Uncle Ether

Today I added sources to grandfather Gee’s brother John Ether Gee KW8T-LDR.  He was always known in our family as uncle Ether. I found two census records one in Tooele and the other in Idaho. He also had a draft registration card on line so I included that. Family Tree did not have a place of death.  I found him in the California Death index, so I added that as a source and placed the information in his vital information.  I had the information in my database, but now I had a primary source to back it up. I also added a link to his grave marker in Ashton Cemetery.  I also wanted to give a link to a photo of uncle Ether.  I found one in a family photo of Erastus Rowe Gee and his family on my brother Martell.  I did not look in the 1940 census, but I assume that he is  there as well.

I undertook this exercise to show how different sources could be added to a record.  It will be helpful to those in the family history class in our ward.

Looking for missing ordinances

Today I finished syncing my descendants of Lysander Gee database with New Family Search.  There are 5206 individuals and 1480 marriages in the database.  Some time ago I printed out a list of missing individual ordinances.  There were 987 individuals with missing ordinances.  I compared them with New Family Search and was able to add ordinances for some of them.  

I printed out a new missing individual ordinances list.  There are now only 486 individuals with missing ordinances. Most of the missing ordinances are sealings to parents. The next  thing to do is to sort out all the individuals born before 1902.  If there is enough information on these individuals then I will process them for the required  ordinances.  I would be happy share with members of the family.  I suspect that I will not have enough time to do them myself.

Watching the Records

Today I received my weekly watch e-mail from Family Search.  It recorded the changes that I had made.  I only had four changes on records that I was watching. I was the author of two and there was one each from Julia Corry from St. George and Larry Jensen.

The most interesting of the two was the additions by Larry Jensen.  He added some sources to the record of Frances Gates Wiley.   Frances is the daughter of Maryette Rowe Gates Gee.  Of the most interest to me was a copy of the death certificate for Frances.  For some unexplained reason Maryette gave Frances to Simeon and Dorcas Milliken Andrews to raise.  The Family Tree record shows both sets of parents with the correct relationship status in each case.  There is an additional source added, that of the 1870 census where Frances age 23 is listed as the wife of James Wiley with two children.

The last source was a headstone from Find A Grave. 

Larry and I have corresponded over the years.  He is pursuing the descendants of Maryette and Hirum and I am concentrating on the descendants of Maryette and  Lysander.

Had I not placed a watch on Frances Gates Wiley, I would have missed this added information.

When I was growing up my parents read from the works of Munro Leaf.  One of these books was called the Watchbirds.  I am glad that I have Watchbirds watching my changes to Family Tree.  Do you have your Watchbirds watching changes to your ancestors?  Try it you might find it interesting.

Julia brought to my attention that Mary Elizabeth Bates the spouse of Orlando Lysander Gee has duplicate parents.  This needs to be corrected.  I will put this on my list unless Julia decides to make the correction.

There is work enough for all to do.  It helps to have helpers.

Correcting some more errors

Today I was looking at the records for Marie Antoinette Van Orden.  She was the wife of Thomas William Karren.  They were the parents of John Ether Gee’s wife Edith Elva Karren KW8T-LDT.  Someone had her married to John Oscar Gee, born in Indiana and died in Missouri.  She was listed as having two children, Caroline and Ruth with John Oscar Gee.  Of course we know that John Ether and John Oscar are not the same person, because they lived many miles apart at approximately the same time.

I had to add Elva as Edith’s middle name.  The birth and death dates were the same.  When I deleted the children from this non-marriage, the marriage went away and left her with the right spouse John Ether Gee with the correct three children.  Then there was another error.  It listed her with an alternate name of Edith Cunningham.  I deleted that and put as a reason the following:  Edith was not a Cunningham.  Mary Cunningham was married to John Ether Gee's brother Edgar Lafayette.

I went to Find a Grave and found a grave marker for Edith in the Pineview Cemetery in Ashton, Idaho.  I added that as a source to Edith’s record. 

For some reason the ordinances for Edith read invalid, but if one clicks on the name, her ordinances show up completed.  I guess that the manipulation did something to the data to alter it in such a way.  I will have to contact support and se if they can straighten that out.

I like being able to correct information.  It is less frustrating this way.

Dealing with Multiple Marriages

John Dodds Telford is shown as having multiple wives.

“The many wives of John Dodds Telford”

Charlot Angeline Baker, Dolly Ann Coultrin, Maria Coltrino, Emeline Seely Baker, Sarah Ann Barker, Deborah Elizabeth Walker, Hannah Richmon, Nancy Coltrin, Clara W Tilbetts , Anna Walker,  Georgia Bradley Curry,  Lucinda Sproat Rosanna Tebbets, Thankful Cotton  Marinda Colton  and Caroline Colton.

I wrote this in the notes on John’s record in my database.

“The history that I have of John Dodds Telford lists only his wife Sarah Matilda Coltrin. He was not married to any of these other women while they were living. All were sealed to him posthumously. There have been disputes placed on these marriages, but they fall into the same category as the sealings of the Cotton girls to Brigham Heber Telford and Erastus Rowe Gee. We will have to wait for the millennium to get the parties involved to come to an agreement. From NFS Support is this explanation: 'For this period of time, this was not an unusual practice. We have records of men in the early church sealing as many as 200 women to them. It was from their point of view to provide the blessings of exaltation to those persons.'”

I removed the marriage relationship to the following women.

Georgia Bradley Curry

Maria Coltrino

Dolly Ann Coultrin

Hannah Richmon

Deborah Elizabeth Walker

Sarah Ann Barker

Emeline Seely Baker

Rosanna Tebbets

Marinda Colton

Thankful Cotton

Caroline Colton

Charlot Angeline Baker

Lucinda Sproat

Anna Walker

Nancy Coltrin

These women still show up in the sealings to spouse information in the Family Tree data, but are not visible to non-members of the church.

I added a death date and place to John Dodds Telford’s Record in Family Tree to replace deceased.

The next record that I addressed was that of Brigham Heber Telford.

He had two wives sealed to him posthumously.

Thankful Cotton and Hanna Cotton

These were removed in a similar manner

Now Brigham Heber Telford has only one wife Emma Gee, Lysander’s daughter.