Did you check the Crossing the Ocean Index since William Richards came from England? The Family History Library has a set of microfilm rolls of indices from Mormon emigrant ships from the late 1840s up to the early 1900s. These films are essentially 3x5 index cards that have been placed in alphabetical order, then filmed. There is a card for each single or family, with name of ship and year, port of departure and arrival port. Once you have found an index card for your ancestor, then you can go to the actual ship's register (another microfilm set). The registry give age, occupation and a local address for each group. The local address is not always a family member; sometimes it is the local Mormon agent. There is a similar index, nicknamed "Crossing the Plains Index." This covers handcart and wagon companies from 1847 until the completion of the railroad in 1869. This index was created from the official lists of companies from the Journal History of the Church. Most of the lists came from the Deseret News. The list was published even before the company arrived, so friends and family could go out to meet the new arrivals, often helping them from Bear River over the mountains into the valley. The cards have only names, ages, name of company and year. SOMETIMES, also the name of the ship if they came from Europe. The film numbers for both set of indices and the ships registers can be found by searching the FHL catalog via a locality search for Utah as a state, then scrolling down topics to find Emigration and Immigration. THESE TWO INDICES SHOULD BE USED AS A START FOR ANYONE WITH PIONEER ANCESTRY. While they are not perfect, you will find about 90% plus of pioneer ancestors in one or both of these indices (both if emigrated from Europe). After all, they didn't get to the valley by starship transporters!! The 1900 census is another source of emigration information for foreign-born saints. Look in the columns for year of immigration, number of years in US and naturalization. The year may not be 100% accurate (especially if the person immigrated as a child), but it is a good start. Early Utah ward records sometimes have information on birth, parents, etc. You will have to check the FHL catalog under the locality, then church records. If you can find the person in a ward record in the early 1900s, you'll get even more info. I've looked at ward records going back to the early 1860s, but SLC records go back to the beginning. There are also ward records for Nauvoo. Another source is the IGI. Many who were baptized in Great Britain show up on the ward/branch records transcribed by Minnie Margetts a long time ago. Also marriages performed in the Endowment House are in the IGI. You need special permission to view the actual Endowment House records on microfilm; photocopying is not allowed, and you can only look at the record of a direct ancestor. I don't remember whether these films can be loaned to local FHCs. Hope this helps. P.S. Richards is also a common Welsh surname. ____________________Reply Separator____________________ Subject: [HANDCART-L] William Richards Author: appomattoxway@lgcy.com Date: 6/5/98 9:20 AM Does anyone have information or connections to: William Richards born in England came to Utah in 1879-80 at the age of 26 William married 31 Jul 1880, Salt Lake City, to: Elizabeth Georgina Cook b 30 Nov 1863 Bankstown, Australia William and Elizabeth were divorced by 1891. William's birth and parentage is the missing link to these children: John William Richards b 1 Mar 1883, Salt Lake City, Utah d 28 Jun 1960, Missoula, Montana George Vivian Richards b 10 Jun 1885, Park City, Utah d 10 Dec 1948, Missoula, Montana Samuel Willard Richards b 7 Sep 1886, Salt Lake City, Utah d 21 Feb 1894, Salt Lake City, Utah Henry Bernard Richards b 27 Nov 1889, Missoula, Montana d 21 Mar 1891, Missoula, Montana I really need your help. I have searched hard through vital records and now hope that family information might surface. What became of William after the family separation is not known. The boys were raised by their stepfather, Charles Crawshaw. However, the boys must have had some contact with their father as two pictures I have state: Dear Papa, Merry Christmas. Another picture states: Dear Uncle Isaac. William might have had a brother named Isaac. Thank your for your consideration of this information. Sherry Smith Received: from valhalla.tmac.com (192.206.250.2) by ccmail.tmac.com with SMTP (IMA Internet Exchange 2.12 Enterprise) id 00005E72; Fri, 5 Jun 98 11:13:27 -0400 Received: from fp-1.rootsweb.com (fp-1.rootsweb.com [207.113.233.233]) by valhalla.tmac.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA13545 for <Durfee_Lynda@tmac.com>; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:19:42 -0400 Received: (from slist@localhost) by fp-1.rootsweb.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA23110; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:15:33 -0700 (PDT) Resent-Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:15:33 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <35780CCA.F8DD60A2@lgcy.com> Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 09:20:43 -0600 From: "David D. Smith" <appomattoxway@lgcy.com> Reply-To: appomattoxway@lgcy.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Old-To: "HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com" <HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [HANDCART-L] William Richards Resent-Message-ID: <"J6oNoD.A.3oF.UuAe1"@fp-1.rootsweb.com> To: HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com Resent-From: HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com X-Mailing-List: <HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/698 X-Loop: HANDCART-L@rootsweb.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: HANDCART-L-request@rootsweb.com