Below is a video that explains family history in simple terms. It provides an overview of the benefits of doing your own family history and how you can get started.

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Earlier this year, we were contacted via email by Diana Webb, a descendant of Frederick G. Peterson and Mary Jeppesen. She was working on her family history and a friend that was helping her happened to find our web site. We quickly made arrangements to visit Diana since she lives in Sandy, just across the valley from us. As a result of our visit, she shared a number of family photographs with us that she was preparing for a scrapbook.

We were very excited to meet Diana and her husband Randy. She is only the second descendant of Jens Jeppesen and Maren Madsdatter that we have been in contact with in over 20 years. (Greg is a descendant of Jens and Maren through their son Jeppe Anton Jensen, while Diana comes through their daughter Mary Jeppesen.) The only other Jepson descendant we have been in contact with is Wayne H. Jepson, Dorothy’s cousin who also lives in the Salt Lake Valley.

The photograph above is just one of many photographs Diana shared with us. It is the wedding photograph of Frederick G. Peterson and Mary Jeppesen. We’ve posted these photographs in the Frederick G. Peterson and Mary Jeppesen Family album on our web site and hope you enjoy them. If you’d like to contact Diana directly, you can email her at motherdiana at comcast (dot) net. We’re sure she would enjoy hearing from other Jepson family members.

The very abbreviated account of John’s burial near the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater River in Fremont County, Wyoming is recorded in Elijah Larkin’s diary entry for 16 Sep 1863. In his diary entry for that day Elijah wrote, "This morning before we burried Bro Farns from [blank space] who died suddenly."

John was traveling with his family and friends from London to the Utah Territory. They had departed Florence, Nebraska between August 6th and 10th as part of the Daniel D. McArthur company and were just two and a half weeks from their destination of Salt Lake City. As recounted by Marilyn Austin Smith in her biography of Ann Isacke (John’s wife), John had been in poor health for some time. He apparently contracted "mountain fever" – a "rickettsial bacteria [commonly] transmitted by wood ticks." His daughter Matilda noted that all day John had walked with lagging steps and pallid face. The company had stopped near the Three Crossings to camp for the evening. John insisted on putting up a tent for his girls, but in doing so fell down three times. In less than an hour, around midnight, he died.

Marilyn wrote, "the next morning before they left camp [John] was wrapped in canvas and laid to rest in a grave located near the campsite on the East Crossing of the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater River in Wyoming. A man by the name of Reed made a marker out of a broken box to mark his grave. Ann at the time was too ill to even raise her head. In great agony the grief stricken and ill family left John B. Farnes in a grave along the trail and continued on."

A few years ago, we were contacted by Jessie Bishop Lewis and Val Holley. At the time, we didn’t have a lot of information about Greg’s ancestor William Evans Bishop. (Jessie is a granddaughter, and Val a 2nd great grandson of William). We were also extremely busy and our response reflected that. It was something like, “That’s all the information we have on William and the Bishop line. We simply haven’t gotten around to doing any primary research on that line.”

Over the course of last year, we reacquainted ourselves with Jessie and Val. Both have been a tremendous resource. For example, we were given additional details about William’s marriage to Mary Pocock. Jessie gave us a certified copy of the marriage entry for William and Mary. This entry states that they were married on 8 Feb 1852 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. (Shrewsbury is a medieval town that was founded c. 800. It lies approximately 9 miles east of Wales and the name Shrewsbury comes from the Anglo-Saxon Scrobbesburh which means “fort in the scrub-land region” or “Scrobb’s fort.” Its Welsh name Amwythig means “fortified place“.

We were also given additional information about William and Mary’s child Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bishop was born 12 Feb 1853 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The family emigrated from England to Utah Territory in 1855. According to one account, William and Mary settled in Draper, Utah at the southeast end of the Salt Lake Valley.

In 1857, William was called to serve in the Nauvoo Legion, the Utah militia under the command of Daniel H. Wells. That year 2,500 U.S. troops were sent to quell a so-called “rebellion” in the territory and to ensure a change in the territorial government. (Newly elected U.S. President James Buchanan had appointed Alfred Cumming the new governor of the territory, without notifying the current governor Brigham Young).

At that time, tensions ran high on both sides. The majority of the residents of the territory had fled the confines of the United States in order to practice their religion. They were largely members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and over the course of the last twenty plus years had been forced to leave their settlements in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. On the other hand, Buchanan was misled by outgoing Utah Territorial supreme court associate justice William W. Drummond, who accused the Mormons of treachery in dealing with federal law and authorities.

William Evans Bishop served under the command of Captain Rawlins in the Nauvoo Legion. The Legion was given specific orders to harass and annoy the enemy, but to “Shed no blood.” Ultimately, no blood was shed and despite reinforcements being sent to both sides, the end result was a peaceful transition of power as Governor Cumming took office in 1858. (For additional information on this conflict, see Curtis Allen’s blog at Utah War and Johnston’s Army).

Echo Canyon, Utah

William reports that he spent the fall and winter of 1857-1858 in the mountains of Echo Canyon on his post. After being given leave of his post, and according to granddaughter Mary McMurdie, William traveled home to Draper only to find that his wife Mary had taken their daughter Elizabeth and “gone away with one of the soldiers” of Johnston’s army. After extensive research, Val has not been able to find any record of Mary, Elizabeth, or the soldier and their whereabouts. At present, they are “lost”. If you have any additional information, please contact us. Jessie reports that according to her father Richard Morris Bishop, William and his second wife Harriet Morris always “spoke highly” of Mary.

On the left is the only known picture of William and Mary. According to Jessie, this photograph was “found among [William Evan Bishop's] possessions in his original homestead” in Paradise. Jessie feels strongly that this is their wedding photograph taken in 1852. She “spent considerable time researching the clothing worn by the bride, and it is consistent with what was being worn by brides in England at the time.”

A copy of this photograph was given to Jessie by Lafaun Floyd of Hyrum, Utah. He and his wife LaRee have offered to scan their collection of Bishop photographs and make them available to us. We look forward to getting copies and posting them on our web site to share with other family members.

In January of this year (2007), we were contacted by Carole E. Clarke of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. She wrote us a letter and informed us that she had in her possession a number of letters that were written by some of the children of John Bishop and Catherine Evans. Since we hadn’t done any primary research on the Bishop line, we were excited to obtain copies of these letters and Carole sent us copies of the transcriptions shortly thereafter. They are fascinating to read and give insight into their lives at that time. The letters were transcribed by Evelyn Spencer (nee Burgess) on 13 Feb 2004.

There are a total of 12 letters, all written between 1866 and 1876 to John and Catherine’s eldest child John Bishop who was living in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England at the time. (Note: Carole is a descendant of John and Elizabeth Clay). Four of these letters were written by James Bishop, who had previously immigrated to Utah Territory in the United States in 1853. Seven of them were written by Richard Bishop, who had immigrated to France to work in the flax mills business, while a single letter exists from Mary Jane Bishop, who had also immigrated to Utah Territory.

At the time these letters were written, Mary Jane and James lived near their brother William Evans in Paradise, Cache, Utah. Paradise is a small town situated in the south end of Cache Valley in northern Utah. It was first settled in 1860 at Avon (from Stratford-upon-Avon), and then a few years later (1867-1868) the town site was moved a few miles north in order to accommodate the Indians that frequented the area. It was given its name by Ezra Taft Benson who reportedly said, “This is like Paradise”.

Over the course of the last year, we have met quite a few of our Bishop relatives. In addition to Carole, we’ve met or renewed contacts with Jessie Bishop Lewis, Mary Jean Garrison, Alan Bishop, Delmar Price, Val Holley, and Virginia Talbot, to name just a few. Each has provided additional information on the Bishop line including copies of old photographs and documents. They have greatly added to our knowledge of the Bishop line and we appreciate their willingness to share these things.

In addition to William Evans Bishop, we have other relatives who settled in Paradise. These include Robert Mackmurdie, Samuel McMurdie and Sarah Ann Kay, Harriet Morris, Winslow Farr, Jr., and perhaps others not yet identified. Although we have not posted all the information we have been given on these families, over the course of the coming months we hope to add to the collection on our web site.

Today we were contacted by Brad Ogden, a descendant of Amelia Augusta Petersdotter. He happened to "stumble into [our] site while researching the Anderson lines". He provided us additional information on Peter Moses Anderson and Clara Mather’s son Frederick M. Anderson.

According to the short history we have of Peter, Frederick M. Anderson was "a prominent physician". However, Brad pointed us to the Spring 2003 edition of the Greasewood Tablettes, a quarterly publication of the Department of Pathology at the University of Nevada. From this publication, we learned that Frederick was not only "a prominent physician", but helped found the University of Nevada School of Medicine while serving as chairman of the Board of Regents and as a member of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in the early 1960’s.

Ruth, Nevada

According to this article, Frederick "was a cowboy before working in a pharmacy in the small town of Ruth. According to his oral history…he passed the state pharmacy board examination, ‘worked one day as a pharmacist’ and then attended the University of Nevada at Reno. There, he came under the influence of Professor Peter Frandsen who persuaded Anderson to study medicine. After graduation in 1928, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University. Fred returned to the United States and medical school at Harvard where he graduated cum laude." Brad also pointed us to the Frederick M. Anderson Papers in the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Based on the information in the article, we were able to find Frederick’s obituary in the Reno Gazette-Journal dated 30 Jan 2003. According to the obituary, Frederick was born on 17 Jan 1906 in Elko, Nevada. He married Anna Luckinbill in 1947 and passed away at home on 28 Jan 2003. He was "preceded in death by his son, Fred, also a doctor, his daughter, Suzanne, and his loving wife, Anne." He was "survived by his grandson Morgan T. Whipple of Charlotte, North Carolina, and many, many friends." A "private inurnment" was held in Carson City, Nevada where we believe his father Peter Moses died and is likely buried, although we do not have information to support this.

Until today, we had very little information on Peter Moses and Clara’s children. But thanks to Brad, we were able to obtain this additional information on Frederick. We look forward to including this information in the next update to our web site and thank Brad for pointing us to this information.