It wasn't a large branch and it didn't last long as many members emigrated to the United States, but it's right there in ink in official records:
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| LDS CHL CR 375 8 |
This is from the Confidential Minutes of the Witton Park Branch in 1884. As a service missionary in the Church History Library, I have staff access to this which is listed as "closed to research." It is possible for others to get access upon a justified request. And I saw nothing of sensitive nature in this record. Anyway, I have it. And there it is in ink!
The dates for Thomas's ordination as Priest is given as 6 January 1884. His ordination as Elder was on 10 April 1884. There is no date for the designation "President." It is written in a different hand or pen likely later than the other dates for ordinations and it is very similar to the "Sept 1 1884 Middlesboro" entry for Thomas Williams removing to Middlesbrough on the Yorkshire side of the River Tees across from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham. I think that September 1, 1884 would be a reasonable, approximate date for Thomas's call as Branch President.
We know that Thomas was active in the Stockton Branch in 1886 and that his son George Robert (my great-grandfather) was born in Witton Park on 27 April 1886 just before Thomas emigrated to the U.S. a year before the rest of his family. So, in that busy year at least, there was some going back and forth between Witton Park and Stockton twenty-one miles apart. We need to check the train routes for 1884.
And I will be working on the Vaughan Chron to get this and additional facts in to make more sense of this all, such as the record of Thomas paying tithing in Witton Park (!) There is still no narrative of our family's conversion and the connection to Grandma Elinor and her conversion in 1841 and emigration for the handcart trek of 1856.
Still much work to be done!
We know that Thomas was active in the Stockton Branch in 1886 and that his son George Robert (my great-grandfather) was born in Witton Park on 27 April 1886 just before Thomas emigrated to the U.S. a year before the rest of his family. So, in that busy year at least, there was some going back and forth between Witton Park and Stockton twenty-one miles apart. We need to check the train routes for 1884.
And I will be working on the Vaughan Chron to get this and additional facts in to make more sense of this all, such as the record of Thomas paying tithing in Witton Park (!) There is still no narrative of our family's conversion and the connection to Grandma Elinor and her conversion in 1841 and emigration for the handcart trek of 1856.
Still much work to be done!
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