Ralph B. Clark
Deacon George Clark(e) of Milford, Connecticut and Some of His Descendants book by George Clarke Bryant and Donald Lines Jacobus [1949], Anthoensen Press, Portland, Maine This book can now be accessed and read on internet.
George Clarke Bryant was eight generations down from Deacon George Clark. Bryant lived in the Milford, Connecticut area and wanted to trace his Clark ancestors. Both he and his wife's mothers were maiden named Clark. Bryant had at least five descents and his mother at least one descent from Deacon George Clark. Bryant also noted that he not only had descent from Deacon George Clark(e), but also from the other George Clark who lived simultaneous to Deacon George in Milford, Connecticut. This other George Clark was Farmer George.Bryant had access to the early Church, Cemetery, Civil, and other records about families who lived in the area and cited these various sources throughout the book Bryant coordinated with a professional genealogist of the area named Donald Lines Jacobus. Bryant died before the book could get published, so Jacobus made sure it got published. Because these two George Clark persons were involved in the genealogy, Bryant listed important inforamtion about both Deacon and Farmer George Clark. The sad part about this book was that Bryant followed only the Clark surnamed families with any detail. Thus, the Clark daughter lines were essentially missing, except for Deacon's son Samuel Clark who married Farmer's daughter Mary Clark. We the descendants of Ezra Thompson Clark had much of our genealogy included in the book because we descend through Samuel and Mary.
In Bryant's research, he wanted to clarify some disturbing questions that many Clark descendants had. These questions came because of the similarities of these two George Clark persons. Deacon George Clark came to America from England about 1836 with a wife named Sarah. They resided in Boston area a couple of years, had a son, then left to live in another colony in what is now known as Connecticut, and settled in the community of Milford in late 1639. Farmer George Clark came to America from England about 1638 as a single man and also settled in Milford, Connecticut in late 1639. Soon after settling, Farmer George married a lady name Sarah. Thus we now have two George Clark persons about the same age, from England, living in Milford, Connecticut with wives named Sarah (no maiden names listed). Both families had a daughter named Sarah born about two months of each other, and both George Clark persons died a couple of months apart from each other in Milford, Connecticut in 1690. As a result, many persons (particularly those tracing genealogy) consider these two George Clark persons to be the same person. Bryant was able to separate these two George Clark families and determine that they were not close relatives, so that Deacon's son Samuel did not marry his full-blooded sister Mary Clark daughter of Farmer George.
One of our cousins Glenn Willett Clark took the responsibility to research for the maiden names of the Sarah wives of Deacon and Farmer George Clark. Glenn was successful in finding that Deacon George Clark married a Sarah Bouttell or Bowtell from the archive records in London, England (same records are held at the LDS Library in Salt Lake City). Glenn followed an English group (Davenport-Eaton) who came to America in 1638 and went to the New Haven and Milford, Connecticut area in 1639. He found that a lady name Sarah Widmore was a member of this group and it was she who married Farmer George. Glenn was also successful in tracing back further the ancestry of both Deacon and Farmer George and their wives a couple or few more generations. Finding the maiden names of the Sarah wives was really important as some people have consistently listed the wife names of both George Clark's being Sarah Harvey. That is, Sarah Harvey was maried to both Milford, Connecticut George Clark's as well as to a James Clark who resided in the community of New Haven, Connecticut. Some persons just cannot accept that Sarah Harvey was not the wife of the George Clark persons to whom we descend and continue to change the true names of the Sarah Clark's who married Deacon and Farmer George Clark's on the LDS Church Family Tree Program.
Progress of Clark Family Genealogy for Temple Ordinance Work
If one looks at the genelaogy presented in the Bryant-Jacobus book, you will find that Temple work has been performed for most of these people. That is, our relatives have found these genealogies and submitted their names for temple work. Most of these persons have also been found in genealogies of families of those early years. The New Englanders did a good job of keeping genealogies. The biggest gaps in genealogies occur when persons are born after about 1800. This is about the time when families began to scatter and move to new territories, so that information may not be as available as before the migrations began. The families listed in the LDS Family Tree Program of these early families is a choatic mess, and I have quit trying to correct them as someone will likely come along later and change what it really should be from the data listed in Bryant-Jacobus book or from research. As I do research, I source each name with where data was obtained. Sourcing names is really important if you want someone to believe what information is listed for persons. .
I have been interested in following our Clark lines, especially for the Clark daughters of Deacon and Farmer George Clark persons. My first project was to trace the children families of Timothy Baldwin Clark who did not join the LDS Church (Sarah [Sally], David Keeler, and Barrett Bass). This was a very fruitful adventure and a lot of temple work was completed for these family lines. I also found considerable success in following our direct line through Samuel-Mary Clark, especially the brothers/sisters of Timothy Baldwin Clark lines. Very successful activity was found in tracing lines of Farmer George's daughter Ruth who married a Thomas Fitch. Ruth's grandson and great grandson were governors of the Connecticut Colony. I am ready to put into LDS Family Tree information about two children of Jonathan Law, grandson of Decaon George through daughter Sarah. This Jonathan Law was also governor of Connecticut Colony. Many lines have had some names where temple work has been performed, but many names still need to be done. From the names I have been able to find, we have done temple work for about 7,000 of our relatives. There is still lots of research to do for our Clark daughter's descendants, as well through some Clark surnamed families whose temple work has not yet been done.
Genealogical Information now Needed or Desired
To bring a good genealogical profile of the children of Ezra T. Clark, the various family members of Ezra's children down to the present needs to be on computer and entered into a Clark Genealogical Program. If the file is the one I have prepared, only three families have their data close to the present. I suspect that most families have data on computer, but we need to get them to submit it to the general file. Once we get a genealogical profile on the Web, then these could be added.
Help is Needed to Perform Temple Ordiance Work
The Church now requires that we can no longer give our names to the temple and the temple work gets performed. They want families to do their own family names. More and more people are finding names that they can do. However, if we have Clark family persons who need names I often can provide names. We can share names with the Church, but often the work does not get done for another 5-6 years. My experience has been that the Church does not do sealings if they follow Church Protocol. This is because parents must have their work completed and be sealed together before children can be sealed to them. And children are not to be sealed to parents until their own temple ordinance work is complete.
I often send names to people so they can do temple work in a relatively short period of time. I also am sending sheets of names of both male and female to persons who then do all the work from baptism to endowment for all nemas on the sheet then send them back to me to prepare for sealings. I go to the Church Family Tree and check that each person is eligible for sealing to parents or to the spouse. The Church is now saying that names can be reserved for only two years, and can be made available to other persons if no temple work is being done in recent times. Keeping track of all the names that I handle sometimes takes considerable time, but I feel we are dong it the proper way.
Persons interested in receiving names should contact me by phone or email and I would be glad to send names and try to keep in touch about progress being made. Right now, I could use several Clark relatives to do temple work for our distant cousins. That is, I have names that deserve temple ordinance work to be done.
