Are We Cousins? Just Asking!

Here is my family tree for 3 generations. It's a small world, we just might be related. (You can double click the chart to expand it.) Let me know if you want to go farther back. We could compare common names to look for a same ancestor. I can do that for you.

Edward Rich South - A Persuasive Man

Edward Rich South

When I publish my grandmother, Nancy Athena Porters story, you will see another evidence of Edwards persuasiveness.

This first trip to Omaha was a great thrill for Edward. In 1896, at age 27, he was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Rich County, which brought many more exciting experiences. One criminal was caught by Edward's efforts, then tried, found guilty, and sentenced to prison. Upon his release, the criminal boasted that he was going to kill Edward. Due to this malcontent cantankerous disposition, many people believed this to be the end of Edward. They inevitably met one day when Edward was at a popular eating establishment, in a small village in the county. The criminal pulled out his gun and ordered Edward outside. He then commanded Edward to get inside a buggy. As they rode away, Edward's salesman ability went to work as he talked to the man, finding out how much he disliked the stigma of being a criminal and how people shunned him. The felonious man then said he would kill, if necessary, for a thousand dollars. Edward pulled out his wallet and offered the criminal half of what he had in it. This softened the man, with him commenting that this was the first time in his life that anyone had given him anything. Edward then inquired if the criminal still liked horses; the reply was, "yes." Edward then suggested that the man get a job driving horses. At the end of the talk, they were friends

A complete story on Edward is here: Edward Rich South

Serving A Family History Mission

Church Headquarters Campus

Family History Library

Church History Library

Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Church Office Building

Administration Building

Temple Square

Publishing this website is for me motivated by serving as a missionary at family history - church headquarters and my recent attendance at the  RootsTech Family History Conference.

For many years I have enjoyed working on my family tree. I seem motivated now to include working on life histories as part of my love of genealogy. Even though this will be a part time hobby I will try and regularly post relevant articles regarding my research. I will also post stories, sites, tools, and technology information I discover.

Kathleen and I are serving full time here in Salt Lake City. Kathleen is supporting questions from family history centers and training family history center directors. My assignment is involved in recruiting and processing people to serve part time and at home in family history service. We work in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building which is part of the Church Headquarter Campus. Please leave a comment if there is something we can do to help you.

The family names in the pages to the right are those including my Great Grandparents lines. The next generation includes: Osborne, Amick, Freeman, White, De La Garza, Oneal, Rich, and Kilbourne.

There are ways both members and those not members of the LDS church can serve. The family history libraries, indexing in general, and the 1940 census indexing project are area's anyone can serve.

We have about 500 church members serving 15 or more hours per week from home. These at home missions are becoming more important. We expect a need of 1000 more at home missionaries in the near future. Some of this is driven by the growing interest in genealogy, some will be driven when we open up the new Family Tree to everyone, and the need is great even now. At home missionaries go through two months of training. It consists of about 1.5 hours a day plus practice for those two months.  These are support callings. Questions are coming into church headquarter in such great quantities that the full time staff and missionaries just can't answer fast enough.  At home missionaries login and take the questions for help.