Category: Stories
Finding Kesler – April 28, 2010
Finding Kesler from Taylor Van Sickle on Vimeo.
Where Kesler Meets Egan – April 26, 2010
Chris Manning's ancestor, Howard Egan
When I was out in Omaha, Nebraska visiting the Mormon Trail Visitors Center with the Finding Kesler crew, I discovered something that inspired me and gave me the passion that I have for The Ancestry Project. As the production manager on Finding Kesler, I had some time during one of the interviews that I could walk around and look at the exhibits. One of the exhibits was of the first odometer that the Mormon pioneers added to their covered wagons so that they could measure the distance that they had traveled. Next to that exhibit was a quote from Howard Egan. The quote in and of itself was unremarkable, but discovering it in Omaha, Nebraska, while filming a documentary about Frederick Kesler meant a great deal to me.
My grandmother, Helen Claire Egan, married Jack Egan when I was 11. He became a huge part of my life, and is as much my grandfather as my other grandpa, Donald Barnhouse, is to me. Grandpa Egan has always had a great passion for his family history. He gave our family a book by his great-great grandfather, Howard Egan. Egan’s life is pretty amazing. He was born in Tullamore, Ireland in 1815. He emigrated to Salem, where he was married and joined the Mormon Church and moved out west to Nauvoo, Illinois. In Nauvoo, he was a police officer, and earned the title of Major, which he carried throughout the rest of his life. In the Mormon exodus, he led the Howard Egan Company west to Utah. He logged more miles in a few year period than most people in that time logged in their life because, in addition to helping the Mormon pioneers move west, he joined the Pony Express, delivering mail from the California to Saint Louis. There is so much more to this man that I want to discover. I want to know the details. I want to know what artifacts he has left behind. I want to handle them, feel them and get to know what he was like as a person.
Even though Howard Egan is not my blood relative, I have a connection to him, and he has a connection to The Ancestry Project. Voices from the past do speak to us. Connections from the past repeat in their descendants. Taylor Van Sickle and I have been brought together to walk in Kesler and Egan’s footsteps. We need to see where these footsteps lead.
Howard Egan’s story is just one of many amazing stories that need to be told. Please tell us your story! We would like to work with you and help you with the research and the telling of your ancestors story. We have a torch in hand that we want to pass on to you. So come on! What’s your story?
The Importance of the Physical Connection – April 23, 2010
Last night, The Ancestry Project team presented in front of a group of Digital Media students and faculty. Finding Kesler was premiered, as well as our vision of the future and our goals for The Ancestry Project. Among those goals is a continued focus on uncovering the stories of anyone’s ancestors that need to be untold and tell them through visiting the locations important to those ancestors. Actually visiting something in person, or listening to someone speak right in front of you, creates a physical connection, a link that is much stronger than it would be in the online space.
Case-in-point: Over the past several weeks, we had amassed 336 Facebook fans (I will continue to call them fans until I can think of something better to call them), but new fans were barely trickling in. Then yesterday, since the showcase, our number of fans have jumped to 350. I am sure it is because of the presentation. It’s because we were able to make that physical, personal connection.
So what’s the point? Taylor Van Sickle’s life has been inalterably affected because of the physical connection he made with his 5th great-grandfather as he explored some of the locations important to him. Likewise, as you venture out and make physical connections with your story, your life will be affected, and who knows how many other lives you will affect.
Frederick Kesler – April 7, 2010
Frederick Kesler was a millwright, and the center piece of our first documentary. His hard work and dedication to his craft resulted in the construction of various mills throughout the United States that helped to sustain and improve the lives of those who lived around them. Many of the mills that he helped to construct served as gathering places and final preparation stops before a long and arduous journey across the untamed plains to California, Utah, and Texas.
