Current Missionaries from descendents of Ozias & Eva

We invite you to follow the mission experiences of Russell and Dixie Harward by going to their blog at www.familystories4ever.blogspot.com.  We also invite you to send stories about current missionaries who are descendents of Ozias Strong and Frances Eva Curtis Harward by sending them via e-mail to russharward@msn.com.

Family Council Newsletter - Spring 2012

Ozias Strong Harward Family Council News Letter for Spring 2012 

O. Harvey Harward served a mission in South Africa and I would not be surprised if he and Montez were serving as a missionary couple on the other side of the veil now.

Spring edition 2012

Harvey wrote about his mission in his history as follows:

          Missionary work has always been a part of our lives. November 1921, I was called to fill a mission in South Africa. We had a Stake Mission in Sevier County before this. I don't know why, but a year before I went to Africa, I had a feeling I was going to be asked to go. So Mother [Montez] and I worked hard in the sugar beets and other crops to save what money we could. When [my] the call came, having Garn and LaVon, it was a real job. But after talking to Brother Larsen and Brother Hunter from Richfield who just returned from Africa was the help we needed in making up our minds [for me to go]. The wife had been trained and taught in the best home with strong parents in the Church, or I am sure she would not have taken such a responsibility. But from November 1921 to February 1924, we [my companions and I] had some great experiences. We met many wonderful people and helped to bring many people into the Church. The wife, Montez, had the sacrificing and hard work. I got to see much of the world and many wonderful people.

Enos Curtis is the Grandfather of Frances Eva Curtis and was our family’s first missionary.

  Enos Curtis was born 9 Oct 1783, the eldest son of Edmond Curtis and Polly Mary Avery.   Enos moved to New York City where he met Ruth Franklin. They were married in that city on the 15^th of December, 1805. Ruth was born on 14th November 1790 in Sterling, Windham, Connecticut.

In 1831, at the age of 48 Enos was baptized into the LDS Church [on a trip to Kirtland, Ohio] by Lyman Wight. According to Louise Durfee Rooney, shortly before the birth of their last child, Celestia Curtis Durfee, the family became converted to the restored church — the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

  Brigham Young says in the fall of 1831 Alpheus Gifford, Elial Strong and others came to Mendon to preach Mormonism, which I heard and believed. (pp 5 & 6 quote: "Five Mormon Elders, from an isolated branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in Columbia Co., Penns. were making a tour through the state of New York. They visited the town of Mendon where Brigham Young met them. He had a copy of the Book of Mormon in his possession for over a year. The actual contact with these Elders, their testimonies and personalities so impressed him, that he began an extensive study of Mormonism."

     This story was told by Ezra H. Curtis:

After the meeting where Brigham Young heard the five missionaries including Enos, bear testimony of the Gospel, he hurried home to his wife who was sick in bed. He went to his room and in praying to the Lord, he asked: "If this religion is true, to send the missionaries to his home, that they might pray for his sick wife and also explain the Gospel to her." The next night as the Elders were passing his home, they were impressed with the tidiness of his yards and said any man that has that much pride in his home must be worth visiting, so they went in. Brigham was watching from the window to see if his prayer would be answered. He hurriedly opened the door and welcomed them in. They administered to his wife and she seemed more at ease. Brigham then told them he had prayed for them to come and that he had faith she could be healed through their administration.

             From autobiography of Heber C. Kimball, p 6 "Heber C. Kimball says, about three weeks after I joined the Baptist Church in the fall of 1831, five Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came from Pa. to the house of Phineas H. Young in Victor, N.Y. Their names were Eleazer Miller, Elial Strong*, Enos Curtis, Alpheus Gifford and Daniel Bowen. Hearing of these men, curiosity prompted me to go and hear them, when for the first time I heard the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel." These five Elders must have been very devout spiritual minded men. They so thoroughly impressed Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball with the truth of their teaching, they decided to pay them a visit which they did in January of 1832 at the branch in Columbia, PA. They remained there one week. (See Millenial Star, Vol. 25, p 424). After they returned to their homes in Mendon, they held a family council. The father, John Young and sons Joseph and Phineas, planned a trip to the branch. This was the beginning of the family joining the Church.
  *Note: Elial Strong was a son-in-law of Enos Curtis.

Missionary Training at the MTC

          My wife and I have served at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for the past 3 years and currently I serve in the French Branch Presidency.  Missionaries come to the MTC for a period of 1 to 11 weeks depending on whether they are senior missionaries or young missionaries and what mission language they will speak.  Missionaries assigned to the French Branch are there for 9 weeks unless they will also learn Tahitian.  They are there for 11 weeks.

         It amazes me still that these young missionaries can enter the MTC with little or no experience with French and leave in 9 weeks being able to teach in that language.  One of the main reasons that they can do that is because they start teaching in French the first week they are here as limited as that may be.  Of course that is because they receive the gift of tongues but that only happens as they are obedient to the rules of the MTC and the keep their covenants.  It also depends on how diligent they are in their studies.  What that means is that the gift of tongues depends on the efforts of each missionary and they don’t receive it all at the same time.

We have seen close to 1,000 missionaries come through our branch and soon we hope to join them as we have submitted our papers to be full time missionaries ourselves.

Russ and Dixie Harward

          There are many ways to serve as missionaries today.  Many people who can’t serve a full time mission, serve from home part time or in a family history center or visitors center.  You can find out the many ways you can serve by using your computer and going to www.lds.org and clicking on missionary service opportunities.  We also have a video about it on our Harward Family Blog.

The Ozias Strong Harward Family Council is on-line with a Blog at www.oziasstrongharwardfamily.blogspot.com  and a Facebook Page dedicated to Family History.  That Facebook page is closed and only those who are invited to participate on it can see it.  If you would like to join, please send me an e-mail at russharward@msn.com so that I can invite you into it.  It will require that you set up your own Facebook page which is free.  If you have any questions about how to do that, just ask any teenager in your family.  Computer technology has revolutionized family history work as well as missionary work as predicted by President Spencer W. Kimball many years ago.  The newest innovation in family history research will soon be added to the LDS church site newfamilysearch and is entitled Family Tree.  Here is what it will do.

The Family Tree will let you:

·        Connect and collaborate with others who share an interest in a common ancestral line.
·        Add, edit, and delete relationships between individuals in the Family Tree.—Coming Soon!
·        Edit vital and other information for all of your ancestors.
·        Discuss and source family tree information to improve conclusions over time.
·        View the history of changes to your ancestors, providing increased understanding and control over changes and revisions.
·        Add specific ancestors to a personal “Watch List” to receive notifications whenever information about those ancestors is added or changed.
·        Try out new features and functionality as they are added over the coming months.

Social Networking and Genealogy

January 12, 2012 By James Tanner

Not many years ago, the only way to talk to people was either in person, by telephone, by the occasional telegram or through letters. Pre-computer and pre-Internet genealogists were usually prolific letter writers. Today, that has all changed. Personal contact is still nice, but telephones to some extent and personal letters are mostly a thing of the past. As far as genealogical research goes, these changes in communication have been for the good. It is now much easier to identify and communicate with distant relatives.  I have had a fairly constant stream of contact from distant relatives for quite a few years now, people who I didn’t know existed before online communication through social networking. It is true that there are people who spend an inordinate amount of time in social networking, but when treated as a means to an end, the online social networking sites can be a valuable tool.

Social networking sites generally allow individuals to create their own page. You can then create links to other individuals on the websites by adding contacts (often called friends) with whom you can then share comments in the form of posts or comments on posts. On Facebook, Twitter and Google+, as well as other sites, commercial companies can also have pages. Subsequently, most of the larger genealogically related companies, such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and the software companies like RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Ancestral Quest and many others, have pages on Facebook. There are also a number of genealogical societies that have Facebook pages. Here is a brief sample of some of the hundreds of genealogically related Facebook pages with links to their Facebook page:

• Ancestry.com
• FamilySearch.org
• RootsMagic.com
• Legacy Family Tree
• Ancestral Quest
• Family Tree Magazine
• GenealogyBank.com
• MyHeritage.com
• National Genealogical Society
• Utah Genealogical Association
• New England Historic Genealogical Society

All of the above companies and societies, plus hundreds more, have genealogically related Twitter sites also. Posts, called Tweets on Twitter, are limited to 140 characters at a time. As a contrast, both Facebook and Google+ have very large posting limits, so you can communicate a lot of information at once. Many of genealogically oriented bloggers also have corresponding Facebook, Twitter and Google+ sites. Most of the active bloggers post regularly on Facebook and Twitter and some post on other social networking sites also.

With most social networking sites, you have the option of having your page public and open to the world, or private and available to only selected users. If you are trying to find lost relatives, it does little good to have a private site because the very people you hope to connect with cannot find you. On the other hand, you may wish to limit the types of information you put online if you have a completely public social networking page. There is really no reason to share what you are doing each hour of the day if your main goal is to find genealogical information.

Computer and Communications Technology revealed by the Lord

Computer and Communications technology has been revealed to man by the Lord to expedite His work in the last days. The following articles taken from the new familysearch.org website explains how.


What Is the Family Tree?

The Family Tree is a new service found at FamilySearch.org that enables you to
enjoy family history in new ways. Once all of the features are in place, the
Family Tree will replace new.FamilySearch and will be freely and publicly
available to people around the world.
The Family Tree will
let you:
·
Connect and collaborate with others who share an interest
in a common ancestral line.
·
Add, edit, and delete relationships between individuals
in the Family Tree.—Coming Soon!
·
Edit vital and other information for all of your
ancestors.
·
Discuss and source family tree information to improve
conclusions over time.
·
View the history of changes to your ancestors, providing increased
understanding and control over changes and revisions.
·
Add specific ancestors to a personal “Watch List” to receive
notifications whenever information about those ancestors is added or changed.
·
Try out new features and functionality as they are added
over the coming months.

Social Networking and Genealogy
January 12, 2012 By James Tanner

Not many years ago, the only way to
talk to people was either in person, by telephone, by the occasional telegram
or through letters. Pre-computer and pre-Internet genealogists were usually
prolific letter writers. Today, that has all changed. Personal contact is still
nice, but telephones to some extent and personal letters are mostly a thing of
the past. As far as genealogical research goes, these changes in communication
have been for the good. It is now much easier to identify and communicate with
distant relatives. I have had a fairly constant stream of contact from distant
relatives for quite a few years now, people who I didn’t know existed before
online communication through social networking. It is true that there are
people who spend an inordinate amount of time in social networking, but when
treated as a means to an end, the online social networking sites can be a
valuable asset.
There are hundreds, perhaps
thousands of social networking sites (see Wikipedia:List of social networking websites), but only a handful of essentially U.S. sites are
influential because of their large number of adherents. The big three for
genealogists are Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Facebook has over 800,000,000 participants. Twitter has
over 300,000,000 and Google+, the newcomer to the group, has over 50,000,000.
There are also some very large non-English speaking social networking sites
around the world such as Badoo in Europe
and Latin America and Friendster
in Southeast Asia. There are other huge social networking sites such a MySpace.com with over 100,00,000 registered users and WindowsLiveSpaces.com. You can usually tell whether or not a site is genealogy
friendly by doing a search online for social networking and genealogy.
Social networking sites generally
allow individuals to create their own page. You can then create links to other
individuals on the websites by adding contacts (often called friends) with whom
you can then share comments in the form of posts or comments on posts. On
Facebook, Twitter and Google+, as well as other sites, commercial companies can
also have pages. Subsequently, most of the larger genealogically related
companies, such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and the software companies
like RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Ancestral Quest and many others, have
pages on Facebook. There are also a number of genealogical societies that have
Facebook pages. Here is a brief sample of some of the hundreds of
genealogically related Facebook pages with links to their Facebook page:
Ancestry.com
FamilySearch.org
RootsMagic.com
Legacy
Family Tree
Ancestral Quest
Family
Tree Magazine
GenealogyBank.com
MyHeritage.com
National
Genealogical Society
Utah
Genealogical Association
New
England Historic Genealogical Society
All of the above companies and
societies, plus hundreds more, have genealogically related Twitter sites also. Posts, called Tweets on Twitter, are limited to
140 characters at a time. As a contrast, both Facebook and Google+ have very large posting limits, so you can communicate a
lot of information at once. Many of genealogically oriented bloggers also have
corresponding Facebook, Twitter and Google+ sites. Most of the active bloggers
post regularly on Facebook and Twitter and some post on other social networking
sites also.
With most social networking sites,
you have the option of having your page public and open to the world, or
private and available to only selected users. If you are trying to find lost
relatives, it does little good to have a private site because the very people
you hope to connect with cannot find you. On the other hand, you may wish to
limit the types of information you put online if you have a completely public
social networking page. There is really no reason to share what you are doing
each hour of the day if your main goal is to find genealogical information.
There are a few dedicated genealogy
social networking sites. Some of these sites go beyond simply having a page for
your personal information. They also provide a way to share your genealogy
information. Here is a sample list of some of the sites.
GenealogyWise.com
WeRelate.org
OurStrory
Kincafe
eFamily
Geni
MyFamily
2.0
MyHeritage.com
Once you start participating online
in social networking, privacy can become a major concern. If you watch Facebook
for a while and see what people post online, you can easily see how people will
say things that they may later regret saying or that, at the least, are
socially inappropriate. Although many of the sites have varying degrees of
privacy controls so that you can limit who can see your posts. Once you have
posted something online, there is really no guarantee that it will not be
repeated by someone without your permission, so be careful in the types of
information you put online. One rule is to never include information about
living people.
As I mentioned, being online in a
social networking site can be a valuable way to find unknown relatives and to
reconnect with friends, but there is time commitment involved and participating
online can become almost addictive.

Helping youth to become involved in Family History

Elder David A. Bednar helps youth to understand how and why they should become in volved in Family History work. The video found on lds.org does a great job of explaining that. Watch this video:

More information about how youth can get started can be found on lds.org. After you get on that site, click on "Menu", then "Family", then on "Youth". When you get to that screen select "Youth and Family History" from the list on the left side of the screen. You can then watch Elder Bednar's video and then select steps one through five. Give it a try.

Ozias Strong Harward Family Council on Facebook

We have established a facebook group for the Ozias Strong Harward Family Council in order to have a more effective communications tool. It will help us coordinate our research and share family stories. If you have people in your family who have a facebook account (no cost) and would like to keep current on what the council is doing, please e-mail me with their name and e-mail address so that I can invite them to be part of this closed group. That means they can only be part of it if they are invited to join. The reason I have initiated this effort is because it was suggest in the new service that will be made available soon in the newfamily search called "family tree". This is explained in this quote from that source:

"What Is the Family Tree? The Family Tree is a new service found at FamilySearch.org that enables you to enjoy family history in new ways. Once all of the features are in place, the Family Tree will replace new.FamilySearch and will be freely and publicly available to people around the world. The Family Tree will let you:Connect and collaborate with others who share an interest in a common ancestral line.Add, edit, and delete relationships between individuals in the Family Tree.—Coming Soon!Edit vital and other information for all of your ancestors.Discuss and source family tree information to improve conclusions over time.View the history of changes to your ancestors, providing increased understanding and control over changes and revisions.Add specific ancestors to a personal “Watch List” to receive notifications whenever information about those ancestors is added or changed.Try out new features and functionality as they are added over the coming months."

"Facebook has long since moved into first place as the social networking site of choice for millions upon millions of people. This is in part due to being in the right place at the right time with the right product. No matter what you think about Facebook as a social phenomena, you have to recognize the great potential the program has to connect families doing genealogical research. My own experience with the program only goes back a few years, but I have seen several very helpful connections with relatives as a result. There are several ways to enhance your chances of finding genealogy-minded relatives through Facebook Pages. Two of those ways are setting up a Facebook Page or starting a family organization.Facebook has three different levels of involvement; personal pages, group pages and Facebook Pages. First, the basics. You sign up with Facebook by creating an account. You must be 13 years of age or older. Registration requires your name, birthday, gender and an email address. You then pick a password. Once you fill out and submit the form, Facebook sends you a confirmation email. That is all there is to it.The whole idea with Facebook is to connect with your “friends” and relatives. On Facebook a friend is someone you connect with and share information with. If you are going to participate on Facebook, you will need to enter some personal information into a profile, including a photograph. Once you are signed in and have a profile, you can start sharing things on your Facebook “wall,” that is, a virtual space where you can post online messages, graphics and videos.One concern shared by many is the problem of privacy. If you read posts on Facebook by the younger users, you might come to the conclusion that they no longer have a sense of privacy. They share things that would have violated social taboos only a few years ago. But Facebook is concerned about the privacy issues and has privacy settings. To quote from Facebook’s Help Center, “Your privacy settings let you manage basic privacy preferences, such as who can send you friend requests and messages. For everything else that you share on Facebook, you can choose your audience right when you post.” Part of this ability to set privacy settings allows you to form special interest groups, such as your relatives, to share information only with other group members.Once you have a Facebook account, you can begin right away to share information, including genealogical information, by typing a message. Anyone who is your friend will then see the message shortly after you publish it. You can carry on two-way conversations by either commenting on others’ posts or sending messages directly to an individual. Sending messages through Facebook is very similar to sending an email message, but depending on your privacy settings, what you send may be read by others. In any event, there is nothing stopping someone from forwarding your message to the rest of the Facebook community.Facebook Pages are different than your own personal page or your membership in a group. Pages allow businesses, brands, and celebrities to connect with people on Facebook. These entities are represented on Facebook by an administrator. If you think about it for a moment, you will realize that there is no reason that a family genealogical organization or genealogical society cannot have its own Facebook Page. As a matter of fact, many genealogical organizations and companies are already very active on Facebook. Here is a list of several genealogical organizations and companies already represented:FamilySearchFamilySearch IndexingFamilySearch WikiRootsMagicLegacy Family TreeUtah Genealogical AssociationNational Genealogical SocietyThe list could go on and on. You might try searching on the surnames in your pedigree to see if someone has already put up a Page or started a group concerning your family.To start a Facebook Page, you need to decide who in the organization or other entity will be responsible for the content. Anyone who joins the Page can make posts, but someone needs to guide the online presence and post the initial information. This is similar to starting an organization newsletter. Whatever you do, you need to make sure the Page has an identity. It doesn’t do much good to post a Page such as “The Descendants of So and So” if you do not intend to add content and make an effort to reach out to those descendants. You can’t assume that simply by posting your ancestor’s name on a Facebook Page that someone or anyone will come to read it or join it as a friend. As with everything on the Internet, content rules. You have to have valuable or interesting, at least, content before you will attract any followers.There is a rule about Facebook Pages however, as stated by Facebook, “Profiles (timelines) represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook. You may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative.” This explanation goes on to say:In addition, Pages are managed by admins who have personal Facebook profiles (timelines). Pages are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your profile (timeline). They are merely different entities on our site, similar to how Groups and Events function. Once you have set up a Page within your profile (timeline), you may add other admins to help you manage this Page. People who choose to connect to your Page won’t be able to see that you are the Page admin or have any access to your personal account.There are significant differences between Facebook Pages and Groups. You may wish to spend some time reading from the Facebook Help Center before you decide whether to have a Group or a Page for your Family Organization. It is not possible to switch a Group to a Page. You basically have to start over again if you find you need a Page after you have an active Group. You would create the Page and then notify the Group members to become friends with the Page and follow your activities and posts.Creating a Facebook page is almost as simple as obtaining a personal account. The difference is not in starting the page, but in the content. You may wish to do some searching on Facebook to get an idea of the types of Pages that can be designed and the content."

So if you don't have a facebook account, it costs nothing to set one up, set one up or have one of your teenagers do it for you and let's get connected. If you have any questions about getting an invitation to join the Ozias Harward Family Counil, just send me your e-mail address to me at russharward@msn.com and I will see that you get an invitation to join because it is a closed group and you must be invited to join.

Genealogy Fan Chart

Genealogy Fan Chart

Here is my Family History Fan Chart which includes Ozias Strong and Frances Eva Curtis. Check it out and let me know of any corrections I need to make on FamilySearch.org.