When I began searching my family tree with this week's prompt of LARGE FAMILY I discovered many of my ancestors had large families. Many of my female ancestors had more than a dozen children each. Some of my male ancestors remarried after their wife died creating a second family with as many children as the first had. I also noticed how many of the babies and children died long before achieving adulthood. I realized it would be very hard to choose just one family. Then I noticed something intriguing.
Not so long ago I was looking at my X3 great grandmother Artemissa Merrill. She was born the 1st of June 1842 in Cramahe Township in Ontario, Canada. She married Solomon Bayes who was born the 31st of Aug 1845 in Cambellford, Ontario, Canada. They were married on the 8th of November 1867 which is almost exactly100 years before I was born. Artemissa died on the 14th of November 1936, and Solomon died before her on the 16th of September 1907. Artemissa did not remarry after Solomon's death. They had 5 children. My X2 great grandfather was their oldest child: Franklin Sheldon Bayes born on 20th of January 1869 in Cambellford, Ontario.
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| Artemissa with daughters Blanche & Ethel |
Artemissa and Solomon's family was one of the smaller families I found looking at that time in my family tree.
Are you wondering why I chose to feature Artemissa in this blog posting about Large Families?
My discovery this week is that Artemissa's first cousin X1 removed (my first cousin X6 removed) was Hosea Merrill. Hosea was born on the 10th of April 1802, and died 5th of February 1864. He was 61 years old when he died. He married Mary Ann Saxton on the 25th of April 1825. In April 1837 Hosea was baptized into the Mormon faith. Wife Mary wasn't baptized until 7 years later in 1844. The Merrill family was part of the migration of the Mormon followers as they traveled across the United States seeking a place they would be accepted. In the book Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah there is a record that “Hosea Merrell resided in Big Cottonwood, Salem, Menden and Paradise, Utah.” Hosea and Mary had 8 children with 6 surviving to adulthood. One of their sons accepted polygamy, and had 2 wives. The remainder of their children followed the Mormon faith, but did not practice the tenant of plural marriage. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints terminated the practice of plural marriage in 1890. Hosea, Mary, their children, and descendants went on to be very involved in the growth of the LDS church.
While researching the extended parts of my family tree before I understood that plural marriage was an accepted practice at the time I was very confused. How could the wedding of the second and third wife happen while the first wife was still alive. How could one man have so many children the same age. I was viewing the details through my own bias. I took another look at the research I was engaged in with an open-mind, and focused on a reasonable exhaustive search. It was then that everything began to make sense.
Bringing it all back to Artemissa - below is her death certificate:
Searching with an open-mind!
This is why I search -
Cause ...
You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
sources
ESSHOM, FRANK. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah: Comprising Photographs, Genealogies, Biographies (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneer Books, 1913 pp 1033.
As retrieved March 16th 2019 from
https://sites.google.com/site/terryandnancysmithfamily/home/family-histories/hosea-merrill
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