I Think I Might Be A Mongrel!!!!

6 Aug 2010--We set out today and yesterday to do a little sightseeing, and we did, but not the sights we expected to see. We were trying to go to places that we figure Marie will not be interested in when she gets here next Tuesday, so we headed to the Utah State History Museum to start the day. Upon arrival at the building that was supposed to house the museum, we were informed by the security guard that the museum closed about 4 years ago, probably because of lack of funding by the legislature, but all the brochures about the city hadn't been update yet. So then we decided that we would head over to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, but when he heard that he told us that the museum was being renovated, so we wouldn't be able to see that either.

A little irritated at this turn of events, we decided to head over to Beehive House, the house owned by Brigham Young back when he was both the head of the Mormon Church and the Governor of Utah and in charge of Indian Affairs.

After parking and heading to the Beehive House, we happened upon the Brigham Young Historic Park, a small park where they have a couple statues showing how hard working the Mormons are, and at which they have free concerts every Tuesday and Friday night.

When we got to the Beehive House we had just missed the tours that run every 20 minutes, so we walked down the street to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. This was more fun than we had anticipated. The building is a former upscale hotel, owned by the Mormons, and converted to office space. This is where you go to research your family history. A volunteer explained that the reason they have all these records is due to their interest in "family", so that is how they got they started. She went on to explain that they are digitizing the whole world's records, and they do it for free, with the agreement that whatever country they are doing agrees to give them a copy of every record they digitize.

I couldn't get a really good picture of the outside because there is a lot of construction going on, but inside is gorgeous. The statue is Joseph Smith, of course.

You go downstairs to sit at a computer and a volunteer will actually sit with you for as long as you want. Cathy and I ended up being there 2 hours yesterday (we had to leave to move our car) and then another 4 hours today.

For every person you find you can print off a record of their census information. Depending on how far back you go, it will tell you the husband/wife/kids, their ages, year born or immigrated to the country, if they owned their home or rented and how much they paid, even if the household had a radio!!! It was pretty cool.

And this is where I come to the title of the blog. On my father's side I was able to go back to a William E Byrnes, who would be my great grandfather, was born in 1848, in ENGLAND, and the paperwork told me that William's father was born in INDIA ENG, and his mother was born in England. William was married to Margret, and at least she and her people came from Ireland. So for those of you who don't understand, I was led to believe my whole life that I was 100% Irish and now at 54 yrs old I find out otherwise. I remember my father telling us as kids that his people came from England and that if we were still there we would be calling him "Sir Walter", but we thought he was joking...

On my father's mother's side I was able to go back to my great, great grandfather, named Moses Bean, born in 1814 and from Maine, married to Lucretia...I don't know where she came from.

On my mother's side I could only go back to her parents because of the fact that they came from Ireland, so I was thru that side pretty quick.

Cathy got all the way back to her 8th generation of grandparents (say great 8 times) on her mother's side, back to a birth in 1690 and 1692, and even a couple weddings and births/deaths that took place on Snowfield Plantation or Springfield Plantation in North Carolina. We don't know if they were slaveholders or slaves themselves...the paperwork didn't indicate. haha

She could only go back to 1888 on her father's side, to her great grandparents in South Carolina.

I think we can safely assume that both sides of her family probably fought on the side of the Confederates, though!

Now on to Beehive House. Once we moved the car, we walked back to do the tour of Brigham Young's house...or I should say houses. The 1st thing you see is this, called Eagle Gate, what used to be the entrance to his land, several acres north, South, East and West that are now regular buildings on widened streets.

The Beehive House is actually a series of 3 buildings, 2 of which are attached. This is Beehive House below, with what is called Lion House in the next series of pictures. There is a house in between them, and attached to Beehive, that he used for offices. Brigham and wife #3 Lucy and their 7 kids lived in Beehive House.

They didn't want to go into it, but I forced it out of them...Brigham's other wives and kids lived here in Lion House (no tour here). This placard outside the house gives some info, but it is scratched out a lot, so it makes it hard to read.

From what they would tell us, Brigham's 1st wife died, his 2nd wife was very sick and actually lived in a different house across the street from these, Lucy was industrious so she and her kids lived and entertained the high muckety-mucks coming to visit in the Beehive, and everyone else lived at one time or another in Lion house. Again, I had to drag the info out of them, but they finally told us that they didn't know if they were all wives, but he ultimately supported 50 women and had families with 16 of them!!!!! They wouldn't, or couldn't, tell us how many kids that entailed.

They wrote the polygamy thing off as "ordered by God" because it was needed back then, and when it was no longer needed in 1890 God told them to stop. I think I read somewhere that it was a condition of statehood, but who I am to say?! haha

Here are a few pics of some of the rooms in Beehive House. It was a very nice house. I love the harp in the entertainment room.

Notice the beehives on the top of the railings, then the railroad (which they built) and bee carved into the side of the railing.

So, a great 2 days were had by all. Looking forward to Marie getting here!