I taught a class last month to the Family History Society of Arizona, Glendale Chapter on the subject of personalizing your family history by writing narratives of our ancestors based on documents we find for them. I gave them a homework assignment to write a one page narrative, so I took it upon myself to do the assignment as well.
The outcome of the assignment just goes to show that documents we find in research follow very closely what happened in real life. I researched my husband's great, great grandfather, Jesse Reuben Kemsley, and found several documents which I then used to write a narrative. The completed assignment is as follows:
The Documents:
Jesse Kemsley, son of Jesse and Martha Ann Kemsley, was born
in 1857 in Boxley, Kent, England
and christened there on September 13, 1857. Boxley is located in the Maidstone District
of Kent County, England, about two miles northeast of Maidstone and lies
below the slope of the North Downs (a ridge of chalk hills in southeastern England).
Jesse
lived in England until he left in 1875 for the United States during the agricultural
drought. His mother had died before 1861 at which time he was living
in Boxley with his widowed father, who was a Farm Bailiff, and his siblings Ellen, Phineas, Lewis,
Mark, and Walter. A farm bailiff was one
who
was appointed by a landowner to oversee farming operations. Ten years later, at the age of
thirteen, Jesse continued living in Boxley and was employed
as an agricultural laborer perhaps for his
father who at
that time continued his occupation as a Bailiff but was also listed as a
shepherd.
Some of his siblings had passed away by this time and only
two were living at home with Jesse.
When
Jesse was almost eighteen, he left England for New York state and arrived there
on July
14, 1875, with his occupation listed as a farmer. Most likely, shortly after his arrival, he
made his way to Onondaga County where he met his future wife, Eliza King, who,
in 1875, was living in Van Buren,
Onondaga, New York.
They were married in 1877.
Farming in the area included crops of wheat, corn,
fruit, and tobacco.
The town of Van Buren was located in a valley with several small streams
and fertile farm land.
However,
sometime between the Kemsley’s marriage in 1877 and 1880, they left New York
state
and were settled in Centerville, Davis, Utah, where Jesse
continued his work as a farmer. At the
time of the 1880 census, he was temporarily unable to work because
he had the measles as did his young
daughter, Mary. A short time later, they moved to Sublett, Cassia,
Idaho, where several of his children
were born: Charles,
Carrie, Grace, Jesse, and Amy. A land purchase was made there on September
23,1890. In 1877, the
area had been settled by Mormons from Tooele, Utah.
After
the death of his wife on July 27, 1897, he married a second time on September
23, 1898, in
Sublett, Cassia, Idaho, to Rebecca J. Argus, a widow, in
Sublett, Cassia, Idaho, where they continued to live for a few years until at least 1910 at which time they
returned to Utah and were living in
Willard,
Box Elder, Utah.
Jesse was doing general farm work.
A few years later, they returned to Idaho, this time to Twin Falls but by 1920 they returned to Utah again and
were living in Ogden at 1214 24th Street where Jesse worked for the Imperial Cement Company possibly
as a janitor--the occupation listed in the Ogden City Directory in 1922. They remained in Ogden until at least 1925
and probably around this time moved to
Los Angeles where he was employed a Zoo Watchman, probably for the Griffith Park Zoo which had opened in 1912. He died there two years later in 1932.
Sources:
England Birth and Christenings
England Birth Registration
1861 Boxley, Kent, England Census
1871 Boxley, Kent, England Census
1875 Van Buren, Onondaga, New York Census
Idaho Birth Index
Idaho County Marriages, 1864-1950
1900 Census of sublet, Cassia, Idaho
1910 Willard, Box Elder, Utah Census
1920 Ogden, Davis, Utah Census
1930 Census of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
U.S. City Directories
Obituary of Eliza Kemsley
Land Deed dated September 23, 1890
Fultonhistory.com
After I completed the assignment, I did a google search with Jesse Reuben Kemsley and three short biographies appeared in the search! So I did a comparison of what I wrote and what the "reality" was.
A few examples are below and are underlined to show how the reality compares to the narrative I wrote.
The Realilty
On arriving in New York he learned many people from Kent County lived up near Syracuse so he went up there and found the King and Dapson families.
This explains how Jesse and Eliza met and married.
They left Baldwinville, New York to honeymoon in California to hunt for gold. On the way, they stopped in Utah to stay with Jesse's uncle and ended up living there for a few years.
The 1880 Census shows the family living in Centerville, Utah.
Jesse built a two room log cabin near Sublett, Idaho.
Both a land document and the 1900 Census show the family living in Sublett.
Eliza Kemsley died in July 1897 leaving seven children, the eighth one was buried with her. He married Rebecca Jane Jewkes in 1898.
There was a death record for Eliza and a marriage record for Rebecca and Jesse Kemsley.
In later years, he sold out his farm and moved into Ogden. He moved to California in 1924 after his daughter Pearl died.
The Ogden City Director shows Jesse Kemsley living in Ogden in 1920 and the 1930 census shows him living in California.
The reality matches up with the facts! It was nice to know how well aligned my narrative assignment compared to the biography written by Jesse's daughter. The only thing that was incorrect in my narrative was my assumption that Jesse was a zoo keeper for the Griffith Park Zoo. In reality he worked for the Zelig Zoo.
I LEARNED THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO WRITE A FAIRLY ACCURATE BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE BASED ON DOCUMENTS.
