30 May 2006

The Birkenhead, by the numbers

  • Number of lives lost: 495
  • Number of survivors: 193
  • Number of minutes between striking the rock and the ship sinking: 20
  • Rumored payroll carried by the Birkenhead: £240,000 in gold coins (about 3 tons)
  • Distance from shoreline: 2 miles
  • Number one cause of death among would be survivors not in a life boat: great white sharks
  • Date of shipwreck: 26 February 1852
  • Time of shipwreck: 2:00 am (Note: bad things often happen in the middle of the night, frequently resulting from judgment errors, e.g. Exxon Valdez 12:04 am, Chernobyl 1:23 am, Three Mile Island 4:00 am)
  • Number of sailors drowned instantly after hitting the rock: 100
(picture: "Wreck of the Birkenhead" by Thomas M Hemy)

23 May 2006

Is this the Sarah who was John's second wife?

I recently found a Sarah J. H. Howard who was buried in the South Jordan Memorial Park Cemetery (Grave Location: 6-84-4). Date of death was 16 Mar 1924 and burial date was 19 Mar 1924. She was born in Canada, died in Riverton, Utah, and her age at death was 81 years, 9 months, and 5 days according to the cemetery's information. That would have made her birth date 11 Jun 1842, which is pretty close to Sarah Herwin's birth year (1843) in Ancestral File. Furthermore, Riverton & South Jordan are not too far from Sandy, where John Richards Howard was living at the time. If anyone has any additional thoughts or information, I'd love to hear it.

22 May 2006

Harriet Brooks traveled to Utah with the John D. Holladay Company, 1866

Harriet Spinks Brooks (see her entry on the website Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847–1868) traveled to Utah with the John D. Holladay Company in 1866. This company consisted of 350 people traveling in 69 wagons. Its departure point was Wyoming, Nebraska, which is about 40 miles south of Omaha on the west bank of the Missouri River.

It must have been a wonderful reunion between John and Harriet when the wagon train pulled into the valley on 25 Sep 1866. The marriage date that I have listed for them simply says "Sep 1866." That means that they probably tied the knot sometime within the next five days after she arrived in the valley.

John had been baptized a member of the LDS Church in 1862. He probably would have been unable to travel back to England between 1862 and 1866 because, as far as I can tell, he had deserted the Royal Navy. I would venture the guess that penalties for deserters were harsh. From a previously posted history on this site, we know that after arriving in Utah John "earned and saved his money to send for his sweetheart Harriet Spinks Brooks whom he had left in England." Four years of earning and saving money to send for his sweetheart represents a significant amount of devotion and commitment. It's not quite the seven years that Jacob worked for Rachel, but it's pretty impressive nonetheless.

21 May 2006

Family Tree Diagram


This is a nice sketch of John Richards Howard's descendants that was given to me by a family member, but I'm not sure to whom I should attribute it. The signature at the bottom looks like "R. Hewlett." If anyone knows who deserves the credit, please let me know. I would be happy to give proper credit or delete it if the artist so wishes.

History of John Richards Howard (My father's father)

[Note: This piece was probably written by Lucie Howard James (1900-1980) as she was his grandaughter and seems to have been the most prolific writer of JRH's history. Unfortunately, I have only the first page of this history. If anyone has the rest of this history, I would love to post it on this site. Spelling and punctuation left as originally written.]

John Richards Howard, son of Richard Howard and Martha Richards was born September 18, 1841 at Fareham, Hampshire, England. His mother died when he was two years of age. His father was an officer in the British Navy and after the death of his Bother the boy was always asking his father to take his along when he went to sea. Then he was ten years old and the father was about to start on a voyage to South Africa on Her Majesty’s Troop Ship “The Birkenhead”, the boy was taken along by his father who told the boy, "I’ll keep you so long on the water you'll never want to see it again.” This was early in the year 1852, and on the night of February 26th, the ship struck a rock on Point Danger a mile from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa and sank in a few minutes. The boy John was asleep in a hammock and his father shook him to waken him and told him to get up as the ship was sinking and as he was not fully awake the father pulled him out of his hammock and threw him overboard into a life-boat that was shoving off; he landed with only one foot in the boat. In the life-boat were mostly women and children belonging to the officers of the ship. In a few minutes the ship sank carrying with it 462 men, mostly British soldiers and Sailors.

The life-boats drifted about until daylight when they were picked up by a ship called the Amazon and were taken back to England again. John was an orphan now and as his father had died in the service of the British Navy the boy became a ward of the Government and was educated and trained at Grenage (Greenwich?) Naval Station located eighteen miles out of London. He also graduated from Oxford University. (Note; father visited this training camp in 1898 when he was returning from his mission).

John still retained his love for the sea and when he grew up, he too joined the Navy and became a sailor. It was while he was on a British Ship between England and America that he became acquainted with some Mormon Elders who were going to England to preach the gospel. He and another sailor read the tracts and books that the missionaries gave them and listened to their message. In due time they became convinced of the truth of the gospel as taught by these Elders and decided to go to Utah. (This sailor’s name was McFadden, and they remained true friends till the last. Mr. McFadden went to Salina, Utah to live.) One night when their ship was in Harbor they slipped overboard and swam about a mile to shore, landing in New York. From there they made their way to Utah, traveling across the plains with the Arthur Brown company. He was in the employ of Brigham Young for many years and assisted in aiding the people who were coming to Utah by driving an ox team back and forth across the plains. He earned and saved his money to send for his sweetheart Harriet Spinks Brooks whom he had left in England. She arrived in 1866 and joined a handcart company bound for Utah. She pushed a hand cart all the way across the plains and upon her arrival in Utah she and John were married. Their children were, Richard Fitzalan who died at the age of sixteen years, John Fitzalan, Alice Fitz Alan, Josephine Mowbray, Marguerite Mowbray and a number of other children who died in infancy.

John brought the first mowing machine into Utah in 1864 and was also the first to introduce bathing in the great Salt Lake. The first bathing resort was at Haights property in Farmington and it was open to the public in 1870. John was in charge of the Toll Gate at Parley's Canyon for four years, and was also one of the first volunteer firemen and policemen of Salt Lake City. He was a member of the 93rd Quorum of Seventies and performed a mission to England in 1880 to 1882. He was also a block teacher and Tithing Clerk, and was employed at Z.C.M.I, as shipping clerk for ten years.

On September 10, 1883 his wife died and two years later he married Mary Brown, a young woman who was also an English convert. They had seven children, Vere DeAlbany…

19 May 2006

A few thoughts on the way we do family history on the internet

Often the paradigm for doing family history work is that we start with ourselves and then find all our ancestors, which results in a large pedigree or family tree that resembles an inverted pyramid. Many of the individual family history sites on the internet are in this format. This can be beneficial to some people, particularly nuclear families and a few cousins who share much of their ancestry in common. However, I don’t think this model is maximally effective for collaborative family history efforts. Why do I believe this? First, only you and your biologically full siblings share exactly the same pedigree. Everyone else has other people in their pedigree who are not your ancestors and therefore probably interest you very little. Second, these efforts frequently lack focus and concentrated effort when it comes to collecting and disseminating the histories of single individuals or families. Families usually collect a bundle of names, but, in the end, they know very little about any one of their ancestors. Even when large extended families find common ancestors who interest them, they often get spread too thin to really delve into the personal histories of these people.

Therefore, I think that a more effective way of doing family history on the internet is by picking one or two ancestors and focusing on them. This format lends itself more readily to collaborative efforts as dozens and sometimes even hundreds of people will share that common ancestor. This ancestor then becomes a rallying point for several generations, which helps people to connect and interact, it imbues families with a sense of pride and identity, and it provides a collection point for family history information.

One of the trials of family history work is that as families get larger and have more descendants, information and artifacts often become haphazardly dispersed. Let’s say, for instance, that one of your ancestors has four prized possessions: an old family photograph, a journal, a family Bible, and a beautiful old armoire. As things usually go, one child will get the photograph, another will get the journal, another will get the family Bible, and another will get the armoire. With the passage of time, these artifacts get spread out among children and grandchildren, and eventually nobody knows they exist, except for the person who actually possesses the artifact. The beauty and blessing of the digital age is that we can now easily share almost all of the information listed. The photograph and journal could be digitized and sent as email or posted on a blog or internet site. In my family, for instance, I’ve inherited a 1921 photograph of John Richards Howard, his son, John Fitz Alan Howard, and his grandson, Gordon Maxwell Howard. If I hadn’t posted it on this blog site, nobody would know that I have it and nobody else would have access to it. PDFs or transcriptions of notes written in the family Bible could likewise be shared. The only thing that can’t easily be shared is the nice armoire, but that’s okay because there are many things in life that are more important than nice armoires.

Fortunately, it’s now easier than ever to share photos, writings, and audio & video snippets. And, once again, a blog or website that acts as a family rallying point is the ideal location to share this information. Establishing a web presence with with a blog is relatively simple, particularly with a program such as Google's Blogger. Anybody can set up a blog page for an ancestor. It’s free and requires virtually no understanding of webpage design. Furthermore, a blog is the ideal format for the exchange of ideas and information. Material that is posted on the blog is available for all to see, and anyone visiting the blog can comment on the content. This is great for family history because histories and photos can be shared and commented upon. Comments may include new stories, websites, or resources that were previously unknown to the original poster. Even if all a person wants to do is say hi and leave his or her name, it at least lets us know that that person exists and is interested. Every contribution counts and makes a difference.

So what I would encourage is that people pick an ancestor or a single family (for instance a pioneer or pilgrim family) and establish a web presence for that person or family. In this way, all of that person’s or family’s descendants will be able to join in on the dialogue and all will be benefited by the exchange of information. I became interested in John Richards Howard for a few reasons. He had an amazing, fascinating life that spanned 85 years, 3 continents, and a number of challenges and hardships. And, because I bear his surname and Y chromosome, I’m interested in learning a little bit more about his life. Through blogging I'm able to share the information that I have with others, and I hope to be able to learn more about him from visitors to this blog site.