Pioneer Ancestors

The youth of Linder Ward of the Meridian Idaho Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is preparing to do a handcart pioneer reenactment in July of 2013. This reenactment is commonly called "Trek". Preparations have already begun.

My son Kyle, will be twelve in February and will be able to attend Trek. As part of his preparation, he and I have begun researching our pioneer ancestors. All of our ancestors are pioneers in one way or another as they were the first to join the LDS Church, or the first to cross the sea to the new world, or they crossed the plains as Mormon Pioneers. For the sake of this exercise, I want to focus on the strict definition of the overland pioneers who crossed the plains between 1847-1868. After 1868, the railroad was in place and pioneers no longer had to travel the entire distance by wagon or handcart. At a future date I will look at how each of my family lines came to America and came to join the LDS Church.

My hope is to provide a brief biographical sketch for each of our pioneer ancestors. Because of the convenience of the internet, I may simply provide links to existing sites where the stories are written.