Abednego Jones (John)

It's been a while. But I finally found something new.

I've been doing my part-time, senior-service missionary work for the Church History Library on the Welsh Missionaries in the Early Missionary Database. Levi Richards, brother of Willard Richards and personal physician to Joseph Smith, Jr., was back in Wales in 1852 as a Special Missionary to advise the Welsh Mission and to establish the boundary with the Herefordshire Conference. On 21 February, in Llanelli, near Swansea, he notes in his journal, "....had an interview with Prest Abednego Jones (John) stopped over night." Parentheses in the original! Here's the pic:

The 9 August 1851 editon of Zion's Trumpet reports that Abednego Jones was appointed to preside over the Carmarthenshire Conference. On 27 May 1852, the Carmarthenshire Conference was split created the Llanelli Conference on the south side of the Towy River in Carmarthenshire. Abednego Jones was to be President of this conference. On 3 January 1853, Abednego was released as President of the Conference presumably to travel to Utah as he and his family did on 5 February 1853. The first two Children of Abednego and Mary Jones in the ship's manifest match up with the children in the 1851 Census for Abednego and Mary then living in Llanelly, Breconshire (not be be confused with Llanelli, Carmarthenshire as was often the case). Llanelly, Breconshire was near the town of Brynmawr in the neighborhood of Merthyr Tydfil (two valleys over).

The importance of this reference in the journal of  Levi Richards is that Abednego's last name already had an alternate spelling! It wasn't just an action Abednego took when he arrived in the U.S or left the Salt Lake Valley for the Carson. It is one more piece of evidence to solidly tie Elinor's presence in Jacks Valley above the Carson before her death.