by Carole Call King
What a marvelous challenge it has been for me to search for the descendants of Martha Ann Smith Harris! Forty or more Harris cousins I have contacted have been of great help in gathering names of their families. With their help my data base is increasing every day. Today–27 February 2001-in my Martha Ann Smith and William Jasper Harris file I have entered names and data regarding birth dates/places, marriage dates/places, and death dates/places, if necessary, of 3,420 people. This includes 2,561 families, of which 2,376 people are the direct descendants of Martha Ann and William Jasper. These are not all living descendants, of course. So far I have 537 family names and current addresses on my mailing list. I hope to add telephone numbers and email addresses to each of these. There are many I do not yet have and I need your help in this huge project.
In the process of finding these names it has been wonderful to get acquainted with many Harris cousins I didn’t know before. I have corresponded by telephone, mail, and email with cousins in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Missouri, and Virginia.
E-mail is a fantastic tool in this work! Many of our cousins have become closer to their extended families as they search out information to fill in family group sheets. Some have their own websites. Some have held reunions and tried to organize on a grandfather level. Such family reunions are highly encouraged.
Carol Nixon and Fred Willoughby are planning a reunion for all the descendants of Martha Ann Smith and William Jasper Harris in connection with the August 2001 Joseph Smith Sr. Family Reunion in Salt Lake! Our grandmother, Martha Ann, loved reunions and so did my grandmother, Sarah Harris Passey. They worked so hard to keep the family close to each other. Please make your plans to come together in Salt Lake City in August. You’ll hear more about it from Carol and Fred.
WILLIAM JASPER – MARTHA ANN SMITH HARRIS FAMILY REUNION
2 AUGUST 2001 FROM 10:00 A.M. TO 5:00 P.M.
THIS IS THE PLACE HERITAGE PARK, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
More good news! One of our great Harris cousins–Douglas Paulson of San Antonio, Texas–has agreed to be webmaster for our Marthaann.org website! Doug just began working on this site the end of November with help from Jared Glade, who is the webmaster for the Joseph F. Smith website, and a member of our Father/Mother Smith group. I am so grateful to Doug for taking on this huge task. It is exciting to think of the possibilities a Martha Ann website offers. We will be able to share pictures, letters, and family stories, as well as family information to add to and keep current the Harris database. There are several old photographs I have from the collection of my Grandmother Sarah Harris Passey which are not labeled and I don’t know who they are. These photos can be scanned and put on the website to see if any of you recognize the people in the pictures. Perhaps others have the same problem with old photographs. Really, the possibilities are endless. I especially hope the website will help us find other cousins to be counted. I know there are thousands of cousins I don’t have listed in my computer.
Click on to: www.marthaann.org, keep watching and help it grow! Carole King, 608 Davis St, Morgan UT 84050; ccking@xmission.com.