Mary Grayson Jones' English Childhood

Mary Grayson Jones, your great-grandmother was born in Blackburn, England.

She lived on Carlisle Street (which you can see from the picture is now a commercial area of town.)

She also lived on Cornelian Street.  We don't have a house number but know her family lived on this street soon after her mother, Sarah Simpkin Grayson, converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Here is a picture of Cornelian Street.

One thing I was hoping most that I could find on our trip to England was the elementary school where my grandmother, Mary Grayson Jones, and her siblings went to school.  I couldn't find anything promising online before Kathy and I left for England so I had given up hope.  But when we got to Blackburn and put in St. Gabriel's Church into the GPS, there it was!  Just a block or so from Cornelian Street!

She attended St. Gabriel's Church of England Elementary School.

The first thing we noticed was the huge "for sale" sign on the outside of St. Gabriel's Church.

I was very excited to see if the door was open so we could have a look inside!  This is the place where my grandmother, Mary Grayson, went to church when she was very young.  There was also an elementary school held here and she attended school here as well.

Once inside, we were met by two very kind men who thought we were prospective buyers.  They had purchased the church and were using it as a warehouse for their company.  They are now hoping to sell it and move their company elsewhere.  They were kind enough to drop what they were doing and make copies of an old picture of the church when it was still in use as a church and also made us a copy of a history of the church that had been given to them when they bought the place.

Here's what the front part of the chapel looked like when my grandmother, Mary Grayson, would have attended church here with her mother, Sarah Simpkin Grayson, older brother, George, and younger sister, Gertrude.

You can see the same archway and the folding doors which are kept closed now that it is a warehouse.  That's Kathy on the left looking at the history of the church which we had just been given.

This is the main part of the church where the pews would have been and where school would have been held.

As we walked around the outside of the church, I imagined my grandma playing at recess with her classmates outside.  It really was a unique and meaningful experience to be where my grandmother started her life.  I had the thought that she knew where we were that day and was pleased that we were seeking out her roots.

The catch in the story, however, is that as Kathy started reading the history we'd been given as we drove away, it seems that this may NOT have been the church that my grandmother attended.  The history is a bit confusing.  But the church may have moved to Cornelian Street before my grandmother was old enough to attend school.  So, though this may not be the place, I kind of have a gut feeling that it is.  Or is that just because I WANT it to be?

Grace Davis Sanger and William Sanger

Kathy Jones Ohlrich and I recently returned from a trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland to find some of the places where our ancestors lived.  It was a very satisfying trip for me.  It was sobering to think that I was in the towns and on the streets where they had lived.  We found some houses where some of them had lived and churches where they worshipped God with their families.

We started in a very small, quaint town called Tisbury which has a population of about 1600 people.  It's in England about a 2 hour drive southwest from London.  Tisbury is marked by the red pindrop on the map.

It's quite close to Stonehenge.  You may have heard of this curious rock formation which is said to have been built about 3000 BC.  We saw it from the road but didn't stop.

Graphic credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Stonehenge2007_07_30.jpg

Tisbury is the town where your 7th great grandmother, Grace Davis Sanger, and 7th great grandfather, William Sanger, were born and were married.  Grace was born in 1723 and William was born in 1725.  They were married in the same church in 1749.

Here is a picture of their church, The Church of England in Tisbury:

Here is a picture of the christening font where they would have been christened as infants:

As I looked at this font, it occurred to me that I was in the place where Grace was baptized the first time, and I was with her the second time she was baptized in the Salt Lake Temple on November 14, 2013.  That was a very powerful experience for me and I feel as if I somehow know Grandma Grace because of that overwhelming experience that we shared.  I can't wait to meet her in the next life!

Here's a picture of the countryside surrounding Tisbury:

Here's a picture of the bed and breakfast where we stayed near Tisbury.  It's called Marshwood Farm.  The house was originally a bailiff's house.  A bailiff was the man who managed the estate for the rich landowner.  It's now part of a working farm.  I chose it because the house existed in the community about the same time that Grace and William would have been living nearby.  Plus, it's more charming than all get-out!

More to come on our adventures!  This trip has made me feel like I know more about and feel closer to some of my ancestors because I have seen where they lived and worshipped.

What Is the "Essence" of My Grandpa's Life?

I went to a family history seminar the other day and listened to Clive Romney who defines his job as a professional songwriter.

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Since he became interested in family history, he writes songs about the stories of his ancestors.  He started writing a song about his grandma and grandpa.  The only thing he remembers his grandpa ever saying directly to him was, "You missed a spot" while he was mowing his grandpa's lawn.  He never felt like his grandpa was very approachable.  His grandma, on the other hand, was always warm and loving.

He started writing a song about his grandparents and had a hard time finishing it.  He had to stop.  He felt like the Spirit was telling him that he would not be able to finish that song until he found out more about and understood his grandfather better.  As he started doing research about his grandfather, he discovered he was a very generous man.  After he died they found hundreds of checks written to help people who were struggling financially.  Neighbors, ward members, family members.

Clive was able to finish his song and said it turned out to paint a much different picture of his grandfather than the original song did.  He says that since you have to be very conservative with words in a song, you are only able to capture the "essence" of a person's life.  And he was grateful to discover that the essence of his grandfather's life was very different from what he had thought it was.

I started thinking about my own Grandpa Jones, Harold Guy Jones.  I have always thought of him as a harsh man.  I was sometimes scared of him when I was a child.  But is that the essence of who he really is?  I've decided to try and learn more about him.  I'm hoping my heart will be turned.

I know that he was a bishop in Tabiona, but I never knew he was on the high council.  I found his name in this newspaper article.  Do you see it in the 3rd paragraph?

http://udn.lib.utah.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/udr2/id/32429/show/32459/rec/1

My First Testimony

I uploaded a memory of my own today on Family Search!  None of you will be able to see it on Family Search until I'm dead because of privacy laws so I'll include a copy here.  

"The first time I remember bearing my testimony in sacrament meeting was in the LaBarge Ward.  I think I was about 9 or 10 years old.  I remember thinking this would be the perfect place because there were only about 30-40 people in attendance in that small ward on any given Sunday.  We lived in Salt Lake City but spent most of our summers as children at the ranch which is about 8 miles outside of LaBarge, Wyoming.

I cried as I bore my testimony and was very confused by that.  I wish someone had told me at the time that that was the Holy Ghost bearing witness to me that what I was saying was true. "

This picture of me is from about that same time.

CHALLENGE:

Now it's YOUR turn!  I'll send $10 to EVERYONE who uploads a story about themselves to their page on Family Search.  I won't be able to see it on Family Search, so paste a copy of it in the comments here or if it's something you want to keep private, email me a copy to wwjonesd@hotmail.com.

Sarah Simpkin Grayson

Your great-great grandmother, Sarah Simpkin Grayson, was quite a religious woman from what I have read.  Here's a link to a cool experience she had when she was in her youth before converting to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  At the time she and her family attended the Church of Christ in England.  She was your Grandpa Jones' (Harold Jones) grandma but he never met her because she died before Grandpa Jones' mom was even married.

P.S.  I'm still working on the big one, Easton!

The Big Bad Challenge

OK, this one is going to be a tough one!  And because it's a tough one, the reward is $20.  That's right. Twenty bucks.  An Uncle Jackson.

It's going to be a race between me and any of my nieces or nephews who want to take the challenge.  The race is to see who can find a new name to add to your family tree.  I'm talking about adding someone who is non-existent on your family tree right now.  One of those places on your tree where you get to the end of the line and your tree just abruptly stops.  I'm talking about a place on your tree that looks like this.

See the spots that say Add Husband and Add Wife?  We need to find these people!

So if I find a person first, I'm giving MYSELF the $20 and I get to go blow it on whatever I want.  If one of you beats me, I'll send the $20 to you.  Let the games begin!  (You'll probably need to use ancestry.com)

The challenge: find a name to add to your family tree which does not exist on your tree right now.

Jesse W. Fox Sr.

This is your 3rd great grandfather.  His name is Jesse W. Fox Sr.  There is a 95 page history of his life on Family Search, if  you're interested in learning more about him.  I found this paragraph interesting from his history written by himself:

"I am the son of a respectable farmer in the state of New York.  I followed the occupation of my father until I was 18 years of age.  He then in the fall of 1838 sent me from home to a literary institution....  In the Spring of 1844 I emigrated west.  After two months' journey I arrived at Nauvoo, the City of Joseph, June 26th, the day before the prophets were assassinated.  On the following day (June 28) I saw their dead bodies.  July following I was baptized by Elder Elijah Williams into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

Wow!  What must have THAT been like?  To arrive in Nauvoo the day before Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed?!?

George Q. Cannon, who later became an apostle, knew Jesse W. Fox and said this about him:

"A more guileless, simple, kind-hearted, unspoiled man by the rest of the world, it would be exceedingly difficult to find.  Though he lived 75 years he was as a child in many respects.  He had lived in the world without being contaminated with the world or spoiled by its influences.  Anyone that wanted to take advantage of him could easily do so; for he was not a man that was suspicious or that was looking to take advantage himself and he did not suspect others of a disposition to do that."