User:Ross/What We Don't (Really) Know
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This page was created to capture the growing list of "facts" that members of the Livingston Family Association have assumed to be true - often for many years, but that have not been proven to be true through original source citation. On 11-June-2012 at 09:47:Doug (Ron) Livingston wrote via email to board@livingstonfamily.org:
- I find it interesting that much of the material corresponds to other records.
- He (James, b:1808) recorded information about his parents and his birth (and many others) in his bound editions of the Millennial Star and parish registers in Scotland. Significantly, there is a gap in marriages recorded in the Dalgety Parish Register that extends from 12 July 1804 to the 30 May 1811. His parents were married on 09 October 1897 and do not appear in that record. This "autobiography" and the Millennial Star references are the only known record of that event.
- Emigration records document his trip on the Falcon (How would James have known the reference for that? Yet another problem.)
- There are records for the Appleton Harmon ox-train.
- His marriages should appear in the Church records, as should his Priesthood ordinations.
- Quorum minutes reflect his service as a Seventy.
- Mix data from those sources with some family lore (that would have been fairly current at the time), and voila', you've got yourself an "autobiography".
- I've asked various family members to help me with their sources on things here and there. It is frightening how often the "source" is merely someone else's personal record. That's not a valid source. If I challenge it, the response I generally hear goes something like, "Well, everybody else's record in the family says the same thing, so it must be right". Aaarrgghhh!
- [...]
- Accurately citing sources is so important.
Now, on with the questions:
- Did James "Campbell" Livingston take Campbell as a middle name? And if so, when?
- Doug (Ron) Livingston wrote via email to Ross Livingston on 11-June-2012 at 13:42:
- Something you might be interested in looking into regarding James Campbell Livingston's (b:1833) is that "Campbell" bit in his name. James' birth/baptismal record reads "James Livingstone" (Livingston has many, many spellings. This time it had an "e" at the end). No one really outside of those born to aristocracy at that time in Scotland had anything other than a given name and a surname. Someone, somewhere, added it. It might have been James himself, but I don't see any reference to it before he emigrated to Utah, and then it was someone else other than him creating the record. I'd like to see a copy of his 1869 patriarchal blessing (not just a transcription) to see what name is used there.
- Anyway, if he choose "Campbell" as a middle name, why? It's an interesting question, isn't it?
- We see something similar with Christina "Granny" Campbell Livingston (b:1789). Granny's birth/baptismal record reads "Christian Livistone" (not a typo). "Campbell" was so commonly employed as a part of their names in our home that I grew up thinking it was Granny's maiden name. It isn't, of course. Granny's mother, however, was a Campbell. I think someone put "Campbell" as a note next to Granny's name on a family group sheet or something in an effort to keep the lines straight (they being somewhat confusing at that generation), someone else may then have then innocently copied it to their record, that mistake propagated, and it eventually became an accepted "fact".
- When was Archibald Livingston (Archibald 1808's great-great-grandfather) born?
- Doug (Ron) Livingston wrote via email to board@livingstonfamily.org on 11-June-2012 at 11:41:
- Here is the king-daddy of misinformation that continues to be circulated among the family and elsewhere: Archibald Livingston was born "04 June 1702".
- We know he married Christian Muir on 25 June 1725. We know what children they had together. We know he died on 03 August 1772. We know he was one of the Elders in the Parish. We know he was a coal miner. We know where he lived. We have rock-solid documentation that establishes these facts.
- We do not know who his parents were and we do not know his birthday. And yet, you see claims to the contrary all over the place.
- Why do we often refer to Paul Gourlay as "Elder" Paul Gourlay?
- Doug (Ron) Livingston wrote via email to board@livingstonfamily.org on 11-June-2012 at 11:41:
- Another problem in the narrative is the reference to "Elder" Paul Gourlay. Maybe there is more to the story, but Gourlay was the Branch President in the area with a noteworthy story, not a missionary as the honorific and context of baptism suggests. I haven't taken the time (yet) to research Elders Robert Baird or James Letham, also mentioned in the writing in reference to Aaronic Priesthood ordinations.
- Who really wrote the James Campbell Livingston "autobiography"?
- Doug (Ron) Livingston wrote via email to board@livingstonfamily.org on 11-June-2012 at 09:47:
- Personally, I do not believe it is a genuine autobiography.
- It is in the green book, but while many have tried over the years, no one has found an original manuscript. If the original is ever found, it would have to be written by James using his left hand. We have samples of his writing with the right hand (the Millennial Star records, prior to his accident) and with his left (a letter to his grandson, Arthur, sent o him on his mission).
- The account strangely switches from a 1st person narrative to third person towards the close. I suspect that it was written by someone in the family, probably for a presentation at a family reunion, sort of like this year's "rap" or the "life sketches" we've seen in other years. If the source and intent wasn't immediately clear, it became lost over time, and was eventually taken to be a literal "autobiography".
- Until or unless the original is found, I remain deeply skeptical.