By LaRae Free Kerr

Let’s say you’d like to find a little more about your Mormon and Mountain West relatives , and you figure there’s more on the web by now than what I recommended last year or the year before. Or maybe you know more ancestral names than you did when last I did a column on Western and Mormon sources. Or maybe you just have a few unfettered moments by the computer and want to have some fun. Here’s a list of URLs you can look at. Maybe somebody you are related to in some way will show up.

When I discovered Simeon Carter, a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taught my family in Illinois in 1833, I wanted to know more about him.
So I turned to some biographical sites such as Biographical Register, http://deseretbook.com/personalwritings/105#C. Ah, there is a little blurb on Simeon Carter.

Under Biography and Journal Excerpts on the Signature Book site, http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/, I find a listing of excerpts from 19 people, two of which are of interest to me, but no Simeon Carter. However, the card catalog of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers (DUP) site, http://www.dupinternational.org/, lists many more Mormon folks, and Simeon A Carter is one of them. I’ll need to call or visit to get a copy of his biography. While in the DUP site, I check for his picture by clicking on Photo Index. There is one. Won’t having a picture of the missionary enhance my family history?

At Heritage Gateways, http://heritage.uen.org/, I discover Simeon Carter, who had been a missionary there, sailed from Liverpool, England, 7 Sep 1848, on the ship Erin’s Queen; he was in charge of 232 people who disembarked at New Orleans. This site has a short list of historical pioneer biographies, maps and ship information. I check out the lesson plans and decide to use a few on neighbors and grandkids.
On Brigham Young University’s Mormon Biographical Register there is a slightly longer biography of Simeon Carter, http://byustudies.byu.edu/indexes/bioregisters/bioregisters.aspx. Though many more people are named here, the information is often scant, probably because the names come from only three books.

Though a Carter is listed in the Juanita Brooks collection at the Utah State Historical Society at http://history.utah.gov/FindAids/B00103/b0103.html, the name is Sophronia, not Simeon. However, since Juanita and I are distant cousins, I see she has files on several common relatives. When I back out of the site to http://history.utah.gov/FindAids/, I find a long list of interesting topics, biographical and otherwise. When I scroll down to the Brigham Young papers, I see several items that might help me with the family history. I check the Ann Reynolds Oral History Collection but find none of my own relatives.
Nevertheless, some of yours might be there. This is a great source and is worthy of some time. I check for Carter, and sure enough, Tom Carter’s Papers are listed with pictures of towns and buildings in Utah. But no Simeon.

If any of your relatives are writers or artists be sure to check the Mormon Literature and Creative Arts site, http://mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/lit_people_list.php?PHPSESSID=b24c80d02b4d1a17fe89afefab56faf8, listing over 7,000 people and some of their works. This is not a biography site but does lead me to their works. Seven Carters are listed here. Are they related to Simeon?

While at BYU sites, I go to Family History Archives, http://www.lib.byu.edu/online.html.
Over one hundred items come up for Carter: only one for Simeon Carter. But that is a picture of his (modernized) Amherst, Ohio home. I use this site often.

I skip over to the Mormon Manuscript Collection at UNLV, http://library.nevada.edu/speccol/ms_subj/mormon.html, and find no Carters at all, but Anson Call papers are housed there. Better tell my sister-in-law. And, I notice, six boxes of Elbert Edwards’ papers are housed at UNLV, including descriptions of old mining methods, and biographical materials on Milton Lafayette Lee and Henry Hudson Lee, both relatives.

I decide to visit http://www.saintswithouthalos.com/b/_bios.phtml, which lists nearly 70 early Missouri Mormons including two Carters, both brothers to Simeon. As might be expected by the title of this site, “Saints without Halos,” some negative stuff can be found.
But I’m a family historian and genealogist; I delight in each nugget I find.
I’m still intrigued and having fun, so I look at the “Mormons and Their Neighbors” index at http://www.lib.byu.edu/Ancestry/. And here I find five entries for Simeon Carter.

One last place to look for Simeon Carter is on my own website at Itsallrelatives.net. Under , I enter “Simeon” under First Name Search. Six entries appear; one is Simeon Carter Free. Obviously, Simeon Carter Free was named for this respected missionary who visited sometime between the births of Simeon Carter Free, born Jan 1835 and his older brother, born Jan 1833. So I can conclude that the missionary visited the Free family in St Clair County between Jan 1833 and Jan 1835, and that the family respected Simeon Carter enough to name a son for him.

When I am through gathering this information about Simeon Carter, I’ll have enough to enrich the history. And I’ve had a great time. I do hope you have fun as well.

LaRae Free Kerr, M ED, can be reached at Itsallrelatives@sfcn.org and Itsallrelatives.net.