Family History
One of my goals this year is to work on family history. I
think Alison’s efforts last year sparked my interest in doing family history. I
really enjoyed going and doing sealings for couples that Alison helped to
find, and I wanted to do temple work for my own ancestors.
I am blessed to be part of an active Latter-day Saint
family. I am also fortunate to have a rich pioneer heritage. I knew many
members of my family have spent a lot of time doing family history work. I was
a little worried about being able to find someone whose work needed to be done.
Debbie reassured me that if someone says all of their family history work has
been done they are lying. There is always more family history that can be
done. She was right.
Debbie is really good at doing family history. I didn’t know
where to start when it came to family history, so I enlisted her help. Debbie
was gung ho to get started. She got information about my grandparents and began
looking for a starting point.
We went through my grandma Pat’s line. We went through her
father Delbert Johnson – his mother Elizabeth Sellers – her father Joseph
Sellers – his father Allen Sellers – to his father Thomas Sellers. Thomas had 8
children with Diadama Curtis. Their daughter Emeline Elizabeth Sellers married
a man named Joseph Lyon and had a daughter named Mary Jane. She died around
1839 and Joseph remarried Emeline’s sister Laura Sellers. Laura and Joseph had
6 children together. The work had already been done for Joseph, Emeline, Laura, and
their children. Debbie looked at this family and recognized there was more work
that needed to be done.
Debbie taught me how to use family search. We got my family
tree all set up and I learned how to navigate it. She also helped me get access
to ancestry.com and taught me how to do research and find people. She then
helped me get to work. We looked through all kinds of documentation and found a
lot of new information. I went through censuses, birth certificates, death
certificates, draft documents, voter records, and even tombstones. It was an
interesting experience. When I found stuff it could be really exciting, and
when I got stuck it could get a little frustrating. Overall I didn’t really
like doing family history, but I am glad I did it.
I researched and found information for the children and
grandchildren of Joseph Lyon. I found everything I could about all the children
and grandchildren. Joseph and Laura’s two oldest girls were twins born in 1843.
As far as I can tell one girl, Didamaia, never married. The other girl, Elvira,
married a man named Francis Narian Pope. Francis needed all of his work done.
During my research, I found that Francis also had a wife before Elvira, Mary,
whose work has also not been done. I also found that Joseph’s youngest son,
Edward Wilson, married Mary Louisa, whose work had not been done. Together they
had 3 children – Elsie, Fred, and Leora. They all needed their work done and
had spouses who needed work.
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