My upcoming trip to Warwickshire and London
24 April 2008 - 6:01:17pm

Dear Family, in May I am going on a trip with my daughter to Europe. I am going over a little early in order to do research on the Jane Munday and Elizabeth and Ann Brooks lines. Our research on the wife lines in the past has been as good as we could do with the Parish register and the Bishop's transcripts that the LDS church filmed. These records have little other than names and dates and no relationships outside of so and so is the son of so and so at birth. In many country's you get it at marriage and death which cements the families together. But in England it is hard to cement these families with only these records and so we have been guessing as to the link to the next generation. So, in preparation for this trip (I will only have four days to spend on research) I thought I should know where our research stands on these lines and the documentation that was used, so I have been locating the records available at the Family History Center in Salt Lake and getting copies of the documents, then linking these records to my website so I will not waste time in England looking at what we already have or could find locally.

De Lane Andrus Hyer (De Lane's Email is: familyroot@gmail.com) and I have located two wills on the Brooks lines that we are confident take us back another 2 generations on the male line there. In the will for Ann's father is listed where Ann and Elizabeth were living in London in 1846, we have located this on a map about 3 miles from the London Bridge and I expect to be able to get pictures of the area. More on this research will be coming in the next Family News Letter.

On the Lancaster and Munday lines I have done a lot of verifying and according to the original documents there are many corrections that I am making to this line, it will be nice to have the original documents connected to the website so that anyone can go and look at the original documents to see that I have or have not made a mistake. I am not infallible myself especially with the volume of documentation that we have on this line.(web page: gedview.rulufandazuba.org ) I do have much of this documentation located and on the web page at this writing on April 24, 2008, and hope to have much more shortly. I did research on the Essex line in Barston Parish using the records contained in the Parish Chest, a source only available if the Parish Father will open it. The LDS church was able to film the Barston Parish Chest because it was in much better shape than most of them with an index to the collection typed and everything cataloged. Unfortunately most of the Parish Chests we need to view will have to be done on location in England. What this has shown me is that my four days research in England will only be a drop in the bucket. At some time we need to go back and do some real research trips.
However I am reluctant to schedule these research trips as the Milo Andrus family organization's research funds are so limited. My husband and I have donating our time and effort many times and found ourselves in the position of needing to make up the difference between the donated moneys and the actual cost of these trips. This becomes a little expensive for us! To date our personal donations have been in the range of $5,000. This money has been run through the family organization in order to get the tax benefits and ends up making it look like a lot more funds have been collected than what has actually come in to the family organization.

The Andrus Family Organization is in need of research help in the form of time and money in order for family projects to be continued in a timely manner. Some major funding like an endowment or contributions made to the Andrus family research fund is greatly needed. Money for this cause could be left in wills or through trusts but we need between $100,000-$200,000.00 or more so that the interest alone would fund the family organization into the future. If only 1% of the family would match our donation of $5,000 this amount could easily be met and funding would not be an issue. In the past I have stayed out of the money plea side of things but I can see that if we want to accomplish the work needed:
* All of the wife lines
* Milo-Ruluf -and beyond
* Azuba-John and beyond
We need to be able to fund the efforts of more researchers. For example, the records we need on our English (Webster, Munday, Ann and Elizabeth Brooks line) are in England and not at the library in Salt Lake. Prices to do research are not going down in the U.S. but in English research it is getting more expensive fast as the dollar goes down. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Please send your donations to the Andrus Family Organization treasurer:
Don Andrus 540 West Kim Dr, Brigham City, Utah.

Now, if your purpose for family research is not part of your religious beliefs you can stop reading as I am going to relate a personal spiritual experience! Twenty years ago as I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of research I personally needed to do and was thinking of quitting; the Lord gave me a glimpse into the importance of the work in which I was engaged by showing me my greeting in the afterlife by the persons I had accomplished work for in this life, their joy and gratitude was beyond description. It gave me the will to continue as I want that vision to be fulfilled and I am working towards that goal on a daily basis. I know how overwhelming it seems to get involved; but, if each of us contributes what we can, be it time, money or both; we will be able to greet our ancestors at deaths door with a feeling of satisfaction that we did what we could to help them. Thank you for joining us in this worthy cause.

What Laura Thinks about Links past Ruluf and Azuba
20 March 2008 - 11:14:16pm

Dear Everett,

I hope you don't mind that I have written my answers interspersed with your letter. I think it gives me a good forum to explain what is going on and help people see what our Cal Andrus is doing and help others not to get lost in his files. If you want I will take your name out and put another in for privacy reasons. Let me know! Laura

Ps Thanks for all your research!! It is nice to see that others are interested in our family.

This is a letter received by Laura Anderson March 14, 2008 from Mr. Strumbaugh who is related to Milo's sister Lucina. I am interposing what I think and the state of the Andrus research in the letter I hope this will document the different Theories and help others to not spend time on these presuming them to be proved when in fact they are often not even well thought out theories to begin with. I hope this helps! Laura


Dear Mrs. Anderson,
My name is Mr. Stumbaugh. As you can see by the enclosures, Milo Andrus is my GGG uncle. I am descended from his younger sister, Lucina Andrus and her husband, Orlan Abbott.


First let me say that I am not a genealogist nor a researcher, although I was trained in research methods by professional historians. I am just a long-retired History teacher who has always been curious about who his ancestors were. I have been looking for the last seven years. At first I had help from my granddaughter who was 14 at the time. Fascinating how the kids pick up the technologies so rapidly.
I told her to pull up Family Search and punch in Azubah Smith, Born in Vermont in 1777. She did and we kept clicking and it kept going, and going and going, Of course we were following Azubah Gunn's line, I was sidetracked on this for several years, and then I read where you said GGGGrandmohnter Azubah is NOT descended from James Smith and Azubah Gunn. Back to the Drawing Board.
Laura
This theory was based on the fact that the people researching it thought Azubah was such an unusual name that when they found it, it had to be our line. Unfortunately Azubah is not that uncommon in that day, the Samuel Smith line already has an Azubah who died and one who lived and had a family, they lived in Connecticut not Vermont and our Azubah has a known for sure sister (Milo did LDS ordinance work for a “cousin” who is Uriah and Polly (Smith) Hancock son Polly was named Polly or Mary (interchangeable like Dick and Richard)who does not fit in the Samuel Smith family. Also when I first started looking at this line, I noticed that they were in the middle of the Rev. War when Our Azubah was born so could they have been driven to Vermont. Well historically this doesn't work as the Battle of Bennington (the turning point of the war with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys is taking place in Vermont and women and children are running away to safety not coming from Connecticut So for several reasons Samuel Smith and Azubah June are not our line..
Recently I read with a great deal of interest your endeavors to locate Ruluf's ancestors in Vermont last fall. Then I found Calvin N. Andrus “History of Ruluf Andruss; which I think you did the research on. I not only did not do any research he is using my name to try to give credence to wholly unproved genealogical information where he takes our known peo