Why I Work on My Family History

I have been working on my family history since January of 2011. I had retired from the military in the previous September, and finally got to the point that I had the energy to start working on it. Backing up a bit, I had an interview with Veterans Affairs Canada in late 2010 and the interviewer asked me some questions, then insisted that I stay home on a back to work program to recover from stress. It took me to the end of January to start.

When I first started, I didn’t know very much about how to research my family. I knew that I needed help learning what to do, so I joined a couple of family history groups, the Upper Ottawa Valley Genealogy Group in Pembroke, the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa, and the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. I joined the group in Pembroke so that I could develop contacts in the local area so that I could get next to immediate assistance with how to research. The BIFHSGO was an idea to join regarding British research, and the OGS, regarding Canadian research. I have learned a great deal from all three groups and am maintaining my membership as, eventually, I will be back in Ontario.

Another thing that I like to do to increase my knowledge about the researching end of things is that I love to go to family history conferences. For the first couple of years, I was able to go to one almost every month from late March/early April until September. I hope to, someday, go to one in England called “Who do you think you are? Live.” It is a huge conference that is now held in Birmingham. I use all types of conferences as education to develop the knowledge for my own family history and to help others.

You can learn a lot about your family if you can find the records. Sometimes the Spirit will influence you to do something that you don’t normally do. I have been influenced by the Spirit to google names of some of my ancestors. It is amazing what can be found this way. 

Because I did the research of many of my ancestors, I have been able to submit their names for temple work. I was able to be present when John’s baptism and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost was done. I had a chance to talk with the young man who stood as proxy for my grandfather's brother, John, for the laying on of hands and I told him a little about John. I didn’t know at the time, but that same young man is my eighth cousin.

When a Ron who was involved with family history moved away, he told Joyce to ask me to help her with her family history. When I was starting to resolve a problem that he should have looked after, I discovered that Joyce is related to me albeit very distantly. It made a huge difference for me as I thought that I did not have any family in the upper Ottawa Valley area. I had already learned about the family connections not far from Ottawa. 

Heavenly Father blessed me for my diligence in family history and helping others with it.

I can promise you that if you work on your family history, you will receive blessings. You will be led to the information that you need to complete temple work for these people. I have prayed to Heavenly Father to help me find certain information and, I have found that, if the time is right, you will find it.

I have also learned that these are not just names and place-names. The people whose names you find were living people. Without them, you would not be here. They made it possible for you to have a life here in Newfoundland. Yes, you may have problems of your own, but the problems may be there to help you to develop into the person that Heavenly Father wants you to be. Your ancestors were chosen by Heavenly Father with extreme care. He knows you better than you know yourself. Your ancestors have given you the physical traits that you need for your life. They did their best for you and all of their descendants. They may have slipped up, but we all know that no one in this life is perfect.

About a month and a half ago, there was a trip to the Halifax Temple. My husband and I did not go on that particular trip as we had a wedding in Ontario to go to and went to the Toronto Temple while we were there. During our visit to the Temple, we were able to seal fourteen couples for time and all eternity, ten sons and eighteen daughters to their parents. This was the first time that we have been able to do sealings as we had to wait for some of the ordinances to be completed. This does not entail just my side of the family. It was almost equally divided between Gordon’s and my families.

I came to the realization a couple of years ago that these people are waiting for us to do the temple work for them. We cannot do the work for our family unless we know who our family members are. And, when we do the work, they are very excited about it. Some of them have been waiting for hundreds of years. When I did the work for my grandfather’s sister, she was so excited that her emotions almost overcame me and I almost could not finish what I needed to do. I had to ask her to back off a bit so that I could complete it. She did and I finished it.

I do not have things like this happen all the time when I go to the Temple. However, I can say that I am happy for my ancestors whose work that I completed and know that I will see them on the other side when I get there. Because there is so much work to be done in my family and because I and my son, Stephen, are the only active members of the Church in at least one of my lines, I cannot do all the work myself. I came to the realization that I will always have more work to accomplish than I am capable of doing. So, the next best thing is to reserve the temple work and choose what I can get done, then share the rest with the Temple. This way, the work shared should be completed within two years.

So, you may possibly be thinking, “How can I have experiences like this?” I can give you an answer that you may not like. It is not called family history work and temple work for a reason. You will have to make a sacrifice if you are not interested in doing these things. You will have to sacrifice time and make the effort to work on your family history. For those of you in or close to a chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there are people working in family history as consultants. 

One thing that you will find is that researching for ancestors may not be anywhere near as hard as it used to be. You will find that you may be able to do most of your research online. However, there will be times, when you will have to use the older methods such as sending to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City for microfilms and waiting for them to come in. You may find that you will still have to send letters but most of them can be sent by email. The recipients usually respond quickly. There are also paid websites that you can get free access to in your own homes. These include Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, and one or two more. There are paid websites that you can access free of charge through the Family History Center which has a portal to about twelve or thirteen family history sites.

When you travel, you can visit places such as archives who have genealogical consultants who can give you personalized direction. They won’t do the research for you but they will suggest what you should do. I actually think that even though you can gather a lot from online websites, you should go to visit the places that your ancestors lived in, even if you don’t know the exact location. I went to Ireland in April on a family history trip that included some things for family members to do while we were researching. We only did research for four days, but we came away with information about how to continue our work. The rest of the time, we saw the land that our ancestors came from. We learned about the Great Famine and we saw some of the conditions of that time and of the time of troubles in Northern Ireland and saw some of the progression that our “cousins” across the water made over time. Every one of the researchers were of Irish descent along with some of the family members.

When I retired from the military, I did something that I had waited for over thirty years to do. I went and visited England. While I was there, I visited the farm that my fourth-great-grandparents, Joseph Armstrong and Mary Scott, owned in northern England. I felt so happy that I found it, I was crying. I almost felt like I had returned home, but this was only partly returned home as the other part was Ireland. I knew that I had to visit Ireland, too. Well, I did that with my brother in April. Two places that we visited was Galway City, which I strongly believe that our ancestors, John Robert Sanderson and Margaret Nesbitt, with their little family came through in 1830, and the other place was the harbour for Wexford City, which I believe our ancestor, John Jackman, came through in 1820. Nothing beats walking the land that your ancestors walked.

You can also involve your family with your research. I did a talk in Petawawa shortly before coming to Newfoundland about putting the fun into family history. I am going to give some of that now:

In the September 2014 issue of the Ensign, there is an article “Put the Family into Family History”. In this article, Sally Johnson Odekirk describes a number of ways to help your family become interested in family history. She had some of the same ideas that I would like to suggest.

You can have a competition with other families to see how many names that you can have prepared for temple work by the time the next temple trip happens.

You can have a competition with family members by giving each member that is old enough a different branch to work on to see how many names you can have prepared for the temple within a certain period of time.

You can assign each family member the name of an ancestor to see how much information that they can find within a certain period of time and have them introduce that ancestor at a family home evening.

Along with finding the information about the ancestor, find out what was happening in the world at that time. Was it during war time? If so, which war and what part did your ancestor play?

Along with the younger children, try doing some role playing about parts of the lives of some of your ancestors.

Take a family trip to a place where some of your ancestors lived. Walk around the community; take a tour of the local church that your ancestors would have attended; visit the cemetery that your ancestors are buried in. If you visit a cemetery, call ahead to find out what section, row and plot that your ancestors now reside in. It will make it easier to find them.

During family home evenings, tell the stories about your ancestors that you know. Your children want to know about them.

Plan or attend family reunions and find out what other members of the family know. They may not have all the correct facts, but they can give you some good leads.

If your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents are still living, have them write their life histories. Have them write about the family members that they knew. Also, have them write out the stories that they were told about the family. If they are not willing to write them out, ask if you can record them telling you these things. If they don’t agree to the recordings, ask if you can write them down so that when they are gone, you can still tell the stories for them. Then when you get home, digitize these things and keep them for you and future generations.

Sort out your family pictures, get them digitized, and share them with your family and extended family.

Family history is not about just collection the names and the facts. It’s about identifying your ancestors, praying about them, getting to know who they were, doing their Temple work for them and teaching your descendants about them.

I personally have found over 7,000 people. I can’t wait to meet them and the rest that I find while here in this world. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and wants to bless us. We will have rich blessings if we help our ancestors by finding who they were and taking their names to the Temple. We will be blessed to be able to find the information necessary for this work if we will just try. Heavenly Father is waiting for us to do this sacred work. Our ancestors are waiting for us to do this sacred work. We have already been commanded to do this sacred work. I cannot force you to do it. All I can do is to try to encourage you to do it.

Winters of 1817 and 2014

I originally wrote this in February 2014.

The winter of 2014 was a colder winter in Petawawa than it had been for the previous couple of years.  Yes, in previous winters, there were a few days of minus 30 degree or lower temperatures in January.  In 2014, the colder temperatures started in December over the Christmas holidays.  My husband and I were in the Niagara Region for the holidays and came home to find that the battery in the vehicle left behind was frozen solid.

This year was our first winter in Gander. I had been told to expect warmer winter temperatures than Petawawa, but the winter was longer, there was much more snow, and the summer shorter and cooler than what I had experienced in the upper Ottawa Valley.

2014’s cold weather has made me think about how my ancestors may have coped with similar weather. 

My fourth-great-grandfather, Edward Farrell, arrived in Canada and received his land assignment in August of 1817.  He had to build a cabin before winter.  He was fortunate that he had two sons with him as well as his wife.  They also had to be sure of their fuel supply.  Edward had been in the British Army for at least the previous 10 years and spent time on mainland Europe involved with the Napoleonic wars.  I haven’t looked for his military records yet or the regiment’s records, but I am relatively sure that he would have been involved with scrounging for necessities.

Another fourth-great-grandfather, Joseph Armstrong, had a different situation in 1817.  Joseph was a farmer in Cumberland, England, and had been on the same land for over twenty years and all of his children had been born there.  The Napoleonic Wars were over and the British economy had taken a down turn.  Farmers could not sell their crops and, therefore, some of them could not meet their financial obligations.  Joseph was one of them.  He did not lose his farm until 1819, but things would have been tight except for any help the older children could give.

I think of Edward and his family in a cabin that they built themselves, which may have had a lot of drafts and not enough fuel.  I also think of Joseph and his wife, Mary, and the children not old enough to be on their own, facing the cold winters of the Borderlands, with not enough money to be certain of keeping their relatively comfortable home.  Edward’s situation did nothing but improve, while Joseph’s degraded to loss of his farm.  My ancestors did survive the cold winters.  So can I.

My Journey to the Middle of Nowhere

My journey began many years ago in the late 1970’s.  At that time I began to ask questions about our family in a serious way.  Apparently, I had always had an interest in family history as my mother said that I was “always” asking questions about the family.  At that time, my mother did not know anything more about her family other than her mother’s, father’s, and brothers’ names and that she had been placed in foster care from birth.  The foster family wanted to adopt her, but was not allowed to by her natural mother.  Consequently, her mother had to visit her every month.

My father’s family was a different story.  My father knew his parents and his grandmother and his stepmother.  He also knew two of his uncles and his first cousins and knew about the other uncle and his sister.  He knew that the family had moved to Toronto from Liverpool, England.  I also think that he may have known about some of the relatives who still lived in Liverpool as his grandmother made trips back to England to visit family.

When I was finally given the initial information about the family, all that I was told was that there was a connection with the Armstrongs.  No one could tell me where or when or who.  We didn’t even know that the Armstrongs were one of the Reiver Clans.  I was also told that my great-grandmother’s maiden name was Pedersen, spelt P E D E R S E N and that her first name was Elizabeth.  One other fact was that we came from a long line of sailors and that we were Heinz 57, meaning what was known for sure was that we had English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Swedish plus, plus, plus.

The last bit of information that I was able to get out of the family was that my great-grandfather’s name was Richard Fielder and that he was the family skeleton in the closet.  Richard is another story altogether, one that I haven’t finished researching yet.

My great-grandmother’s name was Elizabeth Gill Peterson and she was born in 1868 in Liverpool.  Her parents names were William Peterson, born in either Kent or Liverpool (I haven’t been able to find documentation on his birth), and Susannah Gill, born in 1841 in Liverpool.  Susannah’s maiden name was confirmed on the marriage registration.  William Peterson was a master mariner and Susannah probably met him in her father’s shop.  Her father, John Gill, was a vitualler or ship’s chandler.  He sold his product to provision the ships that sailed into the port and his shop was on Frederick Street, which was near the docks.  John Gill often had mariners in his home as boarders.  For years, I knew that his wife’s name was Susannah, however, I did not know what her maiden name was.  Those were the pre-internet days.

About 20 years ago, I discovered that the National Archives had the British 1861 census online.  I found John Gill and his family.  It was at this point that I discovered that John Gill was born in Workington, Cumberland.  From the 1861 census, I learned Susannah was born in Bewcastle, Cumberland.  I still could not find John and Susannah’s marriage information in Liverpool.  I thought that I would try looking for their marriage information in Workington.  Bingo!!  They had been married in Workington.

I discovered Susannah’s maiden name.  Believe it or not, it was Armstrong.  The marriage record said Susan Armstrong, but I have been through the records for Bewcastle and I have not been able to find any record of a Susan Armstrong.  I checked the IGI and found her christening record as well as her 11 siblings’.  I found out what her parents names were.  I ordered in the microfilm and found that the christening records for all of the children included the wording “son or daughter of Joseph Armstrong of Bank End and his wife Mary formerly Scott.”  What a treasure trove.  However, I failed to make a copy of the records and discovered this week that I have no backup, source or citation.  I have already ordered the microfilm as the records have not yet been digitized.

In September 2010, I retired from the military.  I felt strongly impressed to take a trip to England for 3 weeks.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, I did the trip to England alone I spent time in London to see what I could find there and then travelled to Carlisle, with a stop in Nottingham to do the Robin Hood thing.

 

Once I was in Carlisle, one of the things that I did was to visit St. Michael’s church in Workington as the family had some significant events happen there, such as marriages.  I was looking for my fourth great-grandparents’ deaths and burials.  I did not find Joseph Armstrong’s death or burial.  However, I did find Joseph’s wife, Mary Scott’s, headstone.  This was a miracle.  Some of the cemeteries in England had fallen into such disrepair that the government set up cemetery boards to look after them.  In Workington, a lot of the headstones had been damaged through neglect and vandalism.  The least damaged ones were placed around the cemeteries, against the walls.  A lot of the damaged ones were used in building roads and buildings.  I was fortunate.  I found Mary’s headstone at St. John’s Church, just up the road from St. Michael’s, and on it was Mary’s information as well as 3 sons and 1 grandson.

I also drove to Bewcastle Church.  It wasn’t hard to find as there were sign posts directing me there.  I spent about an hour visiting the church where my fourth-great-grandparents were married and my third-great-grandmother and her siblings were christened.  What a feeling.

 

I then consulted with a couple of maps along with a couple of strangers that I could rope into helping me to find Bank End Farm.  One of the strangers was like me and not from the area.  It was an interesting conversation.  We decided on a route and then parted company with well wishes on both sides.

Have you every tried to find anything in a place where there are no road names or numbers and all you have is a map that covers the county and another map that shows where the farms are but not the roads?  If I had known the way, it should have only taken about 15 – 20 minutes, but an hour and a half later, I still hadn’t found it.  I almost gave up. 

Then, for some reason, I took note of the name of a farm.  I now know why I did, but about 10 minutes later, I realized that I knew that name and that it was close to the farm that I was looking for.  I looked for a safe place to pull over and found it about 10 minutes down the road.  I consulted my small map that had the farm names.  This farm was right across the road from the farm that I was looking for.  I turned around and found the farm again only on my left this time.  I pulled over as best I could, and looked to the right.  No farm.  I looked at the map again.  There was a road off to the right.  I looked to the right again.  No road.  I looked more to the north and saw the road.  Still no farm.  I looked at the map again.  The farm was situated a short distance up that road.  I looked at the road and followed it.  There were some trees, and, guess what, a house!  I drove up the road and parked my car.  I got out and walked to the sign for the farm.  “Bank End”.

  

I found what I was looking for.  I tried to take some pictures through the gate.  The owners of the time had a dog that let them know that I was there.  The man came to the gate and we talked.  I was so excited that I was almost crying.  I had found my ancestors’ home.

  

I was allowed on the property to take pictures and was taken in to see a couple of rooms.  They did not want me to take any pictures inside as they had started renovations and explained that they wanted to take the house to as close to the original as possible.

Joseph Armstrong’s initials were still in the wall of the house where he put them in 1773.

I knew that Joseph had sold the farm in 1818 but I did not know why until about a couple of weeks before I went back to England in July.  The financial situation between 1812 and 1818 forced the sale of the house.

I have done more research on the family in the past few years and have found several distant relatives, three of who I met in the summer of 2011, and a fourth cousin in Wales, who I have also met at the same as well as many potential relatives with the Armstrong Clan Association.  I am still looking for when and where Joseph Armstrong died and was buried.

The Maritime History Archives

One day in early December, I started poking around the internet to see what was available in the way of family history here. There are 2 Family History Centers but they are 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours away from Gander. I started poking around the online holdings for Memorial University and found that they may be holding more that I may be interested in than I originally thought. I managed to find the page that the ships’ logs and crew lists information is on. Unfortunately, they are not digitized. They are also not in the same location as some of the other maritime records. Memorial University has more than 1 archive for storing these records.

Upon finding the page that I need and realizing that if I was to study these records, I would have to go to St John’s and visit the archives. I found the contact information and saw that they were not open on weekends, but have excellent hours the rest of the week excluding holidays. I then called the archive and talked with one of the archivists. We had a delightful chat and I found that I would be able to use my camera to photograph the records that I am interested. At that point, I still thought that it would be spring before I would be going.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we decided to drive to St John’s, spend the night, and drive back the next day. This meant that I could visit the archives as well as doing a couple of other things. I emailed the list of ships that I knew that my great-grandfather, Richard Fielder, had sailed in. I have other ancestors to get information for as well but I thought that I would start with him. They found almost all of the crews lists the next day. They explained that the ship’s logs are normally stored with the crews lists, but all of the ones that I wanted were not there. I just hoped that I would be able to find the information that I was looking for.

We were a little late in starting out. Consequently, we did not arrive at the archives until about 1:30 pm.

When we were arrived, we were treated very well. We were shown to a table where the crews lists were waiting for me. I set up my equipment and started photographing the records. Because of being late, I decided to photograph first and examine them later. I did take a quick look at a couple and found that my great-grandmother’s brother, John Armstrong Peterson, was on a couple of these ships. I also found that the information that I was looking for would be on these records as they also include any discipline that was administered.

My husband was a great help for me. He looked after the records as I completed each set so that I could concentrate on photographing. We managed to complete the “project within a project” before they closed and actually left with time to spare.

I am looking forward to my next trip to the Maritime History Archive. I don’t anticipate this until spring because I have a couple of other trips planned.