Nicole and Diana discuss the life of Phinehas Richards, Nicole’s husband’s 4th-great-grandfather. Nicole shares details about Phinehas’s life, including his birth in Massachusetts, his marriage to Wealthy Dewey, and his work as a cabinet maker. She recounts Phinehas’s conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his baptism by Brigham Young, and his ordination as a high priest. Diana talks about Phinehas receiving a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Senior in Kirtland, Ohio. They then shift focus to Joseph Smith Senior, the father of the prophet Joseph Smith. Diana shares information about his life, his calling as a patriarch, and a revelation he received that is now Doctrine and Covenants section 4. Nicole explains how listeners can find the patriarchal blessings of their ancestors on The Church’s website and shares her personal experience with requesting and transcribing her ancestors’ blessings. Listeners will learn about the lives of Phinehas Richards and Joseph Smith Senior, their connections to early church history, and how to access patriarchal blessings online.
Phinehas Richards’ journal exemplifies the treasure trove of information ancestral journals can provide genealogists. From his 1837 journal, researchers discovered intimate details about his 1818 marriage to Wealthy Dewey, occupations as cabinet maker and house painter, and his religious conversion that led to baptism by his cousin Brigham Young. The journal illuminated family connections that influenced migration patterns, as relatives first introduced him to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before he later traveled to preach to his New England relatives. Beyond basic facts, his writings revealed relationships with significant historical figures like Joseph Smith Sr., providing context to his religious experiences such as receiving a patriarchal blessing. This journal, discovered through citations in published family histories and ultimately located in church archives, demonstrates how personal writings can uncover extended family details, illuminate motivation behind life decisions, supplement institutional records, and add rich context that transforms ancestors from mere names and dates into multidimensional individuals with understandable life stories.
This summary was generated by Google Gemini and Claude.ai.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 354: Ancestors’ Journals – Phinehas Richards in Church Archives. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.
Nicole (41s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro today.
Diana (49s):
Hi Nicole. How are you doing?
Nicole (51s):
I’m Doing great. How are you? How was your research trip and your speaking trip to Alabama?
Diana (56s):
It was great. You know, we talk a lot about going to visit the places where we research all the time and so I finally got to go research at Chambers County at the courthouse and I got to go to the Alabama Archives, which was the same place I gave my seminar and it’s always so great. You know, I love teaching the Research Like a Pro methodology to people and several of them were podcast listeners, so hello all of you who were there and came up and said hi to me. It was so fun to meet our podcast listeners in person and I signed a lot of books so it was super fun and I made some discoveries both at the archives and at the courthouse and I got to go visit the cemetery where Thomas B Royston is buried and see the land that he would’ve owned.
Diana (1m 48s):
So yeah, that was a great trip.
Nicole (1m 50s):
My favorite part was when you and Dad sent a picture of the church where Thomas B Royston was buried and how you ended up playing the piano at their service.
Diana (1m 60s):
Yeah, that was really fun. We were just there visiting on a Sunday morning looking at the headstone and the congregation arrived a very, very small group and they invited us to come in and you know, I play the piano so that was super fun. Dad said my wife to play the piano and so we chose Rock of Ages and Amazing Grace. And then Dad wanted to do Lily of the Valley, which is not in our latter day Saint Hymnal, but it was in the Baptist hymnal and it’s one of his favorites. So that was super fun to get to sing that with them, you know, I always loved playing so it was great.
Nicole (2m 38s):
What happened to their usual pianist?
Diana (2m 41s):
Usually their pastor plays and leads.
Nicole (2m 44s):
That sounds like a lot to do for one person.
Diana (2m 47s):
He plays, he leads music and then he gives the sermons so he got to have a little break this time.
Nicole (2m 52s):
That’s so nice of everyone to invite you in and to be able to experience that together, how fun. And were you just trying to find songs that you knew? Is that why you picked those ones?
Diana (3m 4s):
Well I’ve been playing hymns since I was 12 or 13, you know, so pretty much any hymn I can play, just sight reading. So I looked through it and I could have played any of them. It’s always easier if you actually know kind of how it goes, but we were just trying to find something. Yeah, that we both knew.
Nicole (3m 21s):
That’s nice. Yeah, they’re so accommodating to include you guys. That’s awesome.
Diana (3m 26s):
Oh, they were so great and they, when we told ’em what we were doing, they were trying to think of Roystons that lived in the area, you know, that were descendants still and sure our little service. Then the pastor and his wife led us over to the land ’cause I had a map there and you know, there was like some back roads we went on and so that was really nice to have a little guide helping us to go find the actual place. So we really appreciated that. It was really great.
Nicole (3m 54s):
So was the Royston land still farmland today?
Diana (3m 58s):
No, it looked like it pretty much was just back to forest. There was a lot of land and so there might’ve been some, but I am pretty sure it’s been all divided up into lots of different owners and what we noticed that most people were running cattle, so it was grassland and so we saw lots and lots of cattle. That seemed to be the main occupation. And then also the pastor told us that there’s an occupation there where he would go mark trees, it would be cut down, so forestry business. And so that’s what it was rather than actual farming. We didn’t see any real farms, we just saw the cattle and a lot of forests.
Diana (4m 38s):
So yeah, that
Nicole (4m 39s):
Is so interesting.
Diana (4m 40s):
Very different, but still very rural.
Nicole (4m 43s):
Well, I’m glad that they were able to help you find the Royston land and that’s neat that they were kind of your tour guides.
Diana (4m 51s):
Yeah, they were very accommodating and they, you know, we had several people ask us to, you know, see if we wanted to go to lunch with them or come over for lunch, but there was a really big rainstorm coming in that afternoon and so we felt like we better get back to our hotel, but we still ended up hitting that rain and it was, it was really a lot of rain. We don’t get rain like that in Utah, so we’ve experienced the really intense rain in the southeast now.
Nicole (5m 18s):
Oh my goodness. Well good job.
Diana (5m 21s):
Yeah, it was fun. How about you? What have you been working on?
Nicole (5m 23s):
Oh, just trying to catch up on all the different study group things, giving feedback and getting presentations ready. I was asked to give a class this weekend at the Pima County Genealogical Society about AI image generators that are free. So I’ve been thinking about that a little bit and just trying to keep up with all these classes and lectures.
Diana (5m 44s):
Spring has a lot, doesn’t it? We have a lot of different things going on. I know I’ve got three AI lectures this week and it is a lot, but we like teaching, so it’s fun for us. Well let’s do some announcements. We have our Research Like a Pro Webinar Series coming up on May 17th, and this will be a Saturday at 11:00 AM Mountain Time. The title is Avoiding assumptions: Tracing a family in 19th Century London. And our presenter is Jessica Taylor Morgan. She’s an accredited genealogist in England, she’s one of our fabulous researchers.
Diana (6m 32s):
And this case study examines the challenges of English genealogical research by focusing on George White, who was born in 1863 and died in 1928 in London. Our case explores three main topics: the varying availability of historical records, the diverse occupations typical of the period, and the challenges presented by misleading records. So the topics will be London, England, record availability, occupations and misleading records. So we’ve had a lot of webinars in the United States and a couple focused on Germany. And so this is fun to be going to England and especially London, which is so difficult because so many people there, so difficult to track your person.
Diana (7m 16s):
So a little bit about Jessica. As I said, she’s an accredited genealogist. She worked as a professional genealogist at Ancestry for nine years and worked on their Ancestry’s public relations team as well as doing research. And she provided research for shows such as “Who Do You Think You Are?”, “Long Lost Family,” and “A New Leaf,” as well as the award-winning Sundance film “Railroad Ties.” She is a graduate in medieval history and specializes in UK, Irish, Scottish US, and immigration research. And she’s also a professional writer and loves creating stories that help people engage and explore their family tree. So we’re excited to hear from Jessica. Our next Research Like a Pro study group, begins August 27th and registration begins May 21st at 10:00 AM Mountain Time and ends August 21st.
Diana (8m 2s):
So that is coming up soon. We hope everyone listening is considering doing this study group such a great way to make progress on your research and actually put the Research Like a Pro process into action. If you have done the process before and would like to be a peer group leader, our our website has the application and then as always, we invite you to join our newsletter for coupons and to see all the latest items that we are doing, such as videos and blog posts. We have an upcoming conference that we’re excited about. This will be National Genealogical Society Conference, and that is May 23rd to 26th in Louisville, Kentucky. And Nicole and I will be doing a joint presentation on research plans and artificial intelligence.
Diana (8m 45s):
So we’re excited to share all the latest and greatest of using AI with research planning.
Nicole (8m 51s):
It’ll be neat to discuss research planning. Again, you know, we’ve talked about it a few times with AI and with each new announcement and update about AI and the new capabilities. It’s neat to think about how those capabilities can be applied to making AI more useful for research planning and writing. So it will be neat.
Diana (9m 13s):
Absolutely. And you know, we just get a presentation done with AI and then something new comes out and we have to add that in. But it’s fun to see the developments, it’s pretty astounding and it’s neat to learn how to work with it and to share our experience.
Nicole (9m 29s):
Well today I’m excited that we are going to talk about our series that we’ve been doing about church records and how they can help us in our genealogical research to understand the lives of our ancestors. And as you know, I’ve been using my own and my husband’s ancestors who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to help me dive into church records and historical context. And so today we get to talk about Journals some more with Phinehas Richards and various records found in church archives. So this is my husband’s fourth great-grandfather and he was an associate with Joseph Smith Senior, who was the father of the founder of the church, Joseph Smith.
Nicole (10m 15s):
And he was given a revelation and it was recorded in doctrine and covenants in one of the early sections. And so I thought it would be interesting to write about these two and how they were associated. One source that really helped me in discovering more about the Richards family is an authored source that I had seen cited in other places and it was called Richards Family History. And it was edited by Joseph Grant Stevenson who had a company called Stevenson Genealogy and Copy Center. And when I looked it up, I found that this was listed as one of the books that was printed by the Stevenson Genealogical and Copy Center, but the website said they were out of business as of April, 2022.
Nicole (11m 5s):
So that was disappointing that I couldn’t purchase the book, but then I continued looking around the website, which was so nice of them to leave it up and it says that you can request any of their books in PDF format and they will email it to you. So that was really exciting. I didn’t have to hunt and track it down, you know, to library. I could just request it and they would email it. And so I think although they went out of business, they still want their valuable research and writing that they did to be accessible. So I requested all the Richards histories that they had on their website, which there were more than just the one, and they’re all high quality and helpful sources with analysis of Journals and diaries and primary sources and original sources.
Nicole (11m 50s):
You know, it was kind of like a mix between historical and genealogical writing. So it was neat to see that. And what was really great about the Richards Family History book is that it had a whole chapter on Phinehas Richards and in that chapter it did point me toward a really fantastic source that I hadn’t found yet, which was Phinehas Richards’ Journal. And the journal was actually digitized in the church history catalog website and it was kind of tricky to find. There are a lot of records for the Richards family in the church history catalog and sometimes navigating in all these different collections is difficult. In the one that I hadn’t looked at yet was Richard’s family Papers collection.
Nicole (12m 34s):
And I think Phinehas has also a separate collection and so there were just different places for records for him. So I was happy to find that. And it’s just a shout out to good citations within authored sources helping us find original records
Diana (12m 50s):
That is so beneficial. And often we do see those published sources like that, an author source that does not have any citations. So it’s wonderful that this one had citations and I’m so impressed that the Stevenson Genealogy and Copy Center is still making all of their wonderful work available. That is amazing. Well, let’s learn a little bit more about Phinehas Richards. Phinehas was born November 15th, 1788 in Framingham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts to Joseph and Rhoda Richards. He started a journal in 1837 in which he related the beginning events of his life up until 1837.
Diana (13m 32s):
He related that on February 24th, 1818, he was married to Miss Wealthy Dewey, the only daughter of Samuel and Millie Dewey of the town of Richmond, Massachusetts, in which I resided, he said, Father D was a blacksmith and a good farmer being possessor of more than a hundred acres of land. I then went to keeping house establishing businesses for myself in the cabinet line, though frequently taking jobs at house building and painting as it agreed better with my health.
Nicole (14m 2s):
Oh my gosh, don’t you love these Journals? It’s so fun to hear in their own words about their life and their occupation and what they did.
Diana (14m 10s):
Well I love the name of his wife, Wealthy. That’s a great name. Love that. Yes it is. It’s amazing to hear so specific what he wanted to do and it makes you think about, okay, it was more beneficial for his health to build houses and paint than in the cabinet line. So anyway, I’m just curious about about what exactly he meant there, but we probably will never know.
Nicole (14m 39s):
Yeah, it well, looking into those occupations could reveal that maybe breathing in sawdust was bad, who knows?
Diana (14m 46s):
Right. But
Nicole (14m 48s):
I also liked how in the journal it mentioned Father D as you know, his father-in-law, Mr. Dewey, and that he calls him Father Dewey.
Diana (14m 58s):
Yeah, that’s fine. And it gives information about him that he was a blacksmith and a good farmer. So we learn a little bit more about the extended family,
Nicole (15m 6s):
Right? Yeah. Anytime there’s a journal in the family like this, it’s just a complete genealogical gem. And we’re so used to researching our ancestors in the South and I don’t think we have very many Journals, if any, at all from them. So this is like what? Wow.
Diana (15m 22s):
Yeah, we don’t have any Journals. Nope. I think they were too busy just trying to survive or it just wasn’t part of the culture.
Nicole (15m 31s):
Yeah. Or they kept a journal and it just didn’t pass on to our family and somebody else has it or, or it just didn’t survive. I think a lot of these type of things didn’t survive
Diana (15m 40s):
Well, especially if you’re moving west and our family continually was on the move, and if you’re moving you can only take so much. And perhaps even if they did write that just didn’t get taken with them. Lots of reasons why we don’t have Journals probably.
Nicole (15m 57s):
Right, yeah. And this one was neat because although he started the journal in 1837, he kinda went back and started at his marriage. So he’s looking back and writing about his earlier experiences. So his journal was dated 1837, but the events that we were just reading about his marriage and his father-in-law, that was from back in that 1818 when he got married.
Diana (16m 23s):
Right. So he is giving a summary kind of looking back based on those next years of experience. And I think we often, when we write about the past, we look at it a little differently than if we’d been writing it at the time.
Nicole (16m 37s):
Yeah. Well the next big event that Phinehas wrote about is that in 1836 he received a visit from three of his relatives, including Brigham Young. So his mother, Rhoda was a sister at Brigham Young’s mother. And so they were cousins. And so these three relatives that came taught him about this new church they had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And Phinehas wrote in his journal, I soon discovered that the system they taught contained principles, which I had long been looking for. So in 1837, Phinehas moved to Kirtland, Ohio and he wrote in his journal, the reason he moved was to see the prophet and learn more fully the principles of the gospel.
Nicole (17m 25s):
So he was baptized then that same year, June 13th, 1837 by his cousin Brigham Young and confirmed by Joseph Smith’s brother Hiram Smith and Don Carlos Smith in the Kirtland Temple. And on September 9th, 1837, he was then ordained a high priest and then set apart as a high counselor by the hands of Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Brigman and Joseph Smith Senior the patriarch. So that was neat to kind of learn about all of these different things that happened right when he joined the church, the place that I got this information was from the authored source that I mentioned, Phinehas Richards, the chapter about him in Richard’s family history.
Nicole (18m 13s):
So I just cited that. But the information from that came from church records about all these baptisms, ordinances and things that were kept track of back in Kirtland, Ohio. So I probably could go find the original source for that and cite it, which would be good to do. Well, after his visit to Kirtland, Ohio, Phinehas returned back to Richmond, Massachusetts at the end of 1837. And in January of 1838, he left Richmond to visit relatives all of our New England and to tell them about the new church he joined and to preach.
Diana (18m 56s):
Oh, so interesting. I love reading about, you know, that he moved to Kirtland Ohio and was confirmed in the Kirtland Temple because we visited Kirtland a year ago and we’re able to go to many of the historical sites including the Kirtland Temple. So that’s neat to read about. Well, on September 19th, 1837 finna received a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Senior, who was patriarch of the Latter Day Saints at that time. And it was given at a blessing meeting held in the Lord’s house in Kirtland, Ohio. And Patriarch Smith said, I need blessings from thee yet, yet I stand as patriarch to bless thee.
Diana (19m 37s):
And so that is taken directly from the patriarchal blessing that he gave to Phinehas Richards, and that is a wonderful resource to have as well.
Nicole (19m 48s):
Yeah,
Diana (19m 49s):
Pat Smith was 17 years older than Phinehas and Phinehas and Father Smith had much in common. They were both born in Massachusetts and were both previously members of the Congregationalist Church there, Phinehas in Richmond and Joseph Senior in Topsfield. They’re both farmers among Phinehas’s, other occupations, and they both serve missions for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to the Eastern states and taught their relatives in New England. So that’s neat that there were so many connections between the two of them.
Nicole (20m 20s):
Of them. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. And also I have heard a lot of people calling Joseph Smith Senior by the term Father Smith, and I thought that was another interesting connection with the Journal of Phinehas, where he called his father-in-law, Father D.
Diana (20m 35s):
Yeah.
Nicole (20m 36s):
And so it’s just kind of a term used back in that time, I think for older men, if it’s your father-in-law that makes sense. But then Father Smith, I think because he was the father of Joseph Smith Jr. They called him that to kind of differentiate and also it’s kind of like a term of endearment or a term of respect. And then the fact that he was a patriarch of the church, meaning he was somebody who would give these special blessings to people to tell them God loves them and, and like, here’s what your life will include, the service that you’re going to give, and giving them kind of some ideas of what they’re going to do in their lives to help with the church. And so I think for all those reasons, they called him Father Smith.
Nicole (21m 17s):
But it was neat to to see that and the fact that they were both from Massachusetts and I just wonder if there was something within the Congregational Church that they felt like they were prepared to join this new church. Maybe there’s something missing in the Congregational Church or just that it was teaching things that kind of was similar, who knows? But that would be another thing to investigate, like what’s the connection with people in the congregational church and them joining this new church?
Diana (21m 49s):
I agree. Isn’t it interesting how whenever you do research, you always have more questions that come up and these types of things, these contextual questions can be like a whole research project trying to understand. So that’s really neat. It would also be fun to just see how many other people from Massachusetts was there, you know, a whole group from each of those congregations that moved west or were they just by themselves? You know, it’s just always neat to think about.
Nicole (22m 17s):
Right. And I think it’s interesting that a lot of them were teaching to their relatives and going to their cousins, and that’s how Phinehas first heard about the church was from his relatives visiting. And then he in turn went to visit his relatives and tell them, oh, I joined this new church. So
Diana (22m 34s):
Right. Well, and it was the time of seeking, you know, this was a time in the United States where lots of people were seeking religion and it was a, it was a big movement in the States. And so, you know, it’s not surprising that they would be going back and teaching their family and helping to grow the congregations.
Nicole (22m 58s):
Right. And I think it also goes to show that a lot of migrations are connected to family members, cousins, some of those, it’s not always just siblings, you know, it could be that your cousin came and visited and told you about this great new land that he, he got for a cheap deal. And so now all of a sudden people are wanting to move to be like their cousin. So it’s just interesting to see those family connections influence people’s life choices.
Diana (23m 23s):
Absolutely.
Nicole (23m 24s):
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Nicole (24m 9s):
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Diana (24m 22s):
Thank you. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about Joseph Smith Senior, and as you mentioned, he was the father of the prophet Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith Senior was born July 12th, 1771 in Massachusetts to Asael and Mary Duty Smith, and he was called as a patriarch in 1834. And he blessed church members at meetings where up to 15 members would receive blessings. Wow, that’s a lot. Lorenzo Snow attended one of these meetings before he joined the church, and what he saw and felt there influenced him to study the doctrines of the church. And he eventually was baptized and later became the fifth president of the church.
Nicole (25m 4s):
Yeah, I was researching these blessing meetings because it had mentioned that in Phinehas Richards, I think in his patriarchal blessing it said it was at a blessing meeting and I had never heard of that. So researching that led me to find out that Lorenzo Snow had been at one of those meetings seeing the patriarch giving blessings, and that was like an important part of his conversion. And then he became a president of the church leader. So I threw that in. Church members know that Lorenzo Snow was a prophet or a president of the church eventually. So it was just interesting to think about the fact that these blessing meetings were Phinehas got his blessing were spiritual experiences for some.
Diana (25m 44s):
Right.
Nicole (25m 45s):
Well, Joseph Smith Senior, the patriarch, he was one of the recipients of these first revelations recorded in the doctrine and covenants revelations to Joseph Smith. And so that is now canonized as Doctrine and Covenant section four. And it’s interesting because I know this section is commonly known as a missionary text where it talks about missionaries going out and kinda like the analogy of gathering wheat from the field. But Joseph Smith Senior was not being called on a mission when this was received. Father Smith just had asked his son to know God’s will for him. And he was visiting Joseph in Harmony, Pennsylvania in 1829 and just said like, what does the Lord want me to do?
Nicole (26m 30s):
And so the revelation was then given, and I thought it was interesting that the analogy of the field was suited to Father Smith’s understanding as a farmer. And it spoke about the hard work required for successful harvest and encouraging him to work hard to help other people learn about the church. So that was cool to read.
Diana (26m 52s):
That is neat. Well, if you’re wondering if you have an ancestor who might have a patriarchal blessing, you can view those on the church’s website. So you log into your church account and then you go to resources then patriarchal blessing. And on that page you’ll see a tab that’s titled Family Blessings and then a list of your direct line ancestors blessings. And so that is a neat way that you can do some research that maybe you hadn’t even thought about.
Nicole (27m 26s):
Yeah. And I have requested several of the blessings of my own ancestors in the past before they had it online and they were mailed to me. And it was really cool to receive those original sources. And not only do they have the blessing that was written down, but it has their birthdate and their parents’ names. So it’s another source for that information. And one of my ancestors, the name of her father was kind of in question and she was illegitimate. And so it was interesting to receive her patriarchal blessing and see that her father’s name was listed there. So that can be another helpful source because it is primary information given by the individual about their birthdate and their parents’ names.
Nicole (28m 12s):
Well, I received all of these different patriarchal blessings in the mail, transcribed them. I actually made a book about my Grandpa Elder’s side of the family and their biographies and patriarchal blessings and gave it to my parents and grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles. So I actually wrote about that on our blog. It’s called Remembering the Faith of My Ancestors with a Blurb book, because I used the blurb website too, put it all together and print the book.
Diana (28m 38s):
I love that book. And I remember when we were driving down to Manta, Utah to see the cemetery where my husband’s ancestors were, the Henry’s were buried, that we got out your book. And I read it as we drove, I read it aloud so we could both hear it. And it was so neat because you had blended the history of the ancestor with their blessing. And it was fun to see how some of the things in the blessing came to pass in the life. You know, you correlated those two. And I really love that because I think, you know, we often think about the lives of an ancestor and this just gives us another layer.
Diana (29m 18s):
They, you know, their beliefs, their religious beliefs, how their actions match that. It’s, it’s really neat. And you know, we have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, these patriarchal blessings. But I’m thinking of all my southern ancestors who don’t have anything like that. But a lot of them were Church of Christ. And then, you know, I was just in Alabama and the Roystons were Baptists. And so I would love to do a study of those religions at the time and try to understand their beliefs and see how that would’ve influenced their lives. So I think it’s just another layer we can add on to an ancestor’s history in learning more and seeing what actual records are out there.
Diana (30m 2s):
I mean, oh my goodness, you never know what you can find in church records. They’re so different and often difficult to find. You have to really dig. And sometimes in these manuscript collections is where you find them, but I think they’re well worth the work of trying to figure them out and find them and then do something with them, correlate them, use them in a history. Absolutely. So thanks for writing these blog posts. It’s so fun to dive into church history and how it affected our ancestors.
Nicole (30m 30s):
Right, yeah. You mentioned Church of Christ and that church I really dove into when I was working on my kinship determination project and I purchased a book called Churches of Christ of Oklahoma that was really enlightening and so helpful to just learn about any records that remain, which there are not really very many, just just because of the way they organize their church. It was very loosely organized and very focused on the immediate local congregation and stuff and didn’t really send any records anywhere else. And then the elders of the congregation just would keep minutes and didn’t do anything with them. So they were either lost or just saved with the family who maybe kept them when they died.
Nicole (31m 12s):
So the historian who was working on the book didn’t have a lot of sources to use, but he was a member and a lifelong member of that church. So it was good to read about it and hear from his perspective. Well there are so many things that influence ancestors’ lives and I think religious choices are a big one. And so you’re right, understanding the context of what they were doing and what their religion taught and how that might have changed what they did in their life and like their occupation and their movements, migration and all of that. I think that is a really important piece to understanding them. So good idea to really learn more about these southern religions too, the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ and the ones that influenced our ancestors on the other side of the family.
Nicole (32m 1s):
So it will be good to do that.
Diana (32m 4s):
Right. And you know, having just visited that area, it just kind stood out to me that, oh, I need to learn more about what was going on here in this group. And there were so many of these little Baptist churches all over, and Thomas B Royston gave some of his land, so a new church could be built, the Mount Hickory Church. And so you can see that it was important to them because they were building these churches and this was really early. You know, they’re establishing communities and they’re building churches. So something that we can really work on adding to our research, just using whatever we have. You know, we take whatever records we have and put it to good use in our genealogy.
Nicole (32m 45s):
Right. And hopefully we can find authored sources to give us an idea of the history of those churches in that region at that time. Alright, well thanks everyone for listening, and we hope you have a great week. We’ll talk to you again next week. Bye. All
Diana (32m 57s):
Right. Bye-bye everyone.
Nicole (33m 36s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
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Research Like a Pro Resources
Airtable Universe – Nicole’s Airtable Templates – https://www.airtable.com/universe/creator/usrsBSDhwHyLNnP4O/nicole-dyer
Airtable Research Logs Quick Reference – by Nicole Dyer – https://familylocket.com/product-tag/airtable/
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide book by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com – https://amzn.to/2x0ku3d
14-Day Research Like a Pro Challenge Workbook – digital – https://familylocket.com/product/14-day-research-like-a-pro-challenge-workbook-digital-only/ and spiral bound – https://familylocket.com/product/14-day-research-like-a-pro-challenge-workbook-spiral-bound/
Research Like a Pro Webinar Series – monthly case study webinars including documentary evidence and many with DNA evidence – https://familylocket.com/product-category/webinars/
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RLP Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/
Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources
Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist’s Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin – https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx
Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/
RLP with DNA Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-study-group/
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