How Exciting For The Cragun Family History

If you are a Cragun you are likely to know about the Eva Cragun Heiner Cragun Family History book. It covers Cragun and Ellis family history until about 1969. Some of the information is questionable, but generally it's fairly accurate.

Well now comes a new book by Eva's granddaughter, Gaylynne Heiner Hone. I call her a family history research monster. Gaylynne is a graduate of BYU and getting her certifications in order. She has done so much research on the Cragun line, and counts on sources and documentation. She once told me, "if only grandma had sources."

The good news is two fold. 1- Five of us her loving cousins are dividing up the 15 CD's full of research, photos, stories, life sketches, and documents and are attaching them to Family Tree. Wow, what fun it is. I can hardly put her work down. It's a good thing I am retired. The tree is getting cleaner, more accurate in our lines (in family tree)now, thanks to this research. I am finding  new people which is always a joy.

2- Is the book I show the cover of below. Gaylynne has just published a book on the Osbornes and Patrick Cragun available on Lulu.com. It's a Cragun library must. It's full of facts and sources. It's interesting, explaining more than facts, what it was like to live back then.

She has a temporary discount on it at the time. I truly hope every Cragun bookshelf has one. It will give you facts and sources, get you moving, give you empathy, and make you proud.


Here is the link for the book:  It is 350 pages and well written.

This Might Be The Coolest Thing Ever: Descendancy The Focus

This is a picture of Elisha Craguns descendants, created from FamilySearch Family Tree.

puzilla.org is the FamilySearch partner website.

One feature, one of the few features in new.familysearch.org that people hated to give up was the ease of doing descendancy research. This new site, is easier and more powerful.

There are videos to explain the site. Each dot is a person. Click the dot and it will take you to the person in family tree. Each dot or person has a roll over feature that displays a summary card of that person.

Hit shift click and you get the descendacy chart for the new person selected.

It says it's still in beta but go have fun. I am telling you it's cool.Click here for their site

T Bowering Woodbury & Henry D Moyle

  I served in England from October 1960 to 1962.  My mission President during the 1st year was T. Bowering Woodbury.  The General Authority we  saw most often, and heard from was Henry D Moyle.
   I have such great respect for these two men. At the time I arrived there were no Wards or Stakes in England. The Church was mostly thought of as that church that had an underground tunnel from Liverpool to Salt Lake City. The British had some odd ideas. Another was that in 1962 their Navy power far surpassed that of the USA. Things changed under the leadership of these two inspired leaders.
   I had only been in London a few days when they brought us all in to learn what was about to happen in Britain. A prime piece of property was just put under a 100 year lease. This in a most prominent part of London; the museum district - Princes Gate. It is a short distance from Royal Albert Hall. What a marvelous and historic part of London.
   The Church was about yo see some tremendous growth. In the two years I was there only the Northwest US grew faster.
    Henry D Moyle was a visionary leader. T Bowering Woodbury the most inspiring, yet demanding man I have worked around. I can think of only a few people who have motivated me to grow as a person as did TBW. He met with our Hyde Park district often. Each time he made each of us teach a lesson to him and Sister Woodbury. That was tough duty, intimidating in that and other ways described his demeanor. He inspired and motivated.
   Some don't appreciate his methods. He was goal oriented. In that vein there was a monthly goal. One was mothers month; our mothers were brought into knowing our challenge. We would write about our commitments. She knew how many hours we put in, how many people we taught, etc.
   TBW had been a successful owner of a lawn mower and airplane factory in Kansas City. Without him manning the company, our Mr. Kansas City mission President lost his wealth, they went bankrupt. It's a 3 year full time commitment a Mission President makes.
   The fact that we had one year to fill the chapel with church members was daunting to us. President Moyle gave us that message. In his mind it was a matter of fact, nothing less. It would happen was his assuming statement. I say daunting because at that time there was a small branch of the church there in The Hyde Park area. More American missionaries attended church than local members. It was a tiny branch in a big city.
   These two leaders were the right ones to guide a new era in The British Isles. The announcement of this Chapel brought out what often happens with building a Temple, opposition. Some tabloids took us on with crazy stories. But President Woodbury was connected to present our facts. Lord Beaverbrook, owner of some of London's top newspapers became our advocate, Woodbury's friend. He countered all of the tabloid garbage. My companions and I were privileged to tell our Church message in interesting places; such as to the queens personal Barrister (Attorney) in his office. The office was like a museum and the size of. Gymnasium.  We met with the head of Macmillan publishing Company of England. We were able to create a second story to the tabloids in such a way that people were curious.
   There was one period of time that my companions and I spent 3 months in one apartment high rise teaching our doctrine. No one turned us away, and many became members.
   We found a way to introduce people to us. American baseball, basketball, and bowling were becoming popular. We mostly used baseball to connect with the youth. Our instructions were to teach families, meet them through the youth. Some only went the first half of that directive and brought in the youth. But many of us brought families to Mormonism. There were so many that one year later  we had a Stake. I personally saw people we taught, many quality men and women, in that full chapel the day it was dedicated. We all did.
   Things were different with in England after that. Sure, not all that joined stayed active. Recently I received an email from the daughter of Paddy Rourke. She had found me online. She's said her mother was still alive and wanted me to know how much their entire family had been blessed by my being one who had found them and introduced them to this wonderful gospel. Paddy and his little family were there that Sunday dedication.
   I believe there were 17 chapels under construction when I left in 1962. What a difference inspiration and the right people to carry out a mission that time had arrived to accomplish. I have been blessed to be a part of it.
 

THe Future Of Indexing

November 1, 2013 By Scott Flinders

An interesting update from the FamilySearch blog: Click here for the full article


We are so grateful to the hundreds of thousands of dedicated volunteers who willingly give their time to help provide indexed records on FamilySearch.org. Your efforts are very much appreciated. We understand that you contribute while patiently working through limitations in the current FamilySearch indexing system. While the current system has done a wonderful job of supporting a growing workforce and allowing us to index hundreds of millions of records each year, it is due for some major renovations.

We are happy to report that we are moving ahead on a new indexing system—and what’s even more exciting is that you will soon begin to see some of the results. A new indexing website will be launched later this year, followed by changes in the new indexing system in 2014. This new system will incorporate a long list of improvements, such as (1) enhanced project selection, (2) the ability to join multiple groups, (3) achievements and recognition, (4) Facebook integration, and (5) an improved beginner experience. Today we’re going to give you a sneak peek at three key areas that will improve the indexing experience for you.

The blog has the full article.

A Big Deal In Family Tree: Why Have They Been So Silent About It?

I have been wanting this feature from the beginning: being able to post my own documents and stories to family tree. We can do that now, and it almost escaped my noticing it. Here I am, a support missionary to family tree and no one told me.

Had I not read this simple statement below of new features on the FamilySearch blog I still wouldn't know.

Living people aren't live on family tree for privacy reasons. The statement above says "As long as you have the rights." I have to clarify this but it seems in my studying this today (Saturday) it applies to myself, my spouse, and my children. So far it is working for my seeing their photos and stories.

Why do I want and like this feature so? It is because while I am living I can get my own documents, histories, photos, and stories on the tree so I know all of my children and posterity will have access to them once I have deceased, like 100 more years from now.

We live by, and go to church with a lot of people old enough they think family tree is too hard for them to learn. Some don't do email. But someone can now sit down with them and put their stories on  the tree, automatically to go live once they have passed on.

Too many stories go untold. Too many histories are thrown in the trash once we have died. It's cumbersome to organize our records. Family Tree is the way and it will be available to all, once we have died and moved on to the next place.

Can You Imagine? This Is Article # 500.

For those of you who think you can't write a blog, I say bah humbug. The excuses are usually, I don't have the time. Last week I got up at 6AM and wrote 8 articles, scheduling them to go up one a day: It's now 8:18 and I had time to do a couple of other things.

I started writing this blog a few months after we arrived on our mission, two years ago. With consistency large numbers happen. And I even took the summer off.

For those of you who say you aren't a good writer, I am proof that isn't a requirement. Just be yourself.

For those who think it's too hard technically, it isn't.

I have made some very important connections through this blog. Hi there friends and cousins. The website has had close to 44,000 visits. The site is hit from all around the world. Several articles have been forwarded to others. Some help me with corrections on what I have posted. Some leave a nice comment. I have people tell me they like the site, surprising me who it is that drops by. It's fun. You might try it, and find you too like doing it. Thanks one and all, Larry.

A Terrific Power Point Presentation By Ben Baker of FamilySearch Family Tree On Merging.

Merging People in FamilySearch Family Tree - Presentation from bakers84

Click the four arrow icon in the bottom right to see it full screen. 

Leave a comment or email me at larry@cragun.net if it leaves you with any questions.

Did You Take My Advice? You Would have Discovered A Fun Contest If You Did!

Last Tuesday I suggested that you visit http://familysearch.org/ on a weekly basis. Today was my day and this was the latest post. I'm in, are you? After all, the professionals at the Family History Library might resolve the questions in my Whitaker line. We all want to be related to the awesome Lady Lisle. I see a lot of claims that we are, I don't see the sources. It shows that way in Family Tree, but no evidence.

Notice the announcement mentions that FamilySearch adds hundreds of millions of entries each month. And it's free.

Here is a bit of the announcement and the link to the site:

And I’m excited to tell you that sometime around the end of 2013, the 12-millionth source will be added to FamilySearch. We’ll be watching closely to see who that user will be who submits that 12-millionth milestone.

In fact, I’m excited to announce the launch of the “12-Millionth Source Challenge.” We want to acknowledge and reward one lucky family historian who will add the 12,000,000th source! What’s in it for you if you’re that person? The winning submitter will receive 10 hours of free family history research through FamilySearch’s world-renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a big deal—the Family History Library team creates the family histories which are presented by the L.D.S. Church to V.I.Ps such as U.S. Presidents, heads of states, entertainers and other distinguished visitors. We’ll soon be adding a countdown clock to the website, we’ll be watching to verify sources (the winning source has to be legit after all), and then we’ll all celebrate together for reaching this amazing milestone.

What’s made all of this possible? It’s all happening because of a combination of hard working people like you and the addition of powerful new website features on FamilySearch.org that we’ve recently released. These include:

• An expanded and enhanced Search feature
• The ability to find sources directly from an ancestor page in Family Tree so we pre-populate the search field for you
• Adding the ability to add sources to Family Tree with a simple click of the mouse
• The addition of hundreds of millions of new records online every month

We thank you for all your hard work and for all you do. We look forward to rewarding one of you for being the one who adds the 12-millionth source to FamilySearch. So, let the challenge begin!

Amazing Grace for Sunday Enjoyment

States That Kept VItal Records Before 1880

You may as well know what is not available in the way of State Vital Records. There are only 14 that kept records before 1880. To me it is interesting the Hawaii is one of them.

Vermont 1770, Massachusetts 18841, Hawaii 1850, Virginia 1853, Rhode Island 1853, Delaware 1860, Florida 1865, Michigan 1867, Washington DC 1871, Wisconsin 1876, New Jersey 1878, Iowa 1880, and New York 1880.

Going to the State Level is often an effective way to find vital records. I suggest you also go to the FamilySearch Wiki. It will likely lead you to the resources in a particular State or County. You find the link to the Wiki on FamilySearch.org under the heading "get help"  For example: here is the link to the North Carolina Wiki Page: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/North_Carolina

Good researchers have a plan they follow. For many that know the State their ancestors lived in, the resources on the Wiki page for that State or County are a pretty good plan; just follow every link posted on that State or County Wiki page.