Roots 2 Blossoms

 

My friend Roxy and I started an Instagram account together. We both have a love for Genealogy, History and our families. We have learned that from our roots to our branches we can all blossom. We want to share our passion, stories, activities and other ideas with people and show how amazing genealogy is. Check us out @roots2branches

 

 

 

 

Asenath Slafter Janes

 

Asenath Slafter Janes

 

 

Asenath Slafter was born August 18, 1796 in Connecticut in the same county as her parents Eleazer and Eunice Slafter. Asenath was 36 years old when she met Josiah Janes. They married December 6, 1832.

 

On March 12, 1834 Asenath gave birth to twin boys, they named Elijah and Elisha. God called Elisha home the next day and Elijah followed five days later. A third child came on March 8, 1835, they named her Henrietta.

 

In 1839 some Mormon missionaries came to Mansfield County. Josiah became very interested. He asked the Elders if he could borrow a Book of Mormon. He didn't put the book down until he finished it completely. After reading it he asked to be baptised. Conversion didn't come as easy to Asenath. It took two years of discussion and even some debating until she became convinced. Two years later Asenath's mother and two younger sisters also joined the church.

 

The family did what most new members did at the time they headed to join the LDS church in Nauvoo. Henrietta was only 9 years old and remembered seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith on several occasions.

 

Josiah understood the doctorine of plural marriage and believed why Joseph Smith taught it, but did not have the courage to practice it. He stayed married to just Asenath.

 

After the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed it was very difficult for Josiah. He lost Mental control and committed suicide on September 6, 1844.

 

Asenath was left alone with her daughter Henrietta. Asenath married Samuel Bent the following year 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple. It was not a long marriage Samuel died August 16, 1846. Asenath also lost her sister Lucinda that same month. With in a year and a half she lost her mother Eunice, leaving her and her daughter Henrietta alone once again.

Henrietta Janes Cox- later in life

 

Mother and daughter found an opportunity to travel, leaving Council bluffs. 100 days later arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah. Henrietta, only 17 at the time, walked almost the whole way.

 

Both Asenath and Henrietta are strong, confidant, faithful women. I am thankful for the records I have of their lives and faith.

Words

 

“I have hated words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” That is from The Book Thief. I have had this thought many times in my writing. I have also had this thought in life in general. Words can really be everything to someone. I’m not sure if you have seen this video going around Facebook, but I cried when I saw it.

We all have had our moments when we didn’t really believe we had worth. Where we didn’t think anyone cared, but it’s not true. As women we need to support each other and be there for each other always. I loved how that was the theme of last night’s General Women’s Conference.

I loved how Sister Oscarson, the General Young Women’s President quoted Marjory Hinckley. “Sisters, we are all in this together. We need each other. Oh, how we need each other. Thos of us who are old need you who are young. And, hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other. These friendships are a necessary source of sustenance. We need to renew our faith every day. We need to lock arms and help build the kingdom so that it will roll forth and fill the whole earth.”

Think of what we can do if we support each other. Think of what we can do with words. Think of what our words as writers can do for many people. We can encourage, inspire, support, make someone laugh, cry, and be able to keep moving on. I loved what Sister Wixom told of the 90 year old woman who said, “If rewriting life, I would not include some chapters. I would like to live a little longer to see how it ends.” I think it is true in all of our lives. There are definitely parts we would like to leave out, but those hard times, with the support of others is what gets us to the end.

In the movie Saving Mr. Banks, Walt Disney said, “George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination, because that’s what we storytellers do. We instill hope again and again and again.” Writing for me is peaceful, it’s my therapy and medicine. If I can help one person with my words then I have done my part.

Be the words that saves someone. Make a difference in another woman’s life. Support each other in our failures and success. Henry B. Eyring said, “He sees the glorious potential in all of his daughters. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.”

Nancy Naomi Alexander Tracy

Nancy Naomi Alexander Tracy is my 4th Great Grandmother. I have learned a lot about her, but still learning. She had a very productive life and one that is a true example.

In 1832 she was one of many seeking the truth for her own spiritual needs. She said, "I heard rumbings of a Gold Bible."  She was living in Henderson, New York and heard from a Missionary David Patten. She described his sermon as "something better felt, than described."

Nancy continued, “I well remember his powerful sermon on the first principles of the Gospel as taught by the Savior and his apostles. O how plain and beautiful and easy to understand. I believed with my whole soul and I could see that I had been preserved from uniting with other creeds … [I] told the folks that for the first time I had heard the true Gospel preached by David Patten who had been chosen as an Apostle, ordained and set apart to teach the pure doctrine of our Savior. They laughed at me and cried, ‘Delusion, false prophets,’ and so on. But the seed had taken root.”

She was baptized in 1834 and attended the dedication of the Kirkland temple in 1836. Nancy was a very active member in the early times of the church. She was present at the organization of the Relief Society for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When I go to Relief Society, you feel the spirit so strong. I can't even imagine how these women felt.

She is an ancestor that I am so proud of. She believed something and followed it. I don't know how I would have been as an early pioneer, but I would hope to have been like Nancy. There is so many stories about Nancy, but I will save some for later.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A few years ago I read the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith for the first time. I have heard a few people say they didn't like it. They say it was boring, or slow. But to me this book was inspiring, sad, and so honest. Betty Smith is a poet. This book was a memoir of her life, but her publisher said no one would want to read a true story like that, so she called it fiction. What a tragic life, yet so beautiful the way she lived it.

 

My dad gave me this First Edition book. I was so excited. He gave it to me because my daughter's name is Brooklynn and he thought it would be fun, but he didn't realize how much I truly love the story of Francie Nolan.

 

It is funny how something can be so ordinary to someone, but to another it is a treasure. I try to look at life with that outlook to make things extraordinary. 

 

There are a lot of parts of the book I love but here is one of my favorite quotes.

 

She thought: If I open this book fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There's a long long time yet before fifty years. . . millions of hours of time. But one hour has already gone since I sat here . . . one hour less to live . . . one hour gone away from all the hours of my life.

 

"Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry . . . have to much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me me sincere -- deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time, so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

 

I am not perfect. I have a lot to work on. My house isn't perfectly clean, I get upset at my kids, today I am sitting still in my pjs with no makeup on, we sometimes eat frozen pizza for dinner, but I try. I love my life, I love my kids and my husband and I try every day to be happy.

I want to live my life every minute that I can.

Books

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.

–Neil Gaiman

Since I was young I loved reading. I even made a library out of my closet in my bedroom. I used a ruler to keep the books place and made a card catalog so I could keep track of all of my books. Somewhere between Junior High and High School I wasn’t reading as much, although, I still had a love for books. I remember I wanted to start a café where people could, relax and while there, they could read my books. When my oldest was a baby I would feed her a bottle and read to her. I read her two of my childhood favorites, Charlotte’s Web and The Secret Garden.

Since then my love for reading grew. A little book called Twilight came out and I just had to read what everyone was talking about. The opinion on the series varies, in my opinion it was a fun, book of fiction that had my imagination all over the place. I couldn’t stop reading after that. I then got caught up in The Hunger Games series. I wanted to read books of all different genres.

I read for so many different reasons, to get away from reality, to capture some part of history, to laugh, cry and appreciate my life. I don’t always have time to read, I sometimes wish I was one of those people who started a book and didn’t put it down until I finished, but I’m not. I love reading, I sometimes read a book in a day, other times a week.

I have tried to get my kids to love books as well. My oldest is an avid reader and at nine years old she read 175 books in 2014. My six year old, and four year old like books, but aren’t as obsessed as I am. I will love books until the day I die, even when I cannot read. I will keep the stories in my head and always replay them over and over again.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

- Jane Austen

The Story

Why do we tell stories? What is the purpose? I feel that everyone tells stories for their own reasons. Just as we all need to hear stories for different reasons, some people for inspiration and there are those who need to learn something. I love the song by Brandi Carlile called The Story.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true... I was made for you

Genealogy, to me, is the same. I fell in love with finding other people’s stories, their trials, their joy and their inspiring moments. I have found so many untold stories of unsung heroes. Stories are hidden in journals, documents and pictures waiting to be shared.

I read a book by Jodi Picoult called The Storyteller. It’s about a woman who learns about a Nazi Soldier and Jewish girl and how their story comes together. I love this quote in the story by the young Jewish girl. “If I had to die in this hellhole, and the odds were very good that would happen, then maybe someone else would survive, and tell their children the story a girl had told them at night in the block. Fiction is like that, once it is released into the world: contagious, persistent. Like the contents of Pandora’s Box, a story that’s freely given can’t be contained anymore. It becomes infectious, spreading from the person who created it, to the person who listens, and passes it on.”

I just love that quote. Family History holds stories that are waiting to be told. My great grandmother Viola Stout wrote in her journal about why she writes. “My children and grandchildren might ask, ‘Why hash over all these things, just the facts are sufficient.’ Not for me. The unknown or heretofore untold parts of my life are the moving forces that motivated my actions and my thinking; made me what I am. We are all products of our background and our thoughts. To write my true story many things must be written that probably would be best left buried, but without which no one would really know my story nor me.”

Someday, somewhere in time, someone is waiting for the story that will help them in their life.