts on a Trello board so I have then in view and sorted by family name. They're easily viewable on my iphone and ipad also, using the Trello mobile app.
I made a discovery this weekend that my husband and I have a sort of cousin connection, using a Step-relationship in his paternal ancestry. I prepared the chart at the top of this post to illustrate that connection. I'm sharing it for those who might find it interesting.
The chart at the right looks like a maze to everyone but me. As I'm researching my family names, I often notice a name that actually "belongs" to someone else's family line. In this case it connected from MY family to My Husband's family. When I see that, I'm curious to follow the connection and see it laid out visually so I can understand it. This was the case last night as I looked at Strait descendants.
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| Emma Cornelia Strait |
You can see my name at the bottom right, as the great-granddaughter of Emma Strait, wife of Joseph Becker. In reviewing the descendant list of my 7th great grandfather, I saw that my 8th cousin, Elaine Litchfield, had married a man named Darwin Oler. The Oler name was familiar to me from research I'd done many years ago on a family connected to my husband.
You can see those connections by looking at Larry's name at the bottom left of the chart. Larry's great, great grandfather John Haught was first married to Pleasant Horner, Larry's 2nd great grandmother. And John's second wife was Catherine Campbell. At the time of our initial research, I learned really interesting stories about Catherine's sister Mary Campbell, wife of Absalom Critchfield. In fact, I wrote up a small booklet detailing the stories of the interesting ties to the early day Mormons.
The chart shows that Mary and Absalom's great-granddaughter Myrle Jensen married Farrell Oler. Farrell's father was George Oler, who also had a son Roy Oler, whose son Leroy was married to Ruby Savage. Ruby's grandfather was Levi Savage, the well-known leader in the Willy Handcart Company of LDS History.
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| Levi Savage, Jr. |
So we see that George Oler had a son Farrell who connects to Larry's Critchfield ancestors. He had a son Roy whose grandson married the granddaughter of Levi Savage, and he had a grandson Darwin who married MY 8th cousin through my Strait ancestor line.
Call me weird, but I find that quite interesting.
