Treasured Heirlooms

What can you find out from heirlooms?

Toys and other collectibles:
Memorabilia can remind us of what was popular and the attitudes of the times. What did grandma play with?

Jewelry, silver and metalwork:
These items can signify social status, or they may be engraved with names or initials and dates. Sometimes these are given as awards, or may signify  an important event such as a birth of marriage.

Clothing:
A wedding dress or military uniform can show you your ancestor's size. Were they tall, thin, plump or short?

Keep a Research Log

From the moment you start searching for information it is important to have a method to track the sources and information you find.

If you don't you will probably find that you look in the same sources more than once. It happened to me repeatedly when I first got started. I was searching so many different places, but many of them sent me to the same primary source.

A research log is a form  that will be specific for one person, and you will write every source you look at for a particular person. Write the library call number or microfilm reel number. Write the name of a book, the location, etc.

You think you will remember what we looked at, but as we get deeper and deeper into a project, it becomes hard to remember all the sources.

Always carry your research logs with you, even if you think you are only going to just research on one person.  It seems like inevitably, you find information about other relatives - and you need a place to record that information.

Another option that someone suggested was to write a person's info on the front of an index card, and tuck it in your pocket to take with you.  Record all sources searched on the back of the card.

This sounded like a great idea, so I tried to get creative and use all pink cards for ancestors on my mom's side, and all blue for those on my dad's side.

I found them too small to record everything I needed, and they were too easy to lose so it was back to the Research Log.  Be sure to make many copies of the log so that you have one for each person you will be searching for information.

What was Happening in 1949?

1949

This is the year that my mother, Glenna, met my father, Allan.

What else was happening that year?

• Minimum wage is set at $.75 an hour
• South Pacific , a musical by Rogers and Hammerstein
• Records cut- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Ghost Riders in the Sky; Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend; Mona Lisa
• New radio show - Dragnet
• T.V. shows - The Life of Riley; the Lone Ranger
• The New York Yankees defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers to take the World Series
• Silly Putty is introduced
• Tokyo Rose goes on trial

It helps you put things in perspective to see what was going on around family members as important personal milestones where happening.

William John Davies . . . continued

William and Sarah moved onto a farm in the Starline district with their five children and in 1910 Victor was added to the family and in 1916 Mary was born. Mary died in young childhood at the age of eleven and a half.

William Davies bought and farmed several parcels of land in the Starline district and was a very successful farmer from 1908 until his death in 1935.  Sarah and sons Glenn and Charlie farmed a few years, then Sarah moved to Claresholm, then on Christmas day in 1945 she passed away after several years of failing health

Janie married Harry Taitinger, a son of Nick Taitinger. George married Carrie McMurray of Cardston. Ivan married Rachel Lepard of Claresholm.  glen remained unmarried.  Charlie was married to Zelpha Newby of Lethbridge and victor married Mabel Johnson of Claresholm. There were nineteen grandchildren.

Ahnentafel Numbers

Ahnentafel - a German word that means "ancestral table".

It is quite easy to prepare an indexed list of all your ancestors by using the ahnentafel numbering system.

To do this you will assign each ancestor a unique identification number and move backwards in time.
If  you are the subject of the pedigree then assign yourself number 1, and your father will be number 2, your mother number 3, your paternal grandfather will be number 4, and your paternal grandmother will be number 7, etc.

The males are always assigned an even number. 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.
Identify the father by doubling the ancestor's number, then add one to that number to identify the mother.

By listing all numbers sequentially, you can prepare an index to your entire pedigree.

If you are using one of the many genealogy software programs they can compose the ahnentafel from the information you key in.

William John Davies

On November 25, 1896 William John Davies and Sarah Amanda Nowlin were united in marriage. They farmed in the Shelton district in Idaho, their nearest town being Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Mr. Davies was born in Wyoming in 1872 and Mrs. Davies was born in Utah in 1878.  Their were five children born to them in Idaho, Janie, George, Ivan, Glenn and Charlie.

In March 1908, Will decided to sell his farm and come along to Canada along with several other families, brother and sisters of Will and Sarah.  In early March all their belongings, such as machinery, household effects, livestock and, yes, the family, were loaded onto a train and headed out for Canada.

However, upon arriving in Great Falls, Montana, they found all their livestock had to go through inspection and had to be put through disinfection, so there was a delay of several days.

All the women, with the children, went to a hotel.  There were five or six women and somewhere around eighteen children in one hotel, so the children had a hilarious time, lots of noise and excitement with lots of mad patrons in the hotel.

One man was so mad because George Davies and Leland Nowlin knocked on this door; he opened the door and said he would kill them if they didn’t stop, so they went out on the street looking for a policeman.  While they were looking they ran into Charles Nowlin’s family, who had left a few days later and were looking for the group. They returned to the hotel with the boys.

In a few days however, it was discovered that Charlie Davies, seven months and Harold Nowlin, four months, had chicken pox. The babies were wrapped in their shawls, and all the women and children left for Claresholm by train with Jabus Nowlin, as leader and protector.

Upon arriving in Claresholm, the group was met by a brother of Sarah and Ernest Nowlin, from Carmangay, so the two men with the women and eighteen children marched from the station to the Wilton Hotel, with all who were able, carrying bags, suitcases, etc. As we went along the street, we heard people say, “There goes a bishop and his family”

To be continued . . ..

Thomas Fowler ---- Handcart Pioneer

My paternal great-great grandfather...

Emigration - Thomas Fowler was on the very first Perpetual Emigration Handcart Company (the Edmund Ellsworth .Co. of 1856).
He responded to the following call from the First Presidency of the LDS Church to "Come to Zion" from Worcestershire, England.  He submitted his one pound note as a deposit to the Church Elders (which her received back once arriving in the Utah Territory), and signed on the sailing ship "Enoch Train".