Some cousins of his recently visited my great-uncle Bob O'Neil, which got him interested enough to help them look for information about their grandpa and his uncle, Joseph William Empey. Joe and his wife "Floss" had two sons, David and Raymond, who are both deceased. He remarried Amy several years after Floss died, and within eight years both he and Amy had also passed away.
Cousin Terry had taken Bob to the Family History Center in Ogden, which helped since he doesn't have a computer, let alone the internet. He guided Mom and I there while my sister, Trena, watched the kiddos, and Zak helped pick-up and move some furniture for her. I tried to go through the process with Bob from the beginning. We created a familysearch.org account for him, connected the living relative (Bob), to his deceased parents, John Edgar O'Neil and Auretta Empey O'Neil, and went from there.
We looked at the information already available for his Uncle Joe, and realized there were already several records and sources connected to him. Sometimes I take for granted how much information familysearch.org allows us to have in an organized place, accessed anywhere with internet. Bob had a few dates and names written on a paper, and I could click a few times and instantly have a screen of information. I helped him standardize some of the dates, and then we looked more at John's sons, David and Raymond. Because Terry was from out-of-town, he and Bob tried to visit some family headstones, but they didn't know where David and Raymond were buried.
Because we had access at the center to ancestry.com, as well as all of the records on familysearch.org and other free websites, I found the brothers on records we knew belonged to them, which then connected us to new records. Findagrave.com, oh how I adore thee.
We managed to locate David's headstone in the Aultorest Memorial Park cemetery in Ogden. As for Raymond, Bob knew he died in the '80s, but we didn't have a date or place. Through our research, we discovered that Raymond died in August of 1980, and was buried in the Roy City Cemetery. Ironically, my extended family has lived around Roy for years, but we've never been there. We officially have a reason. David had married "Bonnie," who we realized was actually named Vonda. Because Bob knew her before she died, he was able to tell us about one of her spouses, so we could connect Claude to her as well. First- and second-hand knowledge makes a difference.
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| Eureka! The same family! |
The record I was most excited to find was Raymond's World War II military record, because it was the one which confirmed that this Raymond was our Raymond, with the same parents, and same address where Bob remembered them living. It can be frustrating at times when I'm trying to be responsible by verifying everything instead of just relying on something that could be a coincidence, like assuming he was the only man at the time named Raymond E Empey. I don't know how the actual individuals felt about their enlistment and other military records, but I definitely appreciate the gifted information, especially when parents and spouses are listed.
Another great feeling came each time one of the center volunteer or missionaries came over to help us, and they saw what I was doing and explaining, and told Bob he was "in good hands," and that I knew what I was doing. There's still a great deal I don't know about researching and family history, but I felt good helping him learn about the process.
Afterward we stopped by Ogden's pet cemetery where his Calli the Calico is buried. You can tell being around him how much that little lady meant to him.
