With Thanksgiving coming up, I’ve been thinking about ways to teach my children about the history of Thanksgiving. Then I wondered if we are related to any pilgrims. Using Relative Finder, which draws upon the collaborative family tree at FamilySearch.org, I was able to quickly see that I am possibly related to several Mayflower passengers (I haven’t researched these connections). In fact, 17 Mayflower passengers are my direct ancestors, according to the FamilySearch family tree. They are in the range of 10-13th great grandparents. Their names are: Henry Samson – 16 year old who came with his aunt and uncle...
How much do you know about the signers of the Declaration of Independence? We are all familiar with John Hancock, the first signer. But what about “William Williams: The Signer Who Was Certain He Would Hang,” or “Robert Morris: The Signer Who Financed The War – And Ended Up In Debtor’s Prison?” Fifty-six men put everything on the line to sign a document knowing they would be hunted by the British for perhaps the rest of their lives. Could you be related to one of them? Signing Their Lives Away by Denise Kiernan and Josephe d’Agnese tells the story of the men who...
In honor of Presidents Day today, I thought I would pose the question – are you related to one of the presidents of the United States? I found out I was related to Dwight D. Eisenhower when I first started researching my Grandpa Shults’ side 14 years ago. My 3rd great grandmother, Eliza Ann Isenhour, was his fourth cousin. As you can see, the spelling of the last name morphed over the years. Doris Kearns Goodwin, at her RootsTech conference keynote address in 2016, spoke about how she had basically no living relatives as a young person and didn’t know...
Our ward family history committee, consisting of youth and adult consultants, planned this ward activity for all ages. Held on a Thursday evening it took the place of the combined activity for the young men and young women that week. Each organization had an assignment and each youth group ran one of the activities. One of our consultants did a fabulous job transforming the cultural hall into an old time country fair. Using the color theme of red, white, blue, and yellow, she displayed homemade quilts and added balloons and banners for a festive look. Table centerpieces consisted of bags...
