Correction on William Whitehead Sr Where He Came From

I would like to update some information that I had previously posted about where William Whitehead Sr grew up.  One of the perks of the Internet is to be able to connect with people all over the world.  Early in August of this year I was contacted my a 'cousin' in England who grew up and lives where William was from.  He was able to send me a description of the mill that the Whiteheads owned at some point.  This information clarifies some of the information that we had.

http://www.hamandbud.co.uk/industrial_valleys/denshawvalepw.html

I am hoping to get more info as time goes on.

I invite any one who happens upon my blog and can provide further insight and info to contact me.  Thanks for the input.

Common Trend in Researching Our Family Lines

One of the troubles with doing family history research is that there are many struggles in verifying information, finding information and keeping up the 'courage' (as they say in French) to keep plodding through even though it seems so difficult to find anything!!!

Many years ago my mother was valiantly writing letters, connecting with cousins and doing all she could to research her grandfather George Walter Morton's line.  She then rekindled the fires and spent many hours at research libraries trying to continue her search.  This can get discouraging.  With the onset of my quest to share stories and help my children know their roots, my mother decided it was time for me to take on the task.  She sent me her binder of all the info she has gathered in the past 30 years.  I am grateful for this binder.

Here is the lineage to my story:
Diane Morton (my mother born October 3, 1943)
Jack Winston Morton her father 1914-1982
George Walter Morton (1882-1979)- his parents were Robert Morton (  )and Eliza Aurelia Hall (1847-1921) (I love that name!)
Eliza Aurelia Hall's parents were George Hall and Emily Jane Chisholm (also a very sweet name)
Emily Jane's parents were Alexander Chisholm and Elizabeth Gilbert
* The Chisholm's were United Empire Loyalists who came from Scotland to establish Canada under British reign.  I just discovered a website of a researcher who has recently disproved the family lineage once thought accurate for years.  He researched land petitions, military records, census records, and Loyalist records.

I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the details, but I found myself enthralled in this discovery. I even discovered that one of my ancestors, Colin "a b'Oige" Chisholm who was born February 01, 1749/50 in Middle Knockfin Scotland and died January 18, 1781 in The Battle of Cowpens, North Carolina of the Revolutionary war.


Immediatley I called my five year old and we set right to researching the battle.  We searched the web and discovered stories, battle strategy, maps, diagrams and pictures. What 5 year old boy doesn't think that this is cool?  I love that even when we don't always find exactly what we are looking for there is always something that will help us feel closer to our family and understand where they have been.

An image of a reenactment I found on www.battleofcowpens.com

Also on the site I found this to be quite interesting: social media mixed with history.  I don't think that I'll watch another Americian Revolution movie the same again!




The Battle of Cowpens earned General Daniel Morgan the reputation of a master strategist. Because such detailed strategies were rarely used in 18th century warfare, The Battle of Cowpens is still studied at Westpoint Military Academy for its strategic significance.
Had Daniel Morgan and his Continental forces lost the Battle of Cowpens, it is likely that General Cornwallis would have been successful in crushing the rebellion in South Carolina and beginning his move into North Carolina. The victory at Cowpens gave the militia and patriots a renewed since of optimism and belief that the war for independence could be won. Note: The final battle scene in the 2000 movie The Patriot, with Mel Gibson, is based on a combination of the Battle at Guildord's Couthouse and the Battle of Cowpens. Gibson's character is a combination of Fancis Marion (the Swamp Fox) and Daniel Morgan. 

How Much Do Our Genes Effect Who We Are?

I think that this is going to be an on going discussion and area of research for me in my family research and blog.  I am going to use a small example:

Yep the discussion is about pickles.  When my mom was a school girl she and her friend Sandra Peterson would pool their lunch money and buy themselves a jar of pickles.  They'd eat the pickles for lunch and drink the juice afterwards.  They sure loved pickles.  This love affair with pickles for my mother.  Whenever we were at a fast food place she would always order 'extra' pickles.

This past summer we were celebrating my five year old's birthday and he wanted pickles and popcorn for lunch.  We had just returned from Costco and bought the super size pickle jar.  Before I knew it the four of my kids ate the ENTIRE jar of pickles and enormous bowl of popcorn.


Today I bought a regular 1 litre jar of pickles and they managed to eat the whole thing for their after school snack.  


This love of pickles seems a bit extreme.  


I will report back on my genetic findings. 

Sarah Monson Whitehead Childhood Sugar Tooth and Celebrations Part 2

Any candy we had between the 4th of July and Xmas, we took an egg to the store to buy it and we got as much as we do for 39 cents now.  You see our money had more value then, even our egg.

Speaking of the 4th of July and Xmas also Thanksgiving.  The 4th of July was our summer vacation.   We really had an honest to goodness nickel.  I would go to the refreshment stands to see where I could get the most for my nickel, had to hurry and spend it before I lost it or it burned a hole in the corner of my handkerchief where it was tied.  I usually settled for  candy (sugar dobs as we called them) so I could take some home at night for tomorrow and would carry the sack twisted tightly at the top. In those days the would place the old benches from the “meeting house” out under the beautiful trees and all the mothers, father or who wanted to could sit and visit and watch the children’s races and tug-o-war etc.  I usually joined the foot races.  Rachel couldn’t run. She was too fat and not such a fun lover as I.  I won many prizes which would usually be a bar of popcorn with a fan attached.  Oh the joy of that.  Mother also held that.  One race I won a nickel.  I was really a millionaire then.  Oh no I didn’t spend it that day-it would go for a new hair ribbon later.

This is just a photo that I found that shows how Sarah and Her sisters would have been dressed like when she was a girl.

This is a random picture of a group of people in the 1880's having a picnic.

One day I was more than usual candy hungry, I teased my mother for an egg. (I think at that time she was beginning to hide some away for Easter, so we could all have plenty on that eventful day, so she was a little reluctant to give it to me.  She by nature was very gentle and kind-it was hard to say “no” when she knew we were so eager) so she finally said “Oh run out and chase a hen up a greasy board and maybe she will lay you an egg”, so I went out thinking I was licked, but I finally saw an old black hen singing away as she picked away in the grass, I tho’t it wouldn’t hurt to try just chasing her “around” so I started my chase.  She finally ran for the “coop” and as she hopped up on the step, my chase was rewarded with success and I'd go and get my candy.  

We always went bare footed in the summer to save our yearly pr of shoes which were of a coarse leather and firmly riveted as well as sewn to ensure their life. (quite a difference to the ones of today, which seem to be just glued).

We had an artition well on our lot, a pipe which continually flows a stream of very cold water.  The waste water formed a slough at the back.  I can hear the frogs yet singing or croaking at night each in its own pitch, high, low and medium.  It was music to sleep by and I missed it very much when we left the old home where so many happy days had been spent.  It is needless to say there were “pollywogs” also many of them and now you have guessed, we waded in the water and caught them  by the can full.  We would take them to the large sawdust pile, empty the can and watch them crawl around and get covered with sawdust.  They looked so funny.  Oh no, we did not kill them we loaded them back and put them back in the water where they would wiggle happily away-(I could not touch one of the slimy creatures today if I were paid).

Sarah Monson Whitehead Part 2- Happy Childhood

I wanted to share my great grandmother's own writen life story.  I am truly grateful to have this treasure to read and share with my own children and family members.  I am inspired to do this as well.

I was born in Preston Idaho Aug 5, 1888.  At the time of my birth, the manifesto was taking place, and all plural marriages were checked and no more allowed.  I was the seventh of ten children.  When I was just a baby we moved to Franklin Ida.(the oldest town in Idaho, the first to be called a town).  I remember how proud we were to be living in that place, in later years up to the present, Preston just seven miles north became much larger, as have a good many others, as Franklin remains yet, about the same as when I lived there 50 yrs. ago, but it still holds a very dear spot in my heart.  My happy childhood days were spent there.

picture of Preston found at www.presonidaho.org

My parents were in very humble circumstances, my father was a carpenter, cabinet maker and an architect.  He worked mainly at the architect and cabinet building  he made all the furniture in  our home everything but the stove.  He always owned a sawmill, when I was very small it was down near the Cub River in a hallow place at Franklin Idaho.  Later he moved just south of the R. R. station and built a very large building which covered all his machinery each of its kind in separate rooms.  There was an engine room where the huge steam engine controlled the running of the log sawing, the lumber planing, the shingle machine, the lath and all the other contraptions I remember so well in that huge place.  My father was very particular that we children were not allowed  in the mill when it was in operation, but my half brother Brigham who run the log sawing mac. would let us ride on a fresh log he had just began to slab, and as I look back now I remember the thrill we got, also the terrific danger of us riding on that log approaching closer every minute to that large round saw whirling so fast to saw the lumber.  We would go toward it quite slowly as it sawed and when the slab dropped, away we would go back like a whirlwind.  I shudder as I write this.  This same brother had his right hand cut off, but I am quite sure that was done in the lumber planing mac. and that's another thing I shall never forget, when he was brought into our house.  If ever a little girl was terrified it was I that day and I never ask for another ride or went near the mill when it was running, ever again.

We enjoyed playing on the large sawdust pile in our bare feet or hop around from log to log in the large yard, or pick spruce gum from them.  That was the only gum we ever had.  We tho’t it was very good and were satisfied and content to enjoy it.  Rachel could always find the biggest nests of it and would pick and pick till she would have a whole spool box full.  Spool boxes were the only kind of boxes we ever had.  They would give them to us in the store when the thread was sold, we used them for pencil boxes at school.

Sunday morning was one of the happiest days of my life.  We only had one pr. of shoes and I can still see us all lined up on the long porch of our home in summer, bright and early Sunday morning, each cleaning our own shoes.  We learned very early in life that we had to do our own work as our mother had all she could do and more than she should have had.  We would shine away on our shoes singing “never be late” or “Sabbath morning comes with gladness, little hearts are filled with joy” which was one of my favorites.  I really was filled with joy- I loved it all and we made quite a parade as we walked the mile to Sunday School to the sand-rock one roomed “meeting house”.  We sat on home made benches and there was a class in every corner and in the center, but we all had a dark green curtain around.

I remember so well too, a little Welsh man, who was blessed with a good loud voice for singing, who used to “Lead the singing”.  He would say, “Now this song is for the ‘ittle ones, but I want yo all to sing”.  Dear old brother Nash and then Bro. Herd who taught us to sing “Little purple pansies,” he was a fat jolly fellow, whom every one loved.

Now I am beginning to wonder if I should have started to write a sketch of my life.  I’m afraid you have all laid the book down now but it is fun to be reminiscing and recalling the happiness of my childhood.

Back to Bro. Herd when we kids had measles my father was away so mother called brother Herd and Bro Durrant to administer to us.  The first place we went when we were well was to the store where Bro Herd was manager (the old union store) and he gave us, Rachel and I, a whole orange each.  We were so thrilled we couldn’t get home fast enough to show mother.  The only other time we ever had an orange or tasted one, was when Father went to Salt Lake to Conference he would bring us home an orange. 

When we Know Where We're From...

Yesterday my eight year old son showed me a pencil that he had 'carved' (i.e. took all the yellow off).  He told me it took him 3 days.  I said- "That's the Icelandic blood in you, making beautiful things out of plain and normal pieces of wood".
Here are some very old samples of wood carvings we saw while in Iceland.

After I made the comment he said, "maybe I'll go to Iceland to learn how to carve wood one day."  Who knows?

Sometimes You Don't Always Like What You Find

There is always a risk when doing family history research that you might be the one who finds the skeletons in the closet or things that aren't pleasant.  This happened to me when I was researching my Bowie line at the Archives in Halifax.

Johanna, the wife to James and the mother of  9 children died in November of 1892 which meant that the two youngest girls were only 1 year old and 10 years old.  They were sent to an orphange called St Joseph's.  One of the archivists found a record of Mary and Agnes receiving their First Communion and their confirmation at the orphange.

I often wondered why John George left Halifax at such a young age (14).  I suppose that things at home weren't great- his mother died, his youngest brother had died 5 years before his mother.  His father remarried.  There was a whole world out there, why not?

William's youngest daughter Frances's daughter Ella was married and died four days after giving birth.  Francis and her husband raised the baby as her own.  I am sad to think that the family was not able to step in and help.  What about the step mom?  I wonder if this mystery can be solved?  That's one of the hooks when doing family history- figuring out what really happened and why.