Anna and Hannah Rawlins

I get a weekly e-mail from Family Search.  Sometimes I find that there are errors in the records.  Here are some that I found recently. I used the e-mail embedded in Family Tree to write a message to someone who had put a record on Joseph Sharp Rawlins family.

In the 1880 census the family consists of the mother Anna (really Hannah Stringfellow) and the daughter Anna (probably Hannah Marie).

Obviously Anna LJRN-3R8 and Hannah Marie KWC3-MPH are the same individual born the same year  They should be merged. Do you want to do this or do you want me to take care of it.

Sincerely,

Laurence Gee, M.D.

 

They have not responded, so I will merge the two.

 

I also found a record that needed correction, so I wrote the following to support.

 

Sarah Gee
16 September 1867 – 28 July 1931 • KWDM-HC6 ​
Although there is a sealing to parents for Sarah noted on 8 August 1979 in Ogden. This child was born in the covenant, the parents were sealed in Lysander's and Theresa's home in Salt Lake by Brigham Young on 18 July 1850.
LYSANDER WAS SEALED TO THERESA AND MARYETTA AT THE SAME TIME. THIS WAS BEFORE
THE ENDOWMENT HOUSE WAS BUILT. THEY WERE SEALED IN LYSANDER`S HOUSE BY BRIGHAM YOUNG. Reference Sealings Microfilm Number 0183374 found in the Family History Library second floor in the special collections. The sealing was at the Gee's house in Salt Lake City on July 18, 1850 at 5:10 P.M. The entry is found on page 725. Witnesses were Truman O. Angell and Thomas Bullock.

Laurence Gee 

 

They responded:

 

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

 

RE:Sarah Gee 16 September  KWDM-HC6

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support and bringing your concern to our attention.  The born in covenant (BIC) information has been added to the membership record.

Sincerely, 

 

FamilySearch Data Administration 

I found another error while looking at the descendants of Erastus Rowe Gee and wrote the following:

Today I discovered that three children of John Ether Gee KW8T-LDR were actually the children of his brother Edgar Lafayette Gee KWC1-XLF.

I have successfully removed Olive Gee LJTN-ZXT and combined her with Olive Gee KWCQ-GJ3 and Clendon Edgar Gee LJTN-ZFX and combined him with Clendon Edgar Gee KWCZ-BDF.

Letho Lafayette Gee KWZ6-BFP has already received his ordinances. The Letho L. K2W8-CTB in this record is not the son of John Ether Gee, but of his brother Edgar Lafayette Gee KWC1-XLF. When I try to combine these two records, I cannot merge these records. Could you please have Data Administration take care of this for me?

Laurence Gee, M.D.

 

They wrote back:

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

 

RE:  Letho L Gee, Membership PID:  KWZ6-BFP

 

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support and bringing your concern to our attention. The duplicate membership records have been combined into the Person Identification (ID) referenced above.

 

Sincerely, 

 

FamilySearch Data Administration 

Now Letho is with the right family.

 

 

Adding histories from the archives

I snatch a few minutes here and a few there and am able to add a history or two when I can't go back to sleep.  Here are the additions.  Just click on the name for the link.

Vernon Ray Gee

Philinda Upson

Nancy Jane Rawlins

Marion Joseph Kerr

Ella Rebecca Merrill 

There are more.  It just take time to add them.
 
 
 

 

More Additions

This week I have been actively adding information to my Price, Butler, Bailey and More website. Click Here.
Particularly to the Reed Page. 

I also put some of these documents as Stories on Family Tree. Some of them are in PDF format with photos, so they do not go over to Family Tree unless they are put as a link in Sources, which I have not done.  Perhaps some day that will be accomplished.

I have also added a history of Nancy Jane Rawlins Kerr by her granddaughter Marie Danielson Benson to Family Tree, which you will find at this link.

I merged a duplicate of Nancy Jane Rawlins Kerr and noted that there is another duplicate, but when you click on the name, it comes up Julia Rawlins with some of Nancy Jane's information. I earlier put a discussion on this record as follows:

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 [Julia] 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. 

My brother Martell is going to the Gee reunion in Conneaut, Ohio next Saturday.  I printed out a descendancy chart of Solomon Gee [9 generations] with notes for him to take to interested people ther as well as a photo of Zopher Gee junior. 

I have received some documents and photos from Thomas Cray and his cousin.  He is a descendant of Mary (Molly) Gee and her husband Webber Reed. Mary comes through Solomon, Solomon Jr., Leuman, and then Mary.  The family went up to Canada from Marlow, New Hampshire and then down to Iowa where Thomas Cray now lives.

Alice got an e-mail from one of the former members of our ward, who reported that her son-in-law had a Gee connection.  I have written to obtain further clarification. She comes from the Benson family, so I will send her the information about my connection to the Benson family. I wrote this up some time ago and give you a link to the Adventure.

Amber Thomas Galli, Glendon's granddaughter has contacted me and I have given her some information and links to the websites and this blog.

Matthew Marshall, my grandson, has gotten a job in Connecticut and wrote wondering where the Gees lived in Connecticut, I sent him a history of Solomon Gee.

My neighbor is an avid genealogist and wrote me with the following concern.  He has a number of type script histories and wondered how he could put them into Family Tree.  I suggested that he scan them in and then us an Optical Character Recognition software to convert the typescript to text, then edit it in a word processing program.  I use Abby Fine Reader which I got free with my scanner.  I found it on special on the Abby site for $29.99 (about half price).  The professional version is $200+.  I then transfer the blocked transcribed version to Microsoft Word and then look for mistranslations and errors.  I can then use the Word document or print it as a PDF file.  I usually send PDF files to people, because that is the best way to transport across multiple computer platforms.

I have had requests for the Power Point presentation that I did at the Gee family reunion in Heber.  Since I knew all the stories, I did not include them in the slides.  I am in the process of adding those stories, at least a shortened version to the Power Point and then include a link to the document posted in Family Tree Stories.   

And so it goes.
 
 

More on Orson Rawlins

More on Orson Rawlins

Yesterday (March 18, 2013) I went to the Family History Library and looked in the Special Collections at film # 0184068.

I found the following record:

Orson Whetman (Rawlins)

Date of Birth 7 April 1883

Place of Birth Draper, Salt Lake, Utah

Parents George Whetman and Charlotte Dangerfield.

So now we have a primary source indicating that Orson was not a child of Joseph Sharp and Mary Ellen Rawlins. 

George married Charlotte Housley on 7 August 1884 and Hannah Cox on 3 April 1922 three years before his death 26 May 1926 in Salt Lake City.

We know that Orson was living in the home of Joseph and Mary Rawlins in 1900 according to the census.  Apparently he was impressed with the Rawlins, because he took the name of Rawlins and all his children went by that surname appellation.

As long as I was looking at the Whetman’s I did some combining of records and added death certificates as sources to George Sr, George Jr. and Zina.  I will get back to those records at some period, but since they are not my direct line, I will forgo.

 

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)
----------------------

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.

 

Orson W Rawlins

My cousin Loni put a discussion on Family Tree about a child (Orson) that was listed in addition to the three known children of Joseph Sharp Rawlins and Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins.  All the histories that we had in the family listed only three children of this marriage.  Yet suddenly there were more.  I got rid of one by straightening up the record for Mary Ellen Frost.  The information on this will be on another blog.  I posted the information that I found on my Family Search website.

You may see it on the link:
https://sites.google.com/site/eagleridgenfs/adventures-in-family-tree

More on this to come.

Photos in Family Tree

A week ago last Sunday I presented a Power Point Presentation to our class in Sunday School on Family Tree.  One of the members of the class said that there was no way that you could attach a photo to a record in Family Tree, but that they were working on it.  I said, yes there was, but you had to know how to do it.  I should not have shot the balloon, but I had just done something in Family Tree and knew that photos could be attached, but in a round about way. 

Today I just loaded a photo of Nancy Jane Rawlins Kerr to Find a Grave.  You can find a link here:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59515978

This adds a photo to the photo of the grave marker in Find A Grave and I added the link by creating a source in Family Tree.  There are more neat little tricks which I am looking forward to learning.

Stay Tuned.  I just experimented an  found out how to add her photo here.  You will never  know what you can do until you experiment.

Back again after a pause

Well I am back again meddling in the records, but this time on the Kerr line. As you may or may not know great-great grandfather Robert Marion Kerr had two wives who were cousins; Nancy Jane Rawlins and Margaret Elzirah Rawlins.  They were married three years apart.  In New Family Search and also in Family Search Family Tree there were two children listed in the families of both marriages.  In order to correct this in New Family search, I would have had to submit this to the Data Administrator for correction.  Now in Family Tree I was able to correct this by submitting just an explanation.  I brought up the family and clicked on edit relationships and deleted the relationship of the two boys that did not belong to Nancy Jane Rawlins.  Since both individuals had the same PIN number the relationship to the correct mother was not affected.  I should have taken screen shots to demonstrate how easy this was, but there are more errors to correct and I will remember to document my work.

 

In my database I only have George McCauslin Kerr and his brother James Harvey Kerr listed as children.  I will have to research the situation.  If this is correct, George and Joseph were twins and both were born and died on the same day.

Elzirah must have died in childbirth, because she died 9 days after the birth of her son James Harvey.

Another mystery to be solved.

Family Search Watch

Each week I get an e-mail from Family Search on any activity on the records that I have put a watch on.  I have placed a watch on some of the records that I have been working on. In the past I have found that very helpful, because some patrons combine records that should not be combined or enter changes that may or may not be correct.  I do not know why I feel I need to be the guardian of the records, but I guess that I have a desire that everything should be correct even if I am wrong.

This week I got another e-mail.  Usually it is 4 or 5 changes, but this week there were 53 changes.  The majority were changes by Family Search with minor changes such as correcting names and spellings and places of birth or death.  It was somewhat time consuming to go through all 53 records, but it was worth it because I found the following records that need attention.  I even found two individuals who need ordinance work.  I made a list, so that if my computer crashes I will have the information on a website, or as the present terminology would have it, on the Cloud.( A fancy term for web based backup.)

NFS Cleanup needed.

Abigail Hill Person identifier: LHLM-PJB her many husbands

Sophia Mack Person identifier: LHZX-ZLY where does this information come from?

Ebenezar Mack Person identifier: LZV8-YBJ multiple spouses and duplicate parents.

John Dodds Telford Person identifier: KWJX-YCR two sets of parents.  The one set is incorrect.

Sarah Maria Sayles Person identifier: KWJP-HQJ 7 sets of parents 3 extra spouses.

Find Grave marker for Graham Coltrin Person identifier: KWJP-HCC supposedly buried in the Centerville Cemetery.  His name was on On Find a Grave, but no photo of the headstone. Needs research

William Jasper Kerr Person identifier: KWJP-CSM has three wives, one unknown with a child John Campbell Kerr.  Needs research.

Solomon Gee Jr. Person identifier: LZPP-GVP has two spouses.  Look and see if the spouses need to be combined.

August Bernard LCRZ-8TW and wife Gertrude LCRZ-DSD need temple ordinances done and daughter Alice LCRJ-THR needs to be sealed, but she only died recently.

Sara Gee (Sarah) Person identifier: 2736-R71 has two sets of parents.  Solomon Gee and both his wives.  This needs to be corrected.

Susannah Moody Person identifier: LHZ8-FJ5 has two sets of parents.  This needs research and correction.

Betty Catherine Bruce Person identifier: 2MGH-H5K needs a definite date of death and place of death. I will have to look in my database.

William Gee Person identifier: LZJG-NS1 has an extra spouse that doesn’t belong.  I have written the person that placed that record, but he has so far not taken action.

Elam Luddington Person identifier: K24C-FH6 has three sets of parents. This needs research.

Edward Gee Person identifier: LC1Y-J1N has two children that need ordinances.

Martha Bingham Person identifier: LZD7-W9P needs to be combined with Mrs Solomon Gee Jr. MQRC-26F Her birth date is listed as 1694.

Deborah Gee Person identifier: KNSS-KG3 has one record with gender unknown.

This will take some time to do.  As I complete each item on the list, it will appear in my next watch e-mail entitled “Weekly FamilySearch changes for things you are watching” with me as the contributor.

 

Find a Grave

Apparently I did not properly query the Find a Grave site. There was already someone who beat me to it.

Find A Grave Memorial# 130379

It has his portrait and a link to his second wife Hannah Stringfellow Rawlins. She is buried in the Draper City Cemetery. There are photographs there as well.

Find A Grave Memorial# 9545658

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.