1. Harold Jacklin has finished his book on the Jacklins containing some information for Wagstaffs.
2. Several birth and marriage certificates have been obtained for Bedfordshire Wagstaffs and the information added to Family search Family Tree.
3. The Wagstaff-Sheen connection proved to be incorrect.
4. Ancestry of John Wagstaff (1760-1835) and his wife Elizabeth Larkins continues to be debateable.
5. Working to find the relationship of George Wagstaff (husband of Jane Jennings) to Joseph Artemus Wagstaff. The exact relationship was not stated on the ship passenger list for Jane in 1906 who by then was widowed.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Several pieces of information since my last post in the spring of 2012:
1. New information continues to develop about Susannah Wagstaff and her Carlin half sitsers who went from Utah to Helena, Montana. See details below.
2. A son of Rollie Ross Wagstaff contacted me and I have researched several generations. See below.
3. Several descendents of James Wagstaff, brother to Samuel who did not migrate to the United States have been located. Some details are available in Familysearch and we will post more in Ancestry.com.
4. Several descendents of Martha Wagstaff, sister to Samuel who did not migrate to the United States have been located. She married George Snow and lived in Clerkenwell in the north end of London. Indexing was the key. Some details are available in Familysearch and we will post more in Ancestry.com.
3.
1. New information continues to develop about Susannah Wagstaff and her Carlin half sitsers who went from Utah to Helena, Montana. See details below.
2. A son of Rollie Ross Wagstaff contacted me and I have researched several generations. See below.
3. Several descendents of James Wagstaff, brother to Samuel who did not migrate to the United States have been located. Some details are available in Familysearch and we will post more in Ancestry.com.
4. Several descendents of Martha Wagstaff, sister to Samuel who did not migrate to the United States have been located. She married George Snow and lived in Clerkenwell in the north end of London. Indexing was the key. Some details are available in Familysearch and we will post more in Ancestry.com.
3.
Rollie Ross Wagstaff was born on 4 Apr 1924 in Topeka,
Kansas to Rollie Ross Wagstaff and Nellie Vall Nye. As a boy he became
interested in radio, he worked as a teen in a radio store in Topeka. In
1943 he enlisted as a private in the Marines rising to sergeant by war's
end in 1945. Shortly afterwards he married the Salt Lake Mormon girl
Dorothy Lois Rosenvall on 23 Oct 1943 at Treasure Island, California.
After his release they lived in Salt Lake and had 2 children before she
developed MS and died within 3 months.
Rollie had 3 sisters - Betty Jane Wagstaff, June Winifred Wagstaff, and Dorothy M Wagstaff. Betty attended Kansas State University where she was a popular scholar and athlete. June attended Washburn College at age 16. She worked as an elevator operator until she landed a job as an art teacher. June married Lee Robinson and lived in Sublette County, Wyoming where she is buried in the Bondurant Cemetery. So far I know little about Dorothy.
Rollie Ross Wagstaff Sr was born about 1875 in Garnett, Kansas to William Paul Wagstaff and Ruth Ann Cook. He moved to Topeka where he was a salesman. He must have been successful to send 2 children to college at the depths of the Depression. He died in Sonoma, California in 1959. Both he and Nellie are buried in Good Hope Cemetery in Topeka.
William Paul Wagstaff, was born on 22 May 1834 in Guernsey County, Ohio to Robert Arnold Wagstaff and Sarah Duncan. Some people claim he was born in Harrison County, Ohio. It is a tribute to him that contrary to the usual practice of appointing officers from those of social standing, he as a farmer after enlisting as a private was elected to be a 2nd Lieutenant and later through his own efforts became a captain. He fought at Vicksburg and went with Sherman to the sea. At some point he was wounded. After returning to Ohio he became a successful harness maker and merchant. Later he moved to Garnett, Kansas where his business thrived. His massive granite headstone must have cost over $25,000 in today's money.
William's ancestors received military land in Ohio so there must be some veteran stories. According to some pedigrees the family descends from a William Wagstaff in Potton, Bedfordshire, England and I come from his brother John. All this is murky, genealogist have been disputing it for decades.
Rollie had 3 sisters - Betty Jane Wagstaff, June Winifred Wagstaff, and Dorothy M Wagstaff. Betty attended Kansas State University where she was a popular scholar and athlete. June attended Washburn College at age 16. She worked as an elevator operator until she landed a job as an art teacher. June married Lee Robinson and lived in Sublette County, Wyoming where she is buried in the Bondurant Cemetery. So far I know little about Dorothy.
Rollie Ross Wagstaff Sr was born about 1875 in Garnett, Kansas to William Paul Wagstaff and Ruth Ann Cook. He moved to Topeka where he was a salesman. He must have been successful to send 2 children to college at the depths of the Depression. He died in Sonoma, California in 1959. Both he and Nellie are buried in Good Hope Cemetery in Topeka.
William Paul Wagstaff, was born on 22 May 1834 in Guernsey County, Ohio to Robert Arnold Wagstaff and Sarah Duncan. Some people claim he was born in Harrison County, Ohio. It is a tribute to him that contrary to the usual practice of appointing officers from those of social standing, he as a farmer after enlisting as a private was elected to be a 2nd Lieutenant and later through his own efforts became a captain. He fought at Vicksburg and went with Sherman to the sea. At some point he was wounded. After returning to Ohio he became a successful harness maker and merchant. Later he moved to Garnett, Kansas where his business thrived. His massive granite headstone must have cost over $25,000 in today's money.
William's ancestors received military land in Ohio so there must be some veteran stories. According to some pedigrees the family descends from a William Wagstaff in Potton, Bedfordshire, England and I come from his brother John. All this is murky, genealogist have been disputing it for decades.
Mystery Solved - Susannah is found!
In this blog in the spring of 2010 I presented the mystery of the disappearance of Susannah Wagstaff in 1883. This is a report on the solution of that mystery. On October 20, 2010 and again on the 27th John Earle of Portland, Oregon responded to my blog by saying that my story sounded familiar, that he was a descendant of her half sister Margaret Carlin, and that Susannah had moved from Utah to Helena, Montana. A little later we posted a public tree in Ancestry.com and Christopher Mentrum, an avid genelaogist, also of Portland Emailed me that he was a descendant of Susannah.
Let me here correct an error. The sexton’s records in the American Fork, Utah Cemetery said Margaret Carlin was buried in that cemetery beside her mother. There was confusion with another Margaret and the cemetery records no longer state that Margaret Carlin was buried there.
The story started with the employment of Susannah’s half sister Mary Carlin in the luxurious home on South Temple Street in Salt Lake City of the railroad magnate John Sharp. He wanted to build a line from Salt Lake City to the gold fields at Helena. Documentation has not been found but it is reasonable to assume that he took his household servants to Helena while scouting out the railroad prospects. What is certain is that Mary Carlin married Benjamin Malben on 6 Mar 1877 in Lewis and Clark County, Montana. He was a Civil War veteran who served at Gettysburg, was under the command of General Custer as a sargent and was at Lee's surrender at Appomattox. It has been said that he wrote newspaper articles about that war but we have not located them thus far. After working as a gold miner and engaging in various occupations he became the sexton of the Forestville Cemetery in Helena where he and his wife were buried. After Mary and Benjamin were married, Benjamin wrote to his friend Robert Barnes arranging a blind date with Mary's sister Margaret Carlin who had brought the train up from Utah. The date must have been successful because Margaret Carlin and Robert Barnes were married on 1 May 1878 in Park City, Montana. They had a large family. Their house in Helena especially after Robert's death became hotel central for the family. Several members of the extended family roomed there for extensive periods.
We have found no records to tell us when or why Susannah Wagstaff moved from Utah to Montana. It is likely that her half sisters already living there encouraged her to move after her divorce from Jacob Israel Ovard. The divorce record if it even exists has not been located. He lived out his old age in the old folks home in Provo, Utah and was buried in an unmarked paupers grave in the American Fork City Cemetery (Utah). Susannah's mother Ann Mclachlan Carlin Wagstaff was said to have desired that her daughters not marry into polygamy. Thus she may have agreed with Susannah's move to Montana. The first documentation found thus far is the marriage of Susannah Wagstaff to John Mentrum on 1 Nov 1880 in Helena, Montana. John was a tinsmith who probably built ornamentation for the millionaire houses still standing in Helena. They had three children. John Mentrum was born Oct 1890 in Helena and died on 22 May 1905 in Helena and is buried in the Forestvale Cemetery. Leonard Mentrum was born 20 Sep 1891 in Helena. He moved to Spokane, Washington following the trade of his father working in the sheet metal business. From there he moved to Portland, Oregon where some of his posterity still reside. He married Jennie Bowers on 6 Aug 1913 in Helena. He had a son also named Leonard Mentrum in Portland. In turn he had a son Christopher Mentrum. The youngest child of John Mentrum and Susannah was Clarence Cameron Mentrum born on 11 Apr 1894 in Clark, Fallon County, Montana. He joined the US Marines and was stationed in Brooklyn, New York. Later he was employed by an insurance company in Manhattan. He married Ethel (Surname unknown). No children for this couple are recorded in the census. Clarence died on 21 Jan 1970 in Hyde Park, New York and was buried in the Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.
Susannah died on 29 June 1897 in Helena and was buried in the Forestville Cemetery. John Mentrum died on 17 May 1913 in Helena and is buried in the Forestville Cemetery.
Susannah died the same year as her father Samuel Wagstaff. It is not known what contact there was between the Montana families and the Utah family. But there must have been some contact because the oldest Carlin girl Ann did proxy temple work for her sisters Mary and Margaret after their deaths.
More details with some pictures will be posted on our Carlin public tree in Ancestry.com.
In this blog in the spring of 2010 I presented the mystery of the disappearance of Susannah Wagstaff in 1883. This is a report on the solution of that mystery. On October 20, 2010 and again on the 27th John Earle of Portland, Oregon responded to my blog by saying that my story sounded familiar, that he was a descendant of her half sister Margaret Carlin, and that Susannah had moved from Utah to Helena, Montana. A little later we posted a public tree in Ancestry.com and Christopher Mentrum, an avid genelaogist, also of Portland Emailed me that he was a descendant of Susannah.
Let me here correct an error. The sexton’s records in the American Fork, Utah Cemetery said Margaret Carlin was buried in that cemetery beside her mother. There was confusion with another Margaret and the cemetery records no longer state that Margaret Carlin was buried there.
The story started with the employment of Susannah’s half sister Mary Carlin in the luxurious home on South Temple Street in Salt Lake City of the railroad magnate John Sharp. He wanted to build a line from Salt Lake City to the gold fields at Helena. Documentation has not been found but it is reasonable to assume that he took his household servants to Helena while scouting out the railroad prospects. What is certain is that Mary Carlin married Benjamin Malben on 6 Mar 1877 in Lewis and Clark County, Montana. He was a Civil War veteran who served at Gettysburg, was under the command of General Custer as a sargent and was at Lee's surrender at Appomattox. It has been said that he wrote newspaper articles about that war but we have not located them thus far. After working as a gold miner and engaging in various occupations he became the sexton of the Forestville Cemetery in Helena where he and his wife were buried. After Mary and Benjamin were married, Benjamin wrote to his friend Robert Barnes arranging a blind date with Mary's sister Margaret Carlin who had brought the train up from Utah. The date must have been successful because Margaret Carlin and Robert Barnes were married on 1 May 1878 in Park City, Montana. They had a large family. Their house in Helena especially after Robert's death became hotel central for the family. Several members of the extended family roomed there for extensive periods.
We have found no records to tell us when or why Susannah Wagstaff moved from Utah to Montana. It is likely that her half sisters already living there encouraged her to move after her divorce from Jacob Israel Ovard. The divorce record if it even exists has not been located. He lived out his old age in the old folks home in Provo, Utah and was buried in an unmarked paupers grave in the American Fork City Cemetery (Utah). Susannah's mother Ann Mclachlan Carlin Wagstaff was said to have desired that her daughters not marry into polygamy. Thus she may have agreed with Susannah's move to Montana. The first documentation found thus far is the marriage of Susannah Wagstaff to John Mentrum on 1 Nov 1880 in Helena, Montana. John was a tinsmith who probably built ornamentation for the millionaire houses still standing in Helena. They had three children. John Mentrum was born Oct 1890 in Helena and died on 22 May 1905 in Helena and is buried in the Forestvale Cemetery. Leonard Mentrum was born 20 Sep 1891 in Helena. He moved to Spokane, Washington following the trade of his father working in the sheet metal business. From there he moved to Portland, Oregon where some of his posterity still reside. He married Jennie Bowers on 6 Aug 1913 in Helena. He had a son also named Leonard Mentrum in Portland. In turn he had a son Christopher Mentrum. The youngest child of John Mentrum and Susannah was Clarence Cameron Mentrum born on 11 Apr 1894 in Clark, Fallon County, Montana. He joined the US Marines and was stationed in Brooklyn, New York. Later he was employed by an insurance company in Manhattan. He married Ethel (Surname unknown). No children for this couple are recorded in the census. Clarence died on 21 Jan 1970 in Hyde Park, New York and was buried in the Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.
Susannah died on 29 June 1897 in Helena and was buried in the Forestville Cemetery. John Mentrum died on 17 May 1913 in Helena and is buried in the Forestville Cemetery.
Susannah died the same year as her father Samuel Wagstaff. It is not known what contact there was between the Montana families and the Utah family. But there must have been some contact because the oldest Carlin girl Ann did proxy temple work for her sisters Mary and Margaret after their deaths.
More details with some pictures will be posted on our Carlin public tree in Ancestry.com.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Introduction to the Wagstaff Family of the Intermountain West
Wagstaff is an uncommon, though by no means rare, surname that is widely distributed in the English speaking world. In England, the country of its origin, the name is concentrated in Yorkshire, Warwickshire, and Bedfordshire. In the United States the name was found in Colonial Virginia and since is mainly in North Carolina, Texas, and Utah. The North Carolina and Texas people are not related to the family in Utah.
There is speculation that the name is of Saxon origin, but Saxon migration to the British Isles ended centuries before the first mention of the name. One theory is that it is a military name referring to the staff of a spear akin to the name Shakespeare. Another high brow idea is that it refers to the staff or scepter denoting the authority of one in power. However, few Wagstaffs were of the gentry class while fewer still were nobility and none were royalty. Rather it seems likely that it refers to a shepherds staff, i. e., our people were sheepherders.
In the Cary Grant movie, My Favorite Wife was Helen Wagstaff. Groucho Marx played Professor Wagstaff in Horse Feathers. One of my favorite cartoons is a dog with a man’s head being rebuked by a man in a white laboratory coat, "Wagstaff these experiments have got to stop." Other than these fictitious examples, few have obtained prominence but rather they formed part of the foundation of our culture - solid contributing citizens. Regardless of the meaning of the name, the members of the family have mainly been workers - farmers, coal miners and railroaders. It is only within the present generation that the majority of them have left the farm, mine and railroad to seek other employment. They have turned from coal and cabbage to computers. Cattle ranchers and onion farmers became a land appraiser, veterinarian, and wild seed picker, then wrestling coach and aeronautical engineer.
Many of the Wagstaffs of Western America descend from emigrants from Bedfordshire, a small mostly rural county about an hour north of London. Located on main roads such as the Great Northern Road, there were several fords over streams giving rise to the name of the county, Bedford, and some of its parishes, e. g., Great Barford and Little Barford. Although the area was fought over by the Danes, it seems to be mainly of Saxon extraction. The northern end of the county was a hotbed of nonconformity. John Bunyan, one of the best known nonconformist preachers, came from this area. Wagstaffs were largely located in Wilden in the 1500s and early 1600s. Gradually the name appeared in moderate numbers across the northeastern part of Bedfordshire somewhat overlapping into western Cambridgeshire. Few of the family lived in towns such as Bedford or Biggleswade and fewer still were craftsmen. They were largely rural agricultural people.
As a youngster I heard family lore that all of the Utah Wagstaffs were descended from three brothers who joined the LDS Church and migrated to Utah in the mid 1800s. They are William Wagstaff (1809-1897) of Salt Lake City, John Wagstaff (1816-1901) of Salt Lake City and Samuel Wagstaff (1820-1897) of American Fork, Utah. Gradually I became aware that these brothers had four sisters and a mother who also migrated. They are Rachel Eleanor Wagstaff Hayes (1829-1884) of Pleasant Grove, Utah; Sarah Ann Wagstaff Sears (1824-1902) of Salt Lake City; Mary Wagstaff Bone (1811-1875) of Lehi, Utah; Ann Wagstaff Juchau (1826-1904) of Brooklyn, New York and the mother Mary Bathsheba Gillions of Lehi, Utah. Still later while taking a genealogy class at the Logan Branch Genealogical Library the instructor asked if I were related to Mary Peterson of Brigham City, Utah. Her maiden name was Wagstaff but she was from a different branch than the three brothers. Her immigrant ancestor is Henry Wagstaff (1862-1947) of Brigham City, Utah.
At a much later time I learned that there were additional branches of Wagstaffs that migrated from England. William Wagstaff (1809-1893) migrated to Preston, Idaho. John Wagstaff (1836-1914) migrated to Almy, Wyoming near Evanston not for religion but for coal mining. More recently I have uncovered records of Edwin Wagstaff from Scotland who was cremated in Provo, Utah in 1978 and Mary Ann Wagstaff who married a Bullock in Bedfordshire before they migrated to Utah. Even more recently I have discovered that Mary Ann had a sister Elizabeth Wagstaff who married a Shupe and migrated even before Mary. And even more recently still I have discovered a John Wagstaff who emigrated from England to the Evanston, Wyoming area and later moved to Croydon, Utah. There are probably still other lines waiting to be discovered. The fact remains that even though a high percentage of the Wagstaffs in Central Utah descend from the three brothers, that there are several other branches of the family. A branch is here defined as those people descended from an English immigrant individual or nuclear family. The confusion increased after 1991 when temple submissions were no longer accompanied by any documentation. With the advent of NewFamilySearch we became aware of many records of family relationships some of which are erroneous.
I have nicknamed the Wagstaff family branches as the following.
Almy John
American Fork Samuel
Brigham City Henry
Brooklyn Ann
Croydon John
Lehi Mary
Ogden Elizabeth
Pleasant Grove Rachel Eleanor
Preston William
Provo Edwin
Salt Lake John
Salt Lake Rollie
Salt Lake Sarah Ann
Sugar House William
Warren Mary Ann
As individual members of the Wagstaff family were converted to the LDS Church they recorded the names of members of their immediate family members and ancestors they knew. They performed temple work for themselves and known ancestors in the Endowment House and in the Logan, Manti and Salt Lake temples. Little research for records of people beyond their personal knowledge seems to have been done in the 1800s. In fact little actual research was done until the 1920s and 1930s and then not much. Annie Kimball, a descendant of William Wagstaff (1808-1897), did some research and organized a Wagstaff Reunion which met annually for several years. It lasted only a few years after her death. In addition to Annie Kimball, two other women Mary Wagstaff Peterson and Virginia Wagstaff Bushman were prime movers for a number of years. Others involved in research include Howard Logsden, David Wagstaff, Noreen Wagstaff Taylor, Ellen Kurr, Brian Leese and Linda Johnson Maxfield.
Actual research by family members peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. Mary Peterson led an effort to extend the Wagstaff pedigree in Bedfordshire. She hired Brian Leese, a professional genealogist, who researched the family and issued at least 9 reports of which some are in 2 parts. Later Leese was accused of fabricating pedigrees. However, there is no indication that work he did on the Wagstaff line is not trustworthy. Roger Ward, a Bedfordshire Wagstaff descendant residing in that area of England, has evaluated the Leese reports and considers them to be accurate in most regards. However, Maureen Hall, another Wagstaff descendant living in that area, does not agree with Roger on all points. The Hayes family and Willis Peterson have maintained contact with Roger. Linda Maxfield, a Hayes descendant, has Roger’s hand-written evaluations and will type them up and share. Roger has been working on a book of Wagstaff genealogy for many years. The status of this book is unknown. Howard Logsden employed Ellen Kurr to research the family. Brian Leese disagreed with the pedigree that she researched.
Wagstaff is part of the One Name Organization. Barbara Kent is a prime mover for Wagstaff in that organization. Harold Jacklin is in the final stages of publishing a book that will include some Wagstaff family history. The personal history and descendancy of Henry Wagstaff has been published in two volumes by the Brigham City Branch. Websites known to contain some Wagstaff family history include those by the Hayes family, the Juchau family and Craig Shelley. The Wagstaff family presently has no formal organization. After a meeting of some of the family on 28 Sep 2009 at the Bountiful home of Wayne and Clarissa Wagstaff, Craig Shelley agreed to create a Wagstaff website. He is working on the technical aspects. Jess Wagstaff is working on content. This blog is intended as preliminary and supportive of that website development. Several other people have family history information and are willing to share. These include Wayne and Clarissa Wagstaff and Linda Maxfield, a descendant of Rachel Eleanor Wagstaff Hayes. There are probably other people willing to research information and to write or revise sections.
What's New
1. Rollie Ross Wagstaff Jr was killed 8 May 1955 in an airplane crash at the Salt Lake Airport.
2. It would appear that he came from Kansas and is not related to the other Wagstaff branches. I have nicknamed this branch Salt Lake Rollie.
3. Contact has just been made with descendants of the Evanston Wagstaffs. Hope good things come of this.
4. Solving the ancestry of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins would seem to depend on a radius search. This would take an enormous effort and is not likely to happen soon. Any volunteers?
1. Rollie Ross Wagstaff Jr was killed 8 May 1955 in an airplane crash at the Salt Lake Airport.
2. It would appear that he came from Kansas and is not related to the other Wagstaff branches. I have nicknamed this branch Salt Lake Rollie.
3. Contact has just been made with descendants of the Evanston Wagstaffs. Hope good things come of this.
4. Solving the ancestry of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins would seem to depend on a radius search. This would take an enormous effort and is not likely to happen soon. Any volunteers?
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