The love of a good book was instilled in me very early in life. Richard and Elizabeth’s great-granddaughter was Marjorie Wilson Kitchen (born June 30, 1908; daughter of Alfred Raymond Wilson and Emma Jane Bingham) and was my maternal grandmother. After losing her husband to a cerebral hemorrhage on July 3, 1953, Marjorie found herself needing employment. After returning to school to brush up on some skills and after a short time working for the Red Cross, Marjorie was hired by Provo City as a librarian.
I remember climbing down the steep, cement stairs where the children’s library was located to pick Grandma Kitchen up from work. She didn’t drive and walked to work every day. The musty smell of the books permeated the room. The long skinny drawers of the card catalog were very fun to pull out as long as you didn’t pull too hard. We’d watch Grandma finish checking out books, marking the date due with a unique date stamp hooked to the end of a pencil. Picking Grandma up from work was not a daily occurrence as we lived 50 miles away but I remember the excitement as we entered the doors of the library.
Learning to love books is a lifetime process but for me, learning to love the library was easy. So when the “Barnes-Merchant puzzle” presented itself, I naturally thought about going to the library to find out more. The library I thought of is not your typical library. The world famous Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is only 20 minutes from my house and I’d been there several times. I was quite confident that I could find factual information to help piece together this puzzle.
I determined a time to initiate the factual search when Jayne was in town. We had a short hour to begin the treasure hunt. We did find some books about Australia and the Australian Agricultural Company. One book contained the ship log of the journey to Australia which Elizabeth took with her father and brothers. To actually see their names was very rewarding. My love for non-fiction books grew exponentially that day.
On my next visit to the library, I decided to try and find out more about Elizabeth’s birthplace – Highworth, Wiltshire, England. Knowing the library has a whole floor for the British Isles, I was pretty sure I could find what I was looking for. A kind woman volunteer, about 70 years old, met me as I got off the elevator. She questioned me about what I was looking for and I described Elizabeth Barnes and my interest in her. She suggested I first determine if this Elizabeth Barnes and her birth date are the right ones. In my mind, I chuckled…of course, it’s the right one. This very knowledgeable woman helped me search out the possibility of a mistake, showing me that about 12 Elizabeth Barnes existed during a certain time frame in this location. I very easily could have made a mistake. We determined I did have the right name and date. I need to do the same with Richard, I guess. Whew!
Then she showed me how to find the parish register and the bishop's transcripts for the Wiltshire area. Most of those are on microfilm but I got the numbers. I decided to save that for another day. She told me the bishop's transcripts were birth, christening, and death records which the bishops of the Anglican Church turned in on a yearly basis and are a good source of information. They have a scanning copy machine to scan microfilm and save it to a jumpdrive.
She took me over to the giant map books and showed me how to find a location, such as Highworth and Faringdon (Farrington). We used the Index to the Gazetteer. We found Highworth in Wiltshire and Faringdon in Berkshire and concluded they were about nine miles apart. Finding Richard and Elizabeth’s birth records on the microfilm would be very helpful to verify the possibility of them living so close together in their younger years.
She helped me find "A History of Highworth" pt.2 written by the Highworth Historical Society which was a tremendous find. It had just what I wanted - a description of what the Highworth area was like when she was born. It had some great old photos also. I made as many copies as time permitted.
Grandma Kitchen passed on a great lesson…one can find much joy in a library! by Karen
To be continued….
I remember climbing down the steep, cement stairs where the children’s library was located to pick Grandma Kitchen up from work. She didn’t drive and walked to work every day. The musty smell of the books permeated the room. The long skinny drawers of the card catalog were very fun to pull out as long as you didn’t pull too hard. We’d watch Grandma finish checking out books, marking the date due with a unique date stamp hooked to the end of a pencil. Picking Grandma up from work was not a daily occurrence as we lived 50 miles away but I remember the excitement as we entered the doors of the library.
Learning to love books is a lifetime process but for me, learning to love the library was easy. So when the “Barnes-Merchant puzzle” presented itself, I naturally thought about going to the library to find out more. The library I thought of is not your typical library. The world famous Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is only 20 minutes from my house and I’d been there several times. I was quite confident that I could find factual information to help piece together this puzzle.
I determined a time to initiate the factual search when Jayne was in town. We had a short hour to begin the treasure hunt. We did find some books about Australia and the Australian Agricultural Company. One book contained the ship log of the journey to Australia which Elizabeth took with her father and brothers. To actually see their names was very rewarding. My love for non-fiction books grew exponentially that day.
On my next visit to the library, I decided to try and find out more about Elizabeth’s birthplace – Highworth, Wiltshire, England. Knowing the library has a whole floor for the British Isles, I was pretty sure I could find what I was looking for. A kind woman volunteer, about 70 years old, met me as I got off the elevator. She questioned me about what I was looking for and I described Elizabeth Barnes and my interest in her. She suggested I first determine if this Elizabeth Barnes and her birth date are the right ones. In my mind, I chuckled…of course, it’s the right one. This very knowledgeable woman helped me search out the possibility of a mistake, showing me that about 12 Elizabeth Barnes existed during a certain time frame in this location. I very easily could have made a mistake. We determined I did have the right name and date. I need to do the same with Richard, I guess. Whew!
Then she showed me how to find the parish register and the bishop's transcripts for the Wiltshire area. Most of those are on microfilm but I got the numbers. I decided to save that for another day. She told me the bishop's transcripts were birth, christening, and death records which the bishops of the Anglican Church turned in on a yearly basis and are a good source of information. They have a scanning copy machine to scan microfilm and save it to a jumpdrive.
She took me over to the giant map books and showed me how to find a location, such as Highworth and Faringdon (Farrington). We used the Index to the Gazetteer. We found Highworth in Wiltshire and Faringdon in Berkshire and concluded they were about nine miles apart. Finding Richard and Elizabeth’s birth records on the microfilm would be very helpful to verify the possibility of them living so close together in their younger years.
She helped me find "A History of Highworth" pt.2 written by the Highworth Historical Society which was a tremendous find. It had just what I wanted - a description of what the Highworth area was like when she was born. It had some great old photos also. I made as many copies as time permitted.
Grandma Kitchen passed on a great lesson…one can find much joy in a library! by Karen
To be continued….
