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."

Grandma Jones

See if you can find your Grandma Jones (Kathryn MacKay Jones) in this picture.  She came from a family of 6 girls.  Maybe your mom or dad knows which one she is.  See if your parents can pick out her sisters, Marjorie, Florence, Ruth May, Marian (who I was named after, by the way), and Joyce.

This is Marian's wedding picture.  Can you find Grandma Jones in this one?

This is a picture of Ruth May Fox and her children.  Ruth May Fox is your great great grandma and was the General Young Women's president of the church from 1929-1937.  Do you remember I told you she also came across the plains as a pioneer?  She is sitting on a tall chair in the middle of the picture.  My grandma is Florence Marie Fox MacKay and she is the woman on the furthest right.

Wahgoosh

So I'm at the temple yesterday doing sealings of family names I've found and this card comes up.  Before he says anything, the sealer looks at the card for about 4 seconds, looks at me with a question in his eyes and I can just tell he's thinking, "What's up with this guy's name?!?"  Then he finally asks, "What is that?  A nickname or something?  Wahgoosh??"  I just smile at him and say, "I have no idea.  I just found his name on Family Search and he needs some temple work done."

Today I decide to do some searching to see if I can find any explanation for this strange name.  I run across his marriage certificate and it says he married a woman by the name of Na she wa quay.  I'm thinking, "What?  Did he have 2 wives?"  You'll notice on the temple card it says his wife is Angeline Brunette.

So I go to Family Search and look what I found!  Check out the names with the yellow arrows next to them!  Wild!  On the Minnesota 1875 census, in the column for race it has a W for Samuel John "Wagoosh" Fox which means he was white.  But his wife and 3 kids have an H in the race column.  Not sure what that stands for but if you look at the yellow arrows in the lower right corner you see it says "Ojibwe woman".  I googled that.  It's the Chippewa Tribe!  So my 2nd great grandfather's brother married a Native American woman.  Pretty cool!

My best guess is that when Samuel married into the tribe, they gave him the native name of Wahgoosh.  And his wife had an English name, Angeline, as well as her native name, Na she wa quay.  Her father was a white man it looks like and her mother was a Chippewa or Ojibwe.  I wonder what Wahgoosh means.

Pilgrims

We have an ancestor named John Moses who emigrated to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1632.  He was a shipwright (which means a ship builder.)  I was reading about him online in a book written in 1899 by one of his descendants.  She said, "It is highly probable that John Moses did not come to New England to escape religious persecution, but rather to fill a demand for men who could build ships."  Well, THAT'S a new twist!  Also he was fined 10 shillings on two different occasions for drunkenness so the author doubts he was a strict Puritan.

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And how about this...Peter Brown is one of our ancestors and he came on the Mayflower in 1620!  Do you see his name on the Mayflower Compact?  In the picture below, Peter Brown is the 4th person from the right (not counting the child.)

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Congratulations to Travis who won the latest challenge!  He'll be eating at Arby's sometime in the near future!