Family History Tender Mercies

Not long after our mission began, I was called to serve as the branch family history consultant.  As part of that assignment, I worked often, and continue to do so, with several branch members, building their family trees and assisting them to prepare names to take to the temple. The stake scheduled a temple youth conference at the end of August with the goal to baptize and confirm an entire stake (about 2000 family names). Our little branch submitted between 400-500 of those names.

It did not feel like “coincidences” to me to recently receive the following family history blessings:

1.    When we first arrived in Albany, at my Dad’s request we searched online for his first cousin that lived somewhere in the area. The story is that Fuller’s father jumped a train and left Roy, Utah as a young man to travel to the east coast.  He never returned to Utah to live (although he visited once in his later years). The family knew very little about him other than that he married and settled near Albany.  We were lacking dates and places related to him in our family history, and Dad was hoping to learn more through our efforts.  We found his son, Fuller, and visited him, sharing stories, pictures, and information on his extended family.  One of the results of this visit was learning where his father is buried and later visiting his gravesite.  We cleaned it, took pictures, and posted the information with his 13 brothers’ and sisters’ on find-a-grave to share with anyone interested.

2.    In July the parents of a young married couple in the branch came to New York to visit children and grandchildren. They attended our branch for a couple of weeks; and in the mother’s comments in Relief Society, I learned 3 small facts that led me to realize that her father was the elder who baptized my grandparents in Mississippi in 1930.  We had an out-of-the-ordinary kind of visit and exchange of information.  Her father had passed away when she was 5-years old, so any information about him was precious to her.  What are the chances that one of the branch members here in this mission had a grandfather who baptized my grandparents and that I would learn of it? This man was responsible for changing the lives of many, many of my family on my maternal line.  From my grandparents joining the church, (they had 9 children and 27 grandchildren who are raising good families), there have been dozens of missionaries, bishops, patriarchs, a mission president, a counselor in the temple presidency, and many others who served and are serving the Lord faithfully.

3.    The first part of August, Kristi forwarded me an email she received from a man in England who had contacted her as a result of her online postings of family history.  Through this email, we discovered Hadley family living in the United Kingdom of whom we knew nothing.  Dad’s grandfather had a half brother, and the two never met and quite possibly never knew anything about each other.  When their mother Louisa came to America, her husband remarried (we knew this from a marriage record we located), and they had at least one son.  We are learning more of this branch of the family - a branch that has been unfruitful until now in our research. The picture below is my great-great grandfather’s half brother.

4.    A document was forwarded to me (from Sue through Tammy) telling about 3 brothers of our Luther ancestors serving with George Washington in the Revolutionary War. It relates a story of courage and valor involving our ancestors in the fight for our freedom.

5.    An email was received the day after the one from England (again through Kristi) inquiring about information on our Hutchison (through the Plemmons line) family. This has opened a correspondence with a distant cousin also researching this line.  He shared a couple of snippets of family lore about our common grandmother that I had never known.