"You have a pioneer relative"

[_Jersey Girl]

Yup. That's what an email from Family Search announced today. I have to be honest. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. Once I got that over with, I went on FS to see what the deal was. So, it names a relative and here's part of the information.

Traveled with the
Charles A. Harper Company


Departed From
Mormon Grove, KS
in July 1855


Traveled for
95
Days

Traveled with a wagon company


I think it's kind of odd. When FS sends out an email it's usually to the effect We may have found a relative. This one says in no uncertain terms that I have a pioneer relative which seems a little fishy to me but, you know, whatever. Anyway...

What exactly is Mormon Grove, KS? Is anyone familiar with that?

Thanks and Happy Trails.
:-)

[_Jersey Girl]

Okay so I learned that Mormon Grove is a thing.

The City that Disappeared

Near here, located in a grove of young hickory trees, was an important rallying point in 1855 and 1856 for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), then emigrating to the Rocky Mountains.

The campground, really a temporary village covering about 150 acres, consisted of the grove, a large pasture fenced by native sod and a ditch, and a burial ground located on the elevated ridge between the grove and the farm. Though one or two permanent structures were erected, most residents lived in tents, wagon boxes or make-shift dwellings.

During the peak year of emigration at Mormon Grove in 1855, nearly 2,000 Latter-Day Saints with 337 wagons left here for the Salt Lake Valley. It was also a tragic year for the U.S., British, and European Mormons at the little way station, many dying in a cholera epidemic.

In 1856, Iowa City, Iowa, became the major jump-off point for Latter-Day Saint westward travel, and Mormon Grove became a forgotten gathering place.

So what I'm getting from this is that my relative was LDS. Is that safe to say? I mean it's some kind of LDS staging area for westward ho the wagons to the Rockies, right?

So really, the whole time I've been posting on LDS related boards (coming up on 19 years now, I believe)...I've been posting about my own family members.

Excuse me while I just take in the rich irony of that.

[_Jersey Girl]

I'm having all sorts of personal revelations over here. Let me reason this out.

So, I have a relative that somehow made his way to the States via his father's birth and his own subsequent birth or something like that. Somehow or another, he ends up being LDS. No clue how that happened. But let's just say it's true and it did happen. Family Search has it right, okay.

This relative ends up in KS and is part of a wagon train of LDS pioneers who are Westward Ho-ing the wagons on a 95 day trek from KS to the Rockies. Right. Okay.

The Rockies. Letting that sink in...sinking in...sinking in...sinking in. Sinking. in.

I make my way from Jersey to various parts of the world and end up where? The Rockies.

Which means...

I could be sitting on his land.

Make it stop!

What if they (his father, him, and any other family members) first settled in Little Nauvoo which was on the Jersey Shore?



Make. it. stop.

[_Jersey Girl]

Okay, but seriously, the trips being made from Mormon Grove were more than likely on their way to SLC, correct? Was this a huge migration period for LDS pioneers? What else is there for me to learn about this?

If I criticize Mormonism in any way, does that mean I have family issues? I mean besides the usual.

TFL

[_Dr. Shades]

"TFL" = ?

[_Jersey Girl]

"TFL" = ?

Thanks for listening.

Technically, it should be TFR. (Thanks for reading) or it could have been TFC. (Thanks for caring.)

But nobody did.

;0)

[_Quasimodo]

Do you know who led this Mormon immigrant party to SLC? Was it wagons or handcarts?

[_Jersey Girl]

Oh look, an interested party! :-)

The thing I have says that he traveled with a wagon company leaving Mormon Grove in 1855. The company was owned by Charles A. Harper.

Isn't this one of the weirdest things to hit the screen from my keyboard? I mean, think about it.

[_Lemmie]

Yup. That's what an email from Family Search announced today. I have to be honest. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. Once I got that over with, I went on FS to see what the deal was. So, it names a relative....

just to clarify, is this a relative you already had knowledge of and who is in your family genealogy records?

[_Jersey Girl]

I can see how it might be weird for you.

I'll tell you what's weird. I am one relationship away from writing this post from SLC, that's what's weird.

This is why I don't need to do the DNA test. My life is one big goat rodeo without it.