Joseph Pollard: 200 Years

Joseph Pollard (1819 - 1890)

So this is a call to all the descendants of Joseph Pollard. Do you know if you are a descendant of Joseph Pollard? Do you even know who he is?

Here is how I am related to Joseph. My grandfather is Joseph Pollard's great grandson. That makes Joseph my 3 times great grandfather. If you are on my blog because we share our Puzey line, then this information is relevant for you. This year, it is 200 years since Joseph Pollard's birth. If you want to know a bit more about this amazing man, you can look at two of my longer posts about his life. 

Joseph Pollard: A Life Sketch

and part two

Joseph Pollard: His Conversion and Journey West

Or you can dive deep and learn more about his descendants at the blog

The Daughters of Bishop Joseph Pollard

And all of this is just to share the following information. In honour of this anniversary of his birth, the suggestion is being shared to gather as many descendants as can come, to meet at his graveside in the Salt Lake City cemetery on May 27, 2019. 

This is the message shared on the blog linked above.

We have Joseph Pollard as a common ancestor. His 200th birthday is in 2019. We suggest a gathering at his grave site on Memorial Day, May 27, 2019 at noon. His grave is on the South end of the Salt Lake cemetery, close (Northeast) to the Church located on 4th Avenue and P Street. You will see our group there.We are contacting descendants we can locate from Joseph's seven daughters. Please spread the word with other descendants stemming from your particular Daughter.

Lydia Pollard

Joseph and Mary Ann had 9 children, and 7 of these were girls. Neither of their two baby boys lived to see their first birthdays but all 7 of their girls lived to grow up and get married. The daughter we are descended from is Lydia Pollard.  Her husband, Henry William Puzey, passed away when she was only 34 years old. She also outlived my great grandfather Frederick Puzey by 2 years. 

If you are a descendant of Lydia Pollard, please get in touch with me. I would like to make sure all of us are linked in the family records - how many descendants do you think we have on this daughter's line?

Although the plans are yet vague, I am hoping to connect with extended family and join in the gathering on May 27. As an added bonus, I hope to also be in Spring City where Lydia and Henry William moved to after their marriage. May 25 is Heritage Day in Spring City and a number of activities and historical home tours will make my family research come to life.

If you are a descendant of Lydia Pollard, please get in touch with me. I would like to make sure all of us are linked in the family records - how many descendants do you think we have on this daughter's line?

And if you are in the area at the end of May or might think about making your own way down, please let me know and I hope we can connect!

Richard Sperry in Puzzilla

Puzzilla Ancestral Chart

January 8, 2019 - I'm back at the Family History Centre for my Tuesday evening shift - our first shift after the Christmas break and everything is breaking down on us. Makes for some excitement. My computer lost the network connection and none of my shortcuts or Chrome work. The lightbulbs in the computer room were burnt out and now the printer is offline.

But I'm busy with my latest discovery. I haven't looked at Puzzilla for some time and thought I would see how things were looking these days. I typically use this site to link to my FamilySearch tree and then explore the descendancy lines to fill in more of the collateral lines - cousins, aunts and uncles along my direct line.

This time I went directly to my Dad's line and looked at the ancestral chart.  Just a quick glance and it is obvious where I may need to do some clean up of duplicate relationships/names. (circled in green above)  This represents the families of the Richard Sperry (1606 - 1698) and his son Richard Sperry (1652-1734). I did some searching on this name as it was familiar and spent the next hour reading multiple websites recounting the history of the family in early America and the connection to two of  the 59 judges who signed the execution order for King Charles 1 and escaped to America to avoid a rather nasty execution - at some point taking shelter in what is now called "Judges Cave" near their home and being sustained by Richard Sperry or his son.

If you want to learn a little more, check out these two genealogical pages.

Richard Sperry in WikiTree
Richard Sperry in the Evans Family WebPage
Richard Sperry in CommonHeroes3

So instead of successfully cleaning up this issue with my tree, I enjoyed my time learning more about my ninth great grandparent.

That is okay because I am looking forward to learning more about how to clean up issues (merging records, restoring records and cleaning up the attached sources) in my FamilyTree on FamilySearch at the January 24th community class put on by the Family History Centre. Cleaning up records that have been duplicated, merged and have multiple links and problems is one of the most time consuming and often frustrating parts of dealing with a common family tree. A little extra help and information can help me avoid adding to the confusion. The class begins at 7:00 pm if you are interested in coming along. You can register ahead of time at http://genwebworks.net/cfhc.htm or just show up - you will be welcome!

If you are interested in learning how to use Puzzilla and setting up your own FamilyTree with a free FamilySearch account, drop by the Family History Centre - there are friendly volunteers here to help you.