Marsden Family: Early Latter-Day Saints Website

While looking through the RootsWeb entries for the Marsdens, I saw that one was an index to the site Early Latter-day Saints: Remembering the People and Places.

This site is run by a not-for-profit organization called The Historical Pioneer Research Group. It seems to combine the efforts of Mormon-themed genealogical organizations in the Midwest, service missionaries at Nauvoo and other Mormon locations, and historians associated with BYU. It looks like it is a work in progress with requests for further information.

Here are some notable pages:

Mormon Places

Includes everything from Nauvoo to the small settlements that sprang up as the Saints left Nauvoo. This could help trace your pioneer ancestors' route to the West.

Some of the entries have sources and notes; others have none, so the list is of mixed usefulness.

Cemeteries

Includes the records for the Winter Quarters Cemetery. It is very touching to read through the grave records, many them children. Here are the entries for Isabella Hood Hill and a few others:

• Isabella Hill; age 25 yrs., 8 mos., 12 days; wife of Archibald Hill; deceased, Mar. 20, 1847; birthdate, July 8, 1821; grave no. 109.
• Willard Richards Bullock; age, 2 yrs., 1 mo., 6 days; son of Thomas and Henrietta Bullock; deceased Mar. 17, 1847; disease, effects of persecution; birthplace, Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Ill.; birthdate, Feb. 11, 1845; grave no. 104.
• Child; A. O. Smoot's sister's child not reported to me; deceased April 29, 1847; disease consumption; grave no. 144.
• Jacob; age 17 yrs., 6 mos.; servant [slave or former slave] of John Bankhead; deceased, April 7, 1847; disease, Winter fever; birthplace, Monroe Co., Miss; birthdate, Oct., 1829; grave no. 126. [Ed.—This one helped make the identification of an otherwise unnamed slave mentioned in the John Brown diary, so I've added this source to my ongoing Slave List project.]

You can search the website by name and by location. Although it has some limitations (names and places have not been researched, sources have been transcribed by volunteers, etc.) I have added it to my list of sources to I check for every biography I write.

Marsdens in the Early LDS database:

Abraham, Charles, Emma, Hannah Maria, Harriet Zelnora, James, Margaret, Mary, William.

It looks like there are at least two different families of Marsdens who were early members of the Church, and it looks like Charles and James are the only ones in this list from our family. It can be helpful to know about the additional family for sorting through records and newspaper articles.