Family History Missionaries and British History

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Effective family history research in Great Britain requires an understanding of the historical events taking place that affected the people living during that time period. Just a few examples:

1531 Henry VIII was recognized as head of the newly created Church of England. All ties with the Pope and the church in Rome were severed.

1538 Thomas Cromwell ordered all parish ministers to keep records of christenings, marriages, and burials. These records became known as parish registers. In our family history Centre we have over 60,000 microfilms of these records. During the course of a day we are constantly running out to the garage where these films are kept and then returning them after the patrons  finish. We have the capability to make scans and print these records. Most of our patrons come to search the films. We have parish records for Jamaica and India as well as the British Isles. Many of our patrons are from Jamaica.

1568 Some Puritans ordained their own ministers and tried to separate from the Church of England. All churches that were not Church of England were called nonconformists. The nonconformist records were kept differently from the Church of England records.We need to search in different data bases to find them.

1642-1660 Civil War took place in England. Charles I was executed in 1649 and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England. Civil war caused political and religious upheaval. Parish registers were poorly kept. Many other changes affected record keeping.

1812 The George Rose Act required Church of England christening, marriage, and burial records to be kept in separate registers on preprinted forms, starting 1 January 1813. I always love it when we are scanning parish records after 1813. The preprinted forms are so much easier to read. Some of the older records are in Latin.

1837 Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began on 1 July. However, events could still be recorded in parish registers.

So you see that it becomes necessary to become somewhat of a historian to serve on this family history mission! We are giving our first ‘talk’ which is a power point presentation on Tuesday. It’s titled Searching English Records in FamilySearch and we have spent an enormous amount of time preparing it.

 

On Good Friday the Centre was closed. That morning we, along with The Crandalls and Robertsons, took the train to Dover. Dover is a town and major ferry port in the county of Kent. It faces France along the narrowest part of the English Channel. We were able to take a short boat tour along the coast and then a bus tour that took us to the top of the white cliffs.

Dover is filled with history. People inhabited it since the stone age and it was actually was actually a Roman fortified port. Forts were built above the port; lighthouses were constructed to guide ships. We were able to see one of the light houses that remains and also a Roman villa that was discover just a few years ago. Dover Castle is medieval and is the largest castle in England. 

 

Dover has  served as a defense against various attackers: the French during the Napoleonic Wars; and against Germany during World War II. There is a system of military tunnels cut into the white chalk cliffs that go back to the Napoleonic War and World War II. Dover is also famous for Operation Dynamo. The little ships of Dunkirk, 700 private boats sailed from England to Dunkirk in France between May 26 and June 4, 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, the rescue of more than 338,000 British and French soldiers, who were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk during the Second World War.  Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay, from his headquarters in the tunnels beneath Dover Castle, directed the evacuation. A picture of his statue is below.

A room in Dover Castle                  Ken beside the Roman lighthouse

Another room in the castle       9th century Saxon church

 

It was strange not spending Easter Sunday with our family. We rode the bus and underground to the North London Ward. I taught a lesson on the crucifixion and resurrection to the children. The are so sweet and have such a good understanding of the things we talked about. We have English, African, Chinese and American children in our Primary. They are teaching me so much.

It was a beautiful Easter morning. We were so excited to talk with most of our family either on Saturday or Sunday and to wish them a happy Easter. It made us happy that the big Fugal Easter Egg Hunt went on as usual in our back yard. We were even able to see a video of it. We miss you sweet grandchildren!

Abby, Avery, Emily, April and Elizabeth

Baby Riley

And everyone else: Kayleigh, Josh, Nick, Drew, Bryan, Matthew, Joseph, Spencer, Ryan and Carter.

And a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our oldest grandson Josh, who will be 14 on Saturday. We are so proud of you Josh. You are such a good example to your brothers, sister and cousins.

Our best to all of you!
Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

London and History

Dear Family and Friends,
I just finished reading a book called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. Ken read it as well. It was loaned to us by Sharon Hintze, the director of our FH Centre, and is the true story of a cholera epidemic in England in the 1850’s. The story is centered in Soho in Victorian London, northeast of where we live in Chelsea. England had been having cholera epidemics every few years beginning in the 1830’s. By 1854, London was the largest city in the world and the unsanitary conditions in the city caused there to be a stench that most people thought caused the disease. One man, Doctor John Snow, was convinced that cholera was a water borne disease and was eventually able to construct a map that showed the deaths in a neighborhood where 10% of the population died in a weeks’ time. At the center of the map was the Broad Street pump, where people would come to draw their water. Snow used bars to represent the deaths and it became obvious that there were many more deaths closer to the pump.

Dr. Snow, along with a clergyman, Henry Whitehead, finally convinced the authorities to shut down the pump, thus saving many lives. The book was fascinating as it gave a view into the London of Victorian times. Many of the buildings that were standing then are still here today. It’s hard to walk down the street in London and not be aware of the history of the place.
Saturday, on our P-day we went to Hampton Court Palace with John and Marilyn Crandall, another FH missionary couple. He is a retired dentist and she, a retired kindergarten teacher. They are from Phoenix and this is their second mission. Their first was in northern England. Another interesting connection- Crandall's daughter Joyce and our daughter-in-law, Amy, were missionary companions in Paraguay.

Hampton Court is about an hour and a half tube and bus ride west along the Thames. It was the palace of Henry the VIII and assorted wives and later King William of Orange and his wife Queen Mary II. It is half Tudor from the 1500's and baroque from the 1700's. The gardens are beautiful. We took a ride around them in a horse drawn wagon and then ate fish and chips in one of the cafes on the grounds. The courtyard of the palace was filled with medieval objects that were being boxed up. One of the guides told us they had just finished filming a movie starring Ewan McGregor called Jack the Giant Killer. Apparently they do a lot filming at Hampton Court. The things being boxed were from the staging of the movie. The palace kitchens were huge and could feed 1000 people a day.


 Henry the VIII was quite a guy. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.The ghost of Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is said to haunt the gallery leading from the chapel in the castle. I'm trying to figure out all the English monarchs so I attached a poster on the wall in our flat showing the royal lines and I'm collecting post cards of their portraits. After reading an English history book, I was disappointed because I can't really see that there were very many good guys. I do like Sir Thomas More and have his picture on the wall.

I had a very interesting experience in the centre on Friday. A lady came in for the second time. Ken and I had helped her earlier in the week. She wanted me to make scans (photos) of microfishe which is hardly ever used any more. Anyway while I was doing it, I asked her name and she said Lady ------- and that she was 87 years old. She was a titled lady. She explained to me that there are 2 ways people are titled. Either it is hereditary and passed down in a family or in her case her husband was knighted. She said he was a British ambassador in the 1970's to 2 different countries. She was a very nice lady and it was a pleasure to help her. I can't believe the wide range of patrons we have- cockneys to upper classes. There are several professional genealogists who come every day. We are getting to know many of our patrons and really enjoy them.
Congratulations to three of our sweet granddaughters, Emily, Elizabeth and April for being on TV news with their Chinese immersion class! 我們愛你!

 
Our best to all of you!
Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

The Hyde Park Building

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Yesterday  evening we sat in the Hyde Park Chapel listening, live, to the Saturday morning session of General  Conference. It was available on the internet but we worked yesterday in the FH Centre so we stayed at  church to watch. Most of the people in our stake watched from their home computers but the young missionaries, young adults and a few families came to Hyde Park to watch. I looked around as the choir sang and had the most overwhelming sense of joy and thankfulness for being able to serve on this mission in this place. I remembered the times we had been in London in the past and had come to church in this building and felt the special spirit that is here. In the foyer there is a beautiful mural showing the Plan of Salvation, that was painted quite a few years ago.

I remembered it from the first time we came to this building. That was in 2003. We were on our way to Glasgow to visit Andrew and Amy and their family and decided to stop in London for a few days before we traveled up to Scotland. We had just arrived in London that Sunday morning and wanted to attend church. Our good friends Que and Lucille Steele had served a mission in London several years ago and had told us a lot about the Hyde Park Ward. We wanted to attend so came straight from the airport even though we were pretty tired and wrinkled. We decided to sit down in the back because we weren’t looking our best. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and we turned around to see our next door neighbors, Joel and Annette Nielsen.

Our next visit to London was a couple of years later with Molly and Mark. We planned our trip so we could be in London over Sunday and again be able to attend church. The last time was when we were traveling with Megan and Steve. As we were singing the opening hymn during sacrament meeting, we looked across the aisle and saw Lavell Edwards and his wife. Something interesting always seemed to happen to us in London. 

We have come to appreciate this building and feel so blessed to be able to serve our mission here.

I had an interesting  experience with a English gentleman who called the Centre last week. He said he was not a member of our church but was giving a lecture to a group of people on the LDS and their contributions to family history work. He asked if I had some kind of short quote by one of our church leaders explaining why we do this family history work. There’s a quote by President Hinckley on the wall where you enter our Centre so I read that to him over the phone. It says, “One of the distinguishing features of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a belief in the divine nature of the family as an institution ordained of God. Here centers the most sacred of all human relationships. Life is eternal. Love is eternal. And God our Eternal Father designed and has made it possible that our families may be eternal”. The English gentleman said perfect and asked me to email it to him. I did and in his answer thanking me, he told me that years ago he had discovered that there was a member of his family who had joined the church and immigrated to Utah. He had been one of the pioneers and church leaders in the settlement of Cedar City. He said that a couple of years ago he traveled to America and went to Cedar City where a distant cousin had arranged for him to speak to a group of 80 descendants of the pioneer. The English gentleman spoke on the history of their family in England. It is not uncommon for our patrons to say that they had a family members who joined the Mormon Church and immigrated to Utah. So many of the early members of our Church were converted in in Great Britain and immigrated to the US.

It’s always gratifying to be able to help people when they don’t understand how to search for ancestors. Ken helped a couple of men from Australia who came into the building because they saw our large Family History Centre sign. They only had a few minutes to spend but were curious about what they could find. They knew that had Scottish ancestors. Ken  directed them to a data base and within a few minutes they found  had some of their family. One of the men took out his camera, snapped some pictures of the records and then they were on their way. It isn’t always that easy!

 

Sunday afternoon we took a stroll through the Old Brompton Cemetery which is only a block from our flat. The cemetery was opened as part of an initiative in the mid-19th century to provide seven large, modern cemeteries, called the Magnificent Seven,in a ring around the edge of London. The inner city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead. There are over 35,000 monuments. Beatrix Potter, who lived nearby, took the names of many of her animal characters from tombstones in the cemetery. Names on headstones included Mr. Nutkins, Mr. McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher, Tommy Brock - and even a Peter Rabbett.

Spring has really arrived in London. The trees and daffodils are beautiful.

These trees are along our street and the flowers are in St. James’s Park. We even have things blooming in our back garden, shown on the lower right.

Two sweet messages that we unwrapped from our wicker basket this past week:

From Carter- “I wuv you Grandpa”

From Abby- “You are so lucky!”

We know we are, Abby!

Our best to all of you.
Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

Connections

 

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s interesting how many connections there are in life. Through Barbara and John Robertson, one of the 3 missionary couples in the Family History Centre, we were able to find a link to a journal in the BYU Library written by Ken’s 2nd great grandfather Andrew Ferguson. He was born in Rutherglen, Scotland, joined the church there and was called to serve a mission. He left his young family to do so and traveled all over Scotland.  The family later immigrated to Utah.

The journal was written while he served his mission and records his travels and missionary service. His testimony is very touching and he gives a beautiful tribute to his young wife who dies. Ken and our son-in-law, Mark Robins, served in some of the same places  as Andrew Ferguson when they were on Scottish missions. When our son Andrew and his wife Amy and their 2 boys, Bryan and Matthew, lived in Scotland, they lived only 6 miles north of Rutherglen. It turns out that John Robertson’s 2nd great grandfather was a missionary companion to Andrew Ferguson and is mentioned in the journal. Now Ken and John are serving together in the Family History Centre. If any of you are interested in seeing the journal, here is the link:

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/Diaries&CISOPTR=7644&REC=1

 

Another connection: I worked for several years with Devon Tufts who was our assistant principal at Timberline Middle School. We had a retirement party together last May and Devon and his wife Judy put in missionary papers about the same time as we did. They were called to serve in the England, Birmingham Mission as CES missionaries. That involves working with young college aged adults. We were in the MTC at the same time.  Devon and Judy have a few days off when the universities close and are traveling down to London in a couple of weeks to see the sights and visit. We really look forward to seeing them.

We found out that another retiree from my school district, Paula Fugal and her husband Guy, a 2nd cousin of Ken’s, are also coming to England. They will serve as public affairs missionaries.

                                                                                                        Our friends, the Prices, left London today and are headed home to Chandler, Arizona. We will sorely miss them. They helped us get settled, were our mentors in the FHC and became our good friends. We wish we could have served with them longer but feel that we were fortunate to have been able to serve with them for 2 months. The picture was taken at “Sticky Fingers”, where we had a goodbye party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ken and I are preparing a power point presentation titled English Records on FamilySearch and will be presenting it to the public on 26 April- very scary! Ken feels if he could do the presentation on nutrition and I feel if I could do it on Plate Tectonics we might feel a bit more comfortable.

 

We had the chance to go to 2 wonderful places in the past week. We toured the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. The Cabinet War Rooms are the restored rooms of the secret British underground bunker used by British officials as a headquarters during World War II. Also housed in the remains of the underground bunker is the Churchill Museum, a small museum dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

 

Shortly after being appointed Prime Minister on 10th May 1940 Churchill visited the bunker. On surveying the complex he chose a room, saying: “This is the room from which I will lead the war” – it was the largest room in the shelter. Churchill's War Cabinet met here 115 times during the course of the war. The War Cabinet Room is preserved exactly as it was when it closed in August 1945. Churchill's red box, which went everywhere with him, sits on the table, and original maps line the walls. It is  interesting seeing all this and imagining how it must have been for the people in London during that terrible war, especially during the blitz. In the museum shop they had postcards with slogans used during the war. Here are some of my favorites:

 

I think the Keep Calm and Carry On is going to be our mission motto especially if we have to keep giving power point presentations to the public.

 

We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Saturday with Prices, Cambells, and Sister Groves, to see the Norman Rockwell Exhibit. It was fabulous! They had many of his original paintings as well as a display of all 322 covers he made for The Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963. I never realized how brilliant he was.

 

Before I post this I need to add one last thing- it’s our Jimmer Fredette story. Last spring Ken and I were invited to a Cougar Club luncheon at the Student Athlete Building. Jimmer was in the building and we rode the elevator up with him. What an outstanding young man. We told him that we enjoyed watching him play basketball but that we would not be able to watch during the upcoming season because we were going to be serving a mission. He was very interested and asked where we would be serving. We told him England. Even thought we haven’t been able to see many of the basketball games, it has been so exciting to follow Jimmer and the Cougars this year. Go Cougars!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

 

THE SCHEDULE and some random thoughts…

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Ken is in charge of THE SCHEDULE for those that work in the Family History Centre. This includes three missionary couples and the local staff. The Centre is open 49 hours per week and most of the time, 2 couples need to be there. The missionary couples work a minimum of 35 hours a week and the others work at various times, always subject to change. I think Ken has dreams about THE SCHEDULE. This past week we were the late shift and then also worked on Saturday. We are really looking forward to a preparation day on Monday.

We have been in England for 2 months. It has been an adventure. We are loving it, but it has been a challenge learning to live in a place so different from what we are used to.It’s starting to get easier. It’s also starting to get a bit warmer and the spring flowers are beginning to come up. Everyone says that spring is beautiful in London. I even bought a couple of plants and put them in one of the pots next to our front door. We live in the garden flat of a 3 story building dating from the 1800’s.

We go down a flight of stairs on the right hand side of the white and brick building. There’s a small patio area with potted plants around the stairs and a small garden area out back. It will be interesting to see what comes up in the garden. That’s the English word for yard. The photo on the left is our garden. The photo on the right is looking back down our street on the way to the bus stop.

 

I had a sweet experience at the Centre this past week. I was helping an older, very dignified gentleman who has been in before and has done quite a bit of research. He was looking through the microfilms of parish records from the 1500’s to find the birth and other information about his 12th great grandfather. He found the information and I talked with him as I was making scans (photocopies) of the records. He said, “You know, you people have a remarkable and invaluable collection of records here.” He kindly helped me read the record which was partially in Latin. It makes us feel so good when people are grateful for the service we are able to give.

 

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

PS Go Cougars!

Settling In…

 

 

Dear Family and Friends,

We have a sign-in clip board at the Family History Centre where the patrons sign in with their name, country of interest and mark a check if they are at the centre for the first time. Last week I was sitting at the desk by the clip board and reminded the patron to put a check if they were here for the first time. The patron looked at me with a very puzzled expression and wrote the word ‘check’ on the paper. Another example of the difference between the English we speak and that which is spoken in England. The English do not call it a check mark- it is a tick. Another difference- in our building we are in the basement. The next floor is the ground floor, then comes the mezzanine and finally the first floor which by my reckoning is really the third floor. We eat on the third floor which is really the fifth floor.  Every time I get in the elevator I have to think about where I really want to go before I push the button. So we are settling in but continually discovering that a lot of things are very different.

Who Do You Think You Are?

 

This past weekend we were able to work at the FamilySearch Booth at the genealogical exhibition, Who Do You Think You Are? It was was held at the Olympia Conference & Exhibition Centre. Ancestry.com was the primary sponsor and all kinds of genealogical societies were represented. There were quite a few people out from Salt Lake to help at the booth that was set up with numerous computers to show people how FamilySearch and the LDS records can help with family history. People who are into family research are well aware of what our Church has done to preserve and make available early records of the British people. Our Centre alone has over 60,000 rolls of mircofilm of parish records dating to the early 1600’s and civil records. For many of those records, which were filmed quite a few years ago,the originals  are now gone. People here give a lot of credit to the LDS Church for preserving their records.

Ken and I both had great experiences helping people understand how and where to search for ancestors. Ken was able to help a Jewish man who was searching for ancestors in Poland. I helped a man track down his grandmother who was born in South Africa and left an orphan when her parents died. She was taken back to a foundling home in England and later adopted. The Church actually has a record of her christening.  It is wonderful to see the gratitude from people we are able to help. This happens every day on a smaller scale in our Family History Centre. This is a very rewarding mission!

Grandchildren’s birthdays we’ve missed:

Spencer-11  Sorry about D Will!         Riley-0  Precious baby! 

 

     Joseph-13  A teenager!                Nick-12  A Deacon!

 

and coming up in March:

Kayleigh-13  Look out world!   Matthew-10 Taekwondo champ!

Happy Birthday to all of you sweet grandchildren! We love you!

 

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)