Our Methodology

Our basic task was to try to gather together the genealogy from various parts of the family, correct any errors we could find, and provide the sources of the information.

The LDS church has never been allowed to microfilm the records of Jersey. Research there must be done by paid professional researcher or by travel to Jersey. Our family has paid for considerable professional research in the past. Those researchers extracted the parish registers and records of the courts such as wills and land records. This has been done several times. We felt this professional research should be the foundation of our genealogy.

The only other record available to us here in the states is a book called the “Armorial of Jersey.” An Armorial is a book that deals with Heraldry and Coats of Arms, and the genealogies that relate to them. The “Armorial of Jersey” is known to have several significant errors in its genealogy, we therefore did not use it as a source.

We began by comparing our two files together. Isabell’s contained much of the professional research mentioned above. Doris’ contained research obtained by a related family, the Messervy family of Provo, Utah. We used a software package called PAF Insight. It shows one file on the left, the other file on the right, and spotlights every difference in the two files. You can pick what you want to add to the primary file or you can edit any information as you go. After comparing our two files, we compared one provided us by Owen Romrell. We spent several entire days in this process.

While doing corrections, a decision had to be made about the names of places. Do you use English (St. Lawrence) or French (St. Laurence)? Both are correct. Do you put Jersey, Jersey Isle or Jersey Island? All are correct. Do you put Channel Islands or Channel Isles? Both are correct. Do you put England at the end or not? Jersey is now a separate country and part of the UK. Historically, it was controlled by England and France off and on since 1204 AD. Genealogically, it is preferred to copy the name exactly as it appears in the original record. But since we are only looking at the transcription by professional researchers, we do not have that information.

We decided it was more important to be consistent and have all the names the same. So we decided to put them as spelled on current maps: St. Lawrence, Jersey, Channel Islands. (No England). It is also important that place names be identified in a manner that search engines will find the temple ordinances that have been done. We had several discussions with experts at the Family History Library. We wanted to make sure that the decisions we made are correct and will bring up matches in Temple Ready and the IGI. We learned that the temple records for Jersey are stored with Jersey as the country. If England is included, the completed temple work may not be found by search engines. Therefore we deleted England from the place names where it existed.

Next we went through all the professional research that is currently in the custody of the Oleson family. It included research hired by Orlin Oleson, Mildred Oleson Bauman, and Josephine Romrell Mills Oleson. This research was performed from the 1940’s into the 1980’s. One of the researchers was a member of the Romrell family who did not join the church. Thus he had personal knowledge of the family. He was also a member of the clergy and therefore had considerable access to the Jersey church records.

We went through all the research line by line and added sources for every person we found. If researchers had conflicting information, we chose the information that came from the most reliable sources. We made notes to explain the logic used as well as unusual circumstances. We corrected errors to generate as accurate a record as possible, while showing where the research came from. This process took many weeks.

Next we searched the IGI using PAFInsight. It makes a list of every person in your file that does not have all the temple ordinance information. Then it searches the temple files at familysearch.org. It searches using many more parameters than does Temple Ready. The challenge is deciding whether the person in the temple file is the same person as in our file. We then ran the Possible Problem data check in PAF. When we were finished, we submitted the work to the Pedigree Resource File maintained by the LDS church.

We now feel we have a record that is as correct as we were able to make it of the work that has been done in the past. That does not mean the research is all done, but this record can be used as a springboard to future research. The LDS church asks that temple ordinance information not be published on the internet. If you wish this information, contact us and we will send you a GEDCOM with the ordinances included.

We will be happy to consider making changes of any data in this file providing that you have sources that are more primary than those that were available to us.

Your family history committee:
Isabell Stringham
Doris Bateman