Genealogy is like counting Ants. You can never count all the Aunts. — Greg Jeffery
Horatio Pickett's half brother, "Sanjo" came overland to Utah Territory as a 10-year-old with his mother Susanna Mehitable Rogers Sangiovanni Pickett.
He writes: "Leaving here the road begins to get rough. We are nearing the `Rockies'. When we arrive at Devil's Gate we find another `squaw-man' camp [traders]. Many people don't know what a squaw-man is like. He may have sprung from a good family, but my! how he has fallen. His costume consists of a greasy slouch hat, long hair and beard `a la Buffalo Bill', an old dirty over-shirt and buckskin pants, a butcher knife and revolver in his belt, and moccasins on his feet. Then here's the handsome bride — red lady of the forest, with a herd of red headed papooses running around without any fig leaves on."
Welcome Family. Yes, we require a log-in to cut down on robots. We're Utah friendly, but don't tolerate scammers and spammers. Please be decent and we'll get along just fine.
If you have something to add, [oops, to many foreign-language people contacting us. Had to remove the links.] Thank you for visiting!
[log-in email is working. Still have missing links.] [the gedcom was uploaded from ancestry.com, so I have many errors to tweak. Will get standardized info. as I go, and fix duplicated persons. It's a time-consuming project.]
". . . [standing here on the lands of my family, it’s beauty] made me cry. The entire valley . . . became mine . . . and on entering into possession I experienced a moment of pure joy. Grief, and a boy’s luxury in grief, fell away from me at the memory of my mother’s odd remark . . . and I sniffed a long, long, satisfying sniff that brought with it not only a calm acceptance of death but also a consciousness of ancestral heritage, the realization of the presence here, on this very spot, of all the long-dead Leighs who had stood and looked down on [this place] in the past. Dead they were and yet they were not, not while I lived; and I was gloriously, exultantly alive." — R.F. Delderfield
[oops wrong Wm Pickett in the video. His family, but our Wm wasn't born yet.] Click MORE to start Video.
Check out the stories buttons below. I included Rollo the Viking for my brother, Wayne. Yep, Uncle Vern's pedigree pages go back that far, and several lines trace back to Billy the Conqueror. Note I haven't got much info here on Neilson or Jeffery family, yet. Ah genealogy research — how do you know when you're done?
Alfred Lorenzo Hall
The Hall farm was where Zion Park Lodge stands today. We once stayed there at the empty campground in late November, after the 'season' had ended. I had no idea — our travel trailer was parked on ancestral land. Very peaceful, with just the deer and Me (Merridy) and Greg.
There are several stories about this family. I will be posting more. Meanwhile read Julia's Biography at this link.
Henry James Maudsley
The Maudsley Ranch was near Pine Valley, UT. The property was bought by Monte Holm, who developed it into the Holmstead Resort. Read cousin Rex Jensen's story here.
My docs call her Maria (Mary) Sophia Foremaster originally Fuhrmeister. She looks like Aunt Mary Neilson Anderson.
Recognize this Kid?
Vard Hall, our Living Patriarch. I need a picture of him playing pickle-ball at age 88. He's also on a softball team. It was only a couple of years ago they didn't pick him for the Senior Olympics team because they deemed him too old. So he played with the out-of-towners who were short one man. Yes, he beat his own team. Instant Karma can be fun! 2025 update: His old-old-guys team won the World Championship!
[Link not working yet.]
Dad, WAYNE NEILSON, Snippy the rabbit, and baby Dinah. Price, Utah, abt. 1948. When families move around you've got to ask WHY? Was it a job offer? Were they driven by offers of free land? Was it religious freedom they were seeking? Did they crave the gold fields? What's the story? In the case of Benjamin Hershey, they were driven from Pennsylvania to Canada when someone burned his barn with all the corn and hay already harvested. (court doc. not yet posted here). He says: "That's the last straw, I'm outta here!" Once I counted the actual places I've lived, 50, in about 37 towns, and have stories in/of each place.
Tracking the truth can be a formidable task. Word of mouth, is not always accurate. For instance, families can sometimes have memories that don't concur. In my family:
1) No, Pete Neilson didn't ride with Butch Cassidy, but he DID cleverly prevent Butch from stealing his horse. I recently found a story from Deseret News stating that he TRIED to join that Cassidy gang. I'll be creating a Pete Neilson (3) page at some point.
2) No, we are not related to General George Pickett 1825-1875 of "Picketts Charge", old Virginia family. But we ARE descendants of William Pickett 1816-1893 b. Nova Scotia, d. Julian, California. Son of John Pickett and Mehitable Crowell, grandson of Giles, the Immigrant.
Chinese proverb: May you always live in interesting times. Yes, indeed.
Try the drop-down menu tab FIND. Click Surnames to get a beautiful chart about our family names. This will show all the surnames for both Merridy and Gregs pedigrees. You can restrict to your relevant tree if you're logged in. THE NEXT GENERATION Software really does a beautiful job of organizing all this information. Link at top of HOME page.
We make every effort to document our research.
