My first venture into family history (Part 1 of 2)

What was it that first got you interested in family history? 

When my brother mentioned needing to organize all the records he had inherited from various relatives, I was intrigued by the challenge and my editorial side got the better of me. As I began sorting through and indexing documents, I read the stories preserved there and quickly discovered that in my 27 years of life, no one in my family had thought to mention our early Mormon pioneer heritage to me—a heritage I was literally encircled by while living in Salt Lake City.

Up until a few years ago, the word “ancestor” would have sent me scuttling into a different room while avoiding eye contact. But somehow, on a muddy brown day in late fall 2013, it sent me tripping through the Salt Lake City cemetery. The most surprising part? I wanted to be there.

Phebe Ann Morton Angell (Young), my five times great-grandmother (through my paternal grandmother’s line), is who I was interested in finding that day. Not only had she witnessed some of the most trying and important moments in Mormon history as she crossed the country in the mid-nineteenth century, but she caused quite a stir after her death.

Buried on the family property according to the custom in 1854, Phebe was unearthed many years later during construction in 1908. The workers at first thought they had a murder mystery on their hands, but the remains were eventually claimed by family members that had been trying to locate her for decades. The article that reported on this concluded that she was re-buried in her family plot in the city cemetery. It wasn’t much to go on, but I felt like the star of a genealogy-themed Discovery Channel reality show, and it was exciting.

Armed only with the coordinates of possible family graves and a poor sense of direction, I did a fair amount of wandering and speculating about the people represented on the headstones I saw. But finally I scaled an incline, circled a scrubby bush, and found myself surrounded by Angells.

I stopped in front of Truman O. Angell, Phebe’s son and architect of the Salt Lake LDS temple (among other temples and buildings). 

Picture courtesy of findagrave.com

He is the brother of the man I am descended from, Solomon Angell. But Solomon is resting in Southern Utah and wouldn’t be joining us that day. I’d discovered a large clan of Angells, but Phebe was not among them. I took some time to greet my deceased distant cousins, but ultimately walked away disappointed. Where was she?

Stay tuned for my upcoming post, Finding Phebe: The Adventure Continues, to see what happened next.

Did you have a moment or topic that launched you into family history? Tell me in the comments below!