Serendipity
The Book That Didn't Exist
by Kathleen E. Englebretson
My e-mail address is TMKEEPS@tznet.com
and I live in
Wisconsin.
It was my first trip to the Family
History Center in Salt Lake City. I was desperately trying to find my
husband's gggrandmother's family from Prince Edward County, Ontario,
Canada. With the help of the matrons, we located an 1861 census of the
area. In it was several possible links but what I really needed was the
parents.
As I scanned the shelves, about a dozen books down, I found an 1851 census of the same area. When I opened it I found the parents that I was looking for and all the children listed as still living at home. In addition I also found other families, in their entirety, that had split by 1861.
Between the two books, I was able to copy about 20 pages of information. On my way home, I discovered that I was missing the page I needed the most. I knew I had copied it but must have dropped it. I had the info in my notes but decided to write to the FHC to recopy that page for me.
I was shocked when they wrote back that they were unable to honor my request because the book from 1851 did NOT exist. Assuming they had made a mistake, I went into their card catalogue, myself and there is no record of it even though I have all the other copied pages with the LDS stamp on them.
Because of this book that doesn't exist, I have been able to verify over 3,000 family names on gggrandma's family.
Submitted: Mon Dec 28 17:32:09 1998
