Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A 'Bill of Divorcement'

I'm certain I've apologized too many times for the months-long gaps in postings on this blog. Suffice to say it's been a challenging year, the genealogy and family history hasn't been at the top of my priority list, and I'm looking forward to 2012 being a space of time to get back into it.

That said, I just received from Sue Adams a transcription of Soren P. Guhl's "bill of divorcement" -- I love the formal sound of that -- from "Kerstine B.M. Guhl" in 1864. Kerstine was Soren's first wife; our line back to him goes through Mariane Madsen, a plural wife. Anyway, I've had the image of the document posted on the website for some time, but Sue has actually figured out what all the scribblings are. Click here to read it.


Thanks to Sue for this information. Every little bit helps to color in the blank spots about our ancestors' lives.


Monday, July 25, 2011

A few more items on the Caroline page

What better way to spend (Utah) Pioneer Day than to add information to our family website? I'm finishing up with the information so graciously passed along by cousin Rob McIntosh.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, in 1977 Rob solicited some recollections from Clover, Utah, resident Irene Russell about our ancestors, and she wrote three brief pieces:
Each sheds a little more light on the previously dim corners of our family's history. With everyone chipping in, a clearer narrative emerges. Also, thanks to Sue McIntosh Adams for sending along the photo of John Willard McIntosh to use with his history of Caroline.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Caroline, revised and expanded


Cousin Rob McIntosh sent along more -- great -- information about one of our most interesting and impressive ancestors: Caroline Elizabeth Caldwell McIntosh. I've revamped the main page, providing links to the sometimes lengthy content that was there previously, and links to some of what Bob just sent along.

In addition to the pair of histories we've had up for a while -- one by Ann Neddo and the other by John W. McIntosh -- Bob has sent along two letters written by Caroline to her son, and our (cousins) great-grandfather William Abram McIntosh (1859-1903).

Now, not only is the fact that we have letters written by her interesting, but the timeline makes it even more odd, as Bob pointed out:

Looks like while he was a student at Brigham Young Academy in 1889. Note: he was married with children at the time. Not sure how that worked out (family in St. John; him in Provo?).
Indeed, "Willie," as Caroline calls him, was married to Nancy Lena Guhl in 1883, and they had children. Be nice to know the story behind that.

Interestingly, Caroline spends a lot of time admonishing her son about "drinking and smoking." It's actually pretty funny.

I've also posted a link to a pdf document of the original aforementioned letters -- but in that same file there also are letters from a nurse in Billings, Mont., who, according to Bob, "
cared for Aunt Roah [our Grandmother Mary Anne McIntosh Henderson's sister] when she had typhoid fever, and from Gertrude Amelia McIntosh (d. 1918)."

Still to come: Bob sent along a letter/oral history from Irene Russell, of Clover, Utah, who died at age 97 in the early 1980s. She wrote some sketches of a few family members that I'll transcribe as I get time.

Once again, thanks to Bob for this great information about our family.

Monday, July 11, 2011

New photo book identifications

I'm not even going to bother making an excuse for my absence on this blog. It is what it is.

But I have good news: One of our far-flung (second) cousins, Rob McIntosh, was introduced to The Henderson Reunion website and he was able to identify a few people in Grandma Mary McIntosh's 1910 photo book. So, in Rob's own words:
No. 1c is most definitely Nellie Elizabeth Hibbert (married Orin Packard, who died, then James R. McNiven). 7d is Caroline McIntosh (Neves) and sister, Gertie. 7e I am quite sure is Gertie. I believe 7f is her brothers, Lester (left) and Fon (right). I believe 8a is Nellie Packard (same as no. 1c) and Sylvia Griffin (wife of Henry Griffin). The person you have identified as Nancy Henderson looks exactly like a person identified as Dora Isabell Henderson on a funeral card (she died in 1912) that was in my Grandmother's (May McNiven Partridge) records.

I have never seen pictures like the ones you have in that album--so many smiles, which you almost never see from that time period.
As I told Rob, it is so nice to know someone is reading and exploring the website, and also quite a thrill that we're filling in a few more blanks.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Walking over to the Lindsay side of the family

Haven't done a whole lot with the Lindsay branch of our family, so I thought I'd hop onto that limb today with a look at William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. I should explain right up front that over the years I've tried two or three times to contact modern-day Lindsays via e-mail, asking permission to re-post items from their websites on our Henderson Family Reunion page, but have never received a response. (The e-mails weren't bounced back, so I'm sure someone got them; I guess they're just not interested in the correspondence. If anyone knows a member of the Lindsay family, please let them know we'd love to have them in here helping, commenting, showing us the way.)

So, I've forged ahead, given them due credit and haven't been asked to take them down despite all the copyright notifications on the Lindsay websites. I sincerely hope they don't mind.

As any of you know who've looked at the Lindsay pages linked to from our Henderson site, I've had photos up of Lindsays I had no way of identifying. But my visit last summer to Marsha's house provided me with plenty of information and I'm now in the process of matching names to the faces.

William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr., was born Dec. 25, 1821, in Jamestown, Canada
, the son of William Buckminster Lindsay, Sr., of Vermont, and Sarah Myers, of Yorkshire, England. He grew up on "his father's 77-acre farm near Rideau Lake, Leeds County, Canada."

He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 20 in 1842, and married Julia Parks on Feb. 19, 1845, in Nauvoo, Ill. (Julia and William Jr. were the parents of Julia Ann Lindsay, who married Hyrum Henderson; Julia Ann and Hyrum were the parents of my grandfather, David Monroe Henderson.) According to the account by Rex B. Lindsay/David J. Wardell, there exists an autobiography by Julia Parks Lindsay. It would be really nice to get a copy, or find out where we could get one to distribute to family members.

In 1846, as the Latter-day Saints were being hounded out of Nauvoo, William B. Lindsay, Jr. and Julia P. Lindsay were preparing to leave when he was called to serve as a guard for Brigham Young. This delayed Julia P.'s departure, and she stayed with her sister, Fannie, until

"there was another company about ready to start. I had the opportunity of going with my brother-in-law. I felt very anxious to go for I had heard that my husband was quite sick with the measles and I knew that he would be exposed to the cold and would not have much to comfort him and although I felt very loath to leave my dear sister, yet I felt it a duty to go.

"I started, but it being a very rainy spring, the roads were very bad, and I had traveled a whole week and never got into the wagon to ride, and some days we would only go two miles. I did not overtake my husband until I got to Garden Grove, and he was just getting so that he could work a little."

Then came polygamy. William Jr. married a second wife, Parmelia Charlotte Ann Blackman, "with the permission of his first wife, Julia."

Later, the family arrived in Utah, settling in Kaysville in 1853 (which, ironically, is where Samuel Henderson and his family first landed in Utah. But tragedy struck when "two of Julia's three children, all girls, were stricken with scarlet fever and were laid low by the hand of death in the fall of 1853."

William Jr. took a third wife, Sarah Elizabeth Henderson, in 1854. They all lived there about 13 years, and were farmers. In 1860, they divided into separate homes. And four years later, moved to the Bear Lake Valley.

In the fall of 1869, twelve of the family came down with typhoid fever. There were no doctors in the Bear Lake Valley at that time. Two boys died at this time. One was a ten year old son of Julia and the other was a six year old son of Parmelia. Both died within twenty four hours of each other. For three months the house was like a hospital and they did not know how ow whether they would be able to survive the ordeal. Minnie Lindsay Sorenson describes the conditions in the Bear Lake Valley in those first years in her history of William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr.

So, there's yet another history of William Jr. we should track down.


It's also worth noting that Julia P. Lindsay was the first Relief Society president in the area. Indeed, several years ago when Jan and I were vacationing near Bear Lake with our two youngest daughters, we visited the Paris, Idaho, storefront "museum" and our daughter Sarah noticed a large portrait of Julia hanging on the wall. And although the Paris Tabernacle was closed for renovations at the time, cousin Kathleen Wheeler had visited there a few years earlier and took photos of "hair flowers" in the tabernacle that included some of our Great-Grandmother Julia's actual hair. (It's an odd custom, I think, but one that apparently was not uncommon at the time.)

I think you'll find it all pretty interesting reading. I think it would be great to get access to those two books, too. Anybody have any information? Kathleen, is Julia's autobiography the one you said was available at the Daughter of Utah Pioneers museum?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Soren and Mariane, continued


Since my last post, I haven't been able to shake the image of Soren dying in squalor in Council Bluffs. So I dug a little deeper into the cache of Caldwell-McIntosh information provided by our cousins, and have reconfigured/edited/organized/added to the Soren Web page. It's still far from complete, but it scratches a little more of the history regarding Mariane Madsen Pedersen Christensen Guhl (pictured at right) and even the marriage to his first wife: Kerstine or Kristine Harde.

There are many conflicts in the record, as far as I can tell. On the LDS Church's familysearch.org website, for example -- I haven't yet investigated how the records might be different on the much more detailed newfamilysearch site -- there appear to be extra children in the family/families.

There also is no record that I have yet found about a divorce between Mariane -- our direct ancestor -- and Soren. There's even some conflicting information about his "first" family's whereabouts after his involvement with the Morrisites.

Perhaps I've prompted more questions than I've answered, but it's all quite interesting -- at least to me -- and I'm determined to keep looking through the Caldwell-McIntosh trove for answers, as well as other avenues of investigation. Soren made the papers here in Utah, and he may well have been mentioned in papers in Soda Springs, Idaho (if they had one), Deer Lodge, Mont. (if they had one) and perhaps even additional mentions in the Council Bluffs, Iowa, paper besides his obituary.

Anyway, if you have time to look through the updated page, let me know what I've missed, messed up or where I might find more information.