Seminar focus: Early Ohio Mormon families
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Bibles, handkerchiefs and letters were only a few of the "pieces of history" uncovered during an annual Ohio Mormon Roots Seminar held here.
Almost 400 people gathered for the July 29 meeting that focused on gathering historical and genealogical data on early Mormon pioneer families, said Richard W. Gibbs, spokesman for the Ohio Mormon Roots Committee, which organized the event."We had double what we expected," Gibbs reported. He also estimated that 70 percent of those attending were non-LDS.
Organizers of the event were thrilled to discover historical items they were unaware even existed, said Gibbs. "One man brought two Bibles and some handkerchiefs that belonged to two aunts of Lorenzo Snow," he said.
Another man called from Texas after he heard about the conference to report that he had in his possession more than 80 letters written by Sidney Rigdon. "We're working with him to get copies of those," Gibbs noted.
Others who attended the seminar shared information they had gathered about families who lived in the area during the 1800s. "The purpose of our committee is to identify the descendants of the Kirtland Mormons, those who either didn't go West or weren't members," Gibbs explained. "That way we can accomplish both missionary work and temple work for them, as well as linking the families together."
Since inception of the committee several years ago, committee members have extracted a major amount of names, as well as organized and centralized information about early Ohio Mormons, Gibbs continued.
This year's seminar focused on five early families: Isaac Morley, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Snow, Jonathan Tanner and Newel K. Whitney. Other general workshops were conducted on family history, computer genealogy, a slide tour of Kirtland, and Geauga County research.
