Keach a familiar name

Keach, that name sounded a familiar note.  It was Stacy Keach Jr. that played Mike Hammer the private eye.  When I found Keach in my database, I was intrigued.  Was there somehow a family connection?  Being the inquisitive person that I am, I had to check this out.  In my printout of missing individual ordinances, I found George M. and Olive Bernice Keach without sealings to parents. In my notes George had the following entry. 

From Jeff Smith in Farmington:  He [George] ran off to Colorado to work in a mine and was never seen again. But before he left he left Elizabeth with a son named Eckley Martin Keach. Eckley Martin Keach married a wonderful lady named Edrie McCoy. Edrie's mother was Lydia Bates McCoy. Lydia's mother was Electa Gee, who of course is Lysander's daughter.

I was not able to find any parents for George.  That will have to wait for another day.  I did find information for his son Eckley Martin Keach.  He and his wife had five or perhaps six children.  I went online to the Utah Death Certificates and was able to find death certificates for two of the children, Edgar Martin and Richard.  I also found Olive Bernice’s obituary on line at Deseret News.  I placed these sources on their records at Family Tree.  From the obituary I found the names of Olive’s sons and put them in my database.  From Dexknows, I found addresses and telephone numbers for the two sons.  Both still live in  Salt Lake.

Unfortunately, I did not find a relationship to Stacy Keach Jr., but it is just as well, because he spent time in a London prison for possession of cocaine.  He played the part of a detective, but did not obey the law. 

There is mention in my record of a child that was born about 1920, but there is no record that I can find of this child. 

Another mystery to be cleared up is the mention in the obituary of a brother Patrick Delbert Keach of Colorado.  There is also a duplication of Eckley Martin Keach Jr. He seems to have gone by the name of Lee Mac also mentioned in the obituary and duplicated in Family Tree with birthdays two years apart.

I am not as familiar with this branch of the family, so I will have to do more research.

Of interest to me was the child that died from complications of a prolonged labor in the breech position and died after living one hour.  This was not an uncommon complication in those days.  Today with monitoring and C-section that complication would be rare.

Alda Maryette Gee Paul and her records

Alda Maryette Gee Paul was my grandfather’s next to youngest sister.  For her era she was a premier genealogist and family historian.  My brother Martell in some way came into possession of some of her records (see below).  I received them from him and have had them sitting in my computer room for some time. (8 years)  I initially went through the records entering the data into Personal Ancestral File.  I only got about a quarter of the way through and then other tasks occupied my time.  I was always going to get to that, but the record got buried underneath some papers.  It was not in sight so it was out of mind.  

Saturday I was cleaning some papers off the floor behind my chair and found the records.  They were family group sheets in a cardboard binder held together with two brass fasteners.  The record was approximately 3 inches thick.  The paper was not acid free and was beginning to show the ravages of age.  The white sheets were now yellow and cracking.  I did not want to lose the information and I did not have time to manually enter the data at the present time.

I decided to scan the pages into my computer.  My scanner will scan one page every two seconds. It holds forty pages in the feeder at a time.  It took me some hours to do the scanning, but now the records are digitally preserved in PDF format. I plan to divide the pages among those of the family who are interested in helping me with the data entry.  There were 536 pages in the scanned document.  Some of the pages had writing on the back, but my scanner scans both front and back simultaneously, so this was not a problem.  Although Alda Paul did not cite sources on all the entries, there were some sources for many of her pages, which will help further in comparing the names with those in Family Tree.

I guess I will need to get up an hour earlier until I get the task done.  She was not discriminatory.  She filled out family group sheets for anyone with connection to the Gee name.  Some names are from England with no apparent connection to our Gee family.  

There is no rest for those engaged in this work.

To complete the information I wrote to my brother Martell.

My brother Martell explained the provenance thusly:

Many years ago, and I don't dare even try to guess how many, I was asking Mom about some family history, and she showed me that book.  I asked her something else, and she said that I should take it which I did.   Subsequently I looked through it and put some of the things into my PAF, which ultimately got put into FamilySearch.  How Mom came into the records is not known to me.  So I am afraid that provenance does not exist.  But for what it is worth, I did not make up the records, nor did I forge anything in that book.  I am guessing that it went from Alda to Mary Ellen Kerr Gee (or maybe William E. Gee), thence to Mary P. Stucki, thence to Mom.

I will explain how I think a Stucki (Price, actually) came into possession of Gee records.  As you know better than I, Grandma Stucki was really into Genealogy.  She spent some time with (uncle) Lynn, and told him of his ancestry, and got him into searching out his own family.  This led him back into activity in the Church.  Grandma Gee told me about that, and implied that she had a lot of respect for Grandma Stucki and her pursuits in family history.  So I think whatever records came to her that she did not know what to do with, she passed on to either Mom or to Grandma Stucki directly.

How did Alda Gee Paul decide to give the records to someone else?  Don't know.  maybe her family was not interested, and she wanted someone to do something with what she had done.  She may have even given the records to Grandma Stucki directly.  

That is the best I can do.  It is a mystery, which I do not expect to solve.

One other thought:  I kind o think that Mom gave me the records after I started to work for Family History, (about 1987-88 time frame) and I was on the kick of trying to connect us with someone in England.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to find Solomon's parents. And if I have the right book in mind, those sheets show lots of Gee folks:  Joshua Gee, some preacher Gee who was contemporary with Cotton Mather, etc.

We could not make a connection with any of those, but I tried.

If you press me, I might be able to invent some more stuff about that, but it would be mostly invented, I am afraid.

MJ

I wrote back:

Alda Paul’s husband Clarence was a member of the church, but was inactive and received his temple ordinances posthumously. She was endowed after 24 years of marriage, but they were sealed posthumously.  They had 4 children.  The oldest was endowed at the age of 23 and sealed to parents posthumously.  The second daughter received the ordinances posthumously. The third child (a son) only lived a year. The third daughter received her endowment at the age of 64 and was sealed to parents after their death, but before she died.

Judging from the data that I have in my database, the grandchildren, for the most part, were late in receiving their ordinances as well.  Thus your assumption that the inactive posterity did not want the records is probably correct.  Alda preceded grandfather Gee in death by 6 years and grandmother Gee was still alive at that time of her demise.

And thus the records came into my hands and although I do not have a cave to hide them in I will try and see that the work is done for those individuals.

 

Processing Names in Family Tree

Today in Sunday School we went over how to process names for Temple Ordinances.  I wrote a little tutorial and posted it on the web.  Here is the link:
https://cd471846-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/eagleridgenfs/family-tree/Processing%20Temple%20Ordinances%20in%20Family%20Tree.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cqjeuXWUXjXPGqgFjaF5gW7LZhi0c6zlFzYacoYY5xvKo7azvwtysZdIiy9RLIE5j3MHug2ffSgD_dRQfAAj0dEmJZJ1Y0xvKkXAqssxz7wFpLxFuY3OCiU8Jxc3KJ8G-y6Q9DHZvyQ6NABSq2lJNydtfNvtT0CJT8tfrIBuIiOmFxmGqItFk-H2bo6fqJPwIHR4s7g1vRgk5tidogjsJmhe4Mhqfjj3gilYe2rbXvxxzNQZa9U3ylcspgSSeQZNNpDVLg2gxXEkyUxYWQ-mpvSD88Yrg%3D%3D&attredirects=0

Quoting Little Red Riding Hood:  "What a long URL you have grandmother, The better to confuse you with my dear."

There is also a tutorial on the subject on my Eagleridge website put out by the church, but most people don't look there.

Adding people to marriages in Family Tree

I was checking my list of Incomplete Ordinances. I found Ralph Dillard without a sealing to parents.  I put his name into Family Tree and found him and got the sealing to parents date.  I noted that he had no spouse.  I had one in my database.  Ilda Bernice Dunn.  I clicked on Add a Spouse and typed in the information that I had for her.  Family Tree had her information as a daughter of Ilda Bernice Bates and Oliver Cowdrey Dunn.  So now we have them as husband and wife.  There was no marriage information.  I had that information in my database from the Western States Historical Marriage Record Index. I added that information and put this in the explanations box:

Groom Last Name:             DILLARD Groom First Name:             Ralph L. Groom Residence:         Bride Last Name: DUNN Bride First Name: I. Berniece Bride Residence:         Place:   Dillon Date:    30 Jul 1932 County of Record:             Beaverhead State:             Montana Volume:             7 Page:             68

It is always imperative that we add sources to additions to the records in Family Tree.  I was fortunate to have this source in my database notes.

Unable to Merge

I have been editing the database for Lysander Gee.  I found a number of duplicates in my records and usually look them up on Family Tree to make sure that I have the data that they have.  Today I found that Mildred Rebecca Randall KWDS-3LV has a duplicate record K2HC-37D

The system will not allow me to merge these two records.  They are the same.  This is the message that I get.

Can't Be Merged At This Time

Do we know when these records can be Merged?

I sent this to support for an answer.

The following is the correspondence on this case:

Dear Brother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch support regarding the error message you got when you tried to merge the two records of Mildred Rebecca Randall (Randell). We called earlier and left a message. Please accept this email as a response.

Although there are various contributors to these records, one of the contributors for both records is Church Membership Records. In other words, there are two membership records for this woman (most likely from the days when record keeping was less accurate). These records can only be merged by the church.

We will forward this case to the department that will review the case. However, there are discrepancies in the two records. The people who will review the case will want to know which of the two records is the most correct and why. If you have information that you can share regarding the validity of either record, please include it in a reply to us. Use the Reply feature of your email program to reply. Include the case number 2864931 in the subject line of the reply.

Thank you again for contacting FamilySearch Support. We look forward to hearing from you soon so we can dispatch the case to the proper department.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

My Reply:

The following is the most correct record since it includes a good death date and both husbands. KWDS-3LV Is the PIN for Mildred Rebecca Randall (Randell).

Laurence Gee, M.D.

Dear Brother,

Thank you for your reply. We will send the case to the correct department for review. We appreciate your efforts in correcting church records, as well as your own.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

The process took two days to complete.  We now wait for confirmation.  

Joseph Boyce Andrus History

I haven’t documented much of the work that I have done this past week.  I have been going through my records of the descendants of Lysander Gee to update the missing Individual Ordinances.  I have found a few ordinances that need to be completed.  I will wait until I have gone through all the 9 pages and then compile a list to share with members of the family.

Emma Maude Gee (my grandfather Gee's sister) was married to Joseph Boyce Andrus.  I found a history written by Betty June High, as told to her by her mother Thelma Maude Andrus High, a daughter of Joseph Boyce Andrus and Emma Maude Gee Andrus.  I felt that it was appropriate to put this in Family Tree.  In order to do this, I first put it in the Lysander Gee website and then made a link in the sources in Family Tree to the document on the Lysander Gee website.

The PIN for Joseph is: KWZX-2SB.

I also taught the Sunday school class how to print from Family Tree. Next week I will teach how to reserve ordinances in Family Tree.

The work progresses.