Another Kerr Post

I have been adding Stories and here is another on Arvilla Johnson Heyer 1^st Cousin 2 times removed.  She may not be familiar, but she is the daughter of Ella Annette Kerr and granddaughter of Robert Marion Kerr. This history comes from the Kerr family Newsletter.

 I also did some work in correcting the records in Family Tree.  I wrote it up as another Adventure In family Tree  Click Here . 

I will continue to work on Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins record.  It will take some time.  I hope you will be patient.

Further Adventures in the Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins saga

Adventures in Family Tree

Further Adventures in the Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins saga

Chapter 1

In our last episode we ended with the statement; We now await the response from the people at support. They usually are pretty quick about responding, but we have now corrected the records and have done everything that we can do with this case.

They responded with the following;

Note
3/7/13
3:28 PM:

Problem: Patron had merged three individuals. When all was said and done, the result showed his ancestor needed temple ordinances, which had been completed. The individuals he merged all had the same vital information and name. PID's of those merged are LZFB-8RG KVGX-VKQ L8SH-ZW5 He would like the completed ordinance dates and locations restore to his ancestor Mary Ellen Frost LZFB-8RG.

Email
3/7/13
3:22 PM:

Dear Brother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding your ancestor Mary Ellen Frost. We have forwarded your request to restore the temple ordinances to this person. You will receive an email with the disposition of this case. Your case number is 2992528.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services
support@familysearch.org

Email
3/8/13
1:10 PM:

Dear Laurence Gee:
RE Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins LZFB-8CX
Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support. The ordinances for Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins now show on FamilySearch . Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Best wishes to you as you continue your quest for your ancestors.

Yours sincerely,
Family Search Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2992528)
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They are really pretty good about responding quickly and resolving the issue so I looked at the record and found to my dismay that they had undone all the work and the record was back to Mary Evaline Frost with two husbands.  I wrote them the following response;

Email
3/8/13
2:31 PM:

Subject: Re: Missing ordinances

You just undid everything that it took me two hours to accomplish. Please
read the following document.

Click Here for the
Link. (They do not allow links to documents or attachments in e-mails as a security issue, but I sent it to them anyway.)

Read especially pages 8-20.

Mary Evaline Frost was not he wife of Joseph Sharp Rawlins. She is
listed as having the same ordinance dates as Mary Ellen Frost who was
married to Joseph Sharp Rawlins. I doubt that they are the same, but I will
not argue the fact because I am not familiar with Mary Evaline Frost and
her genealogy.

In the children of the marriage on Family Tree of Mary Evaline Frost and
Joseph Sharp Rawlins there are 8 children listed. These were not the
children of this marriage since it never occurred in the first place.
There were only three children of the marriage of Joseph Sharp Rawlins and
Mary Ellen Frost.

Perhaps it might be well for you to call me to go through this process.

My cell phone number is 801-631-9868. I am always available except on
Sunday from 10:30 to 2:30 and on Wednesday from 9:00 to 4:30 when I am in
the temple.

They responded;

Email
3/12/13
11:54 AM:

Dear Laurence Gee:

There are a number of ways we take care of records in order to accomplish what you desired in that you wanted the ordinances to show for Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins. We certainly did not mean to undo what you had accomplished in Family Tree. While both new FamilySearch and Family Tree are running, there will be issues such as this occurring.

The record for Joseph Sharp Rawlins no longer lists Mary Evaline Frost as a spouse. If there are children associated to Joseph Sharp Rawlins and Mary Ellen Frost, you may correct that issue in Family Tree.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration
----------------------
(CaseID:2992528)

I did go to the record and found the record incorrect in that the name was Mary Evaline Frost, which I changed to Mary Ellen Frost.  The rest of the data was intact.  There were, however, children that did not belong.

For the child Orson Rawlins, I deleted the relationship.

For the child J.R. Rawlins, I wrote the following in the discussions on his record:

From the history of Mary Frost Rawlins: Description From the history of the mother Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins we read: Mary Ellen and Joseph Rawlins were the parents of three children; Their oldest daughter, Nancy Jane, was very helpful to her parents. She was married in 1859 to Robert Marion Kerr, and moved to Cache Valley where they became the parents of nine children. She died September 18, 1928, at the age of 83. Helen, who was a baby when her parents left to come west with the pioneers died at the age of thirteen, while her mother was visiting Nancy Jane at the birth of her first child. In the Mormon overland Trail record she is listed as Mary Ellen Rawlins. Further research will be done to document this child, but it is my contention that this child was never born to these parents. The inaccurate dates and places of birth would substantiate that assumption as well as the late sealing dates.

For the Child Julia Rawlins, I wrote:

Description From the history of the mother Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins we read: Mary Ellen and Joseph Rawlins were the parents of three children; Their oldest daughter, Nancy Jane, was very helpful to her parents. She was married in 1859 to Robert Marion Kerr, and moved to Cache Valley where they became the parents of nine children. She died September 18, 1928, at the age of 83. Helen, who was a baby when her parents left to come west with the pioneers died at the age of thirteen, while her mother was visiting Nancy Jane at the birth of her first child. In the Mormon overland Trail record she is listed as Mary Ellen Rawlins. Further research will be done to document this record, but for the meantime we will stick with the name that is found in a contemporary record. There are probably other contemporary records, which will document her name to be Mary Ellen rather than Helen. This history does not document this child as a member of the family, The fact that the sealing to parents was done in 1993 further mitigates against the assumption that she was a child of these parents.

Thus we find the record almost correct.  I think that I will leave this as such until I find out to whom Julia and J.R. belong.

Nancy Jane and Mary Ellen Frost

In looking at the record of Joseph Sharp Rawlins my third great grandfather it was noticed that he had six wives listed. Two of the six were duplications, which we will have to deal with at a later time.  One of the wives was Nancy Jane Frost.  In reality Joseph was only married to two wives.  Where did the others come from?  Mary Ellen Frost was combined with Mary Evaline Frost which caused massive confusion.

The answer to this question will take us through another Adventure in Family Tree.

To view the odyssey, you can click here to view the 20 page document. 

It is involved and has yet to be completely resolved, but I think that this is worth posting.  An update will be posted in the future.

 

Joseph Sharp Rawlins

Two days ago there was obituary notice in the paper. Don Cromar had died. I knew Don and his family when we lived in Denver, Colorado. That was 63 years ago. I have rather fond memories of that family. I think they moved from Salt Lake to Denver and were in the Denver first Ward. The members of the family that were my age were Kay and his brothers Don and Dale, who I think were twins, and their sister Carlie. They were all close to my age. The only one of the family than I had seen since we left Denver in 1949 was Carlie. She married J. Paul Jensen who also was in the same ward in Denver. Paul and Carlie moved to Lander while I was on my mission to Germany. When my father was released as the branch president in Lander, Paul succeeded him in that position.

Paul was a veterinarian and worked for one of the veterinarians there in Lander. Carlie had her first baby in Lander. On my way back home from my mission we stopped in Lander before going on to Salt Lake to report and then I took the Volkswagen bus that I had purchased for Ralph Lowe to Ogden and dropped it off. We were only in Lander for a short time. Carlie was insistent that we get dates for the high school dance. There were three of us traveling together and so she arranged dates for all three of us to go to the high school dance.

I decided to go to the viewing and see if I could see any of those people that I knew 63 years prior. Alice said, ‘Wasn't your great-great grandfather Rawlins buried in the cemetery in Murray?’ I thought he was buried in Draper, but I went to my database and found that Joseph Sharp Rawlins was buried in the Murray Cemetery along with his wife Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins. We decided it would be a good thing to see if we could find a gravestone for Joseph Sharp Rawlins since the church where the viewing was being held was on the same street just further down south. I felt it a good opportunity since I had never been to that cemetery before.

I did find and speak to the family members assembled. I did not stay for the funeral, but went straight to the cemetery. I inquired at the office as to the location of the gravesite. The lady there took me about 75 feet from the office and there was a large marker. I had previously looked on “Find A Grave” to see if they had a photograph of the grave marker. There was no photograph there. I now have a photograph which will I will try to upload onto the “Find A Grave” website. I include the photograph here as well.