WELCOME

Every journey begins with a single step. When I took the first step of filling out a simple pedigree chart I had no idea that I had just begun a marvelous journey. As I gathered together names, dates and places from my box of scraps and copies of old, musty family group sheets, I turned to my computer to aid me in the search. Computers and their search engines are amazing! Stories about our ancestors began popping up all over. Growing up with a storytelling father, I always knew we had an interesting family. In fact, the art of storytelling seems to run in the family. The stories I found about these ancestors brought them to life for me. Finding stories on the internet was like putting together a very large and complicated jigsaw puzzle. My quest took me to many small communities and their museums and cemeteries. As I searched for missing pieces, the picture became clearer. I began to know and love these people. I am inspired by their faith, amazed by their endurance and humbled by their sacrifices. They were also not perfect. I extend to them the gift of compassion and understanding that they did the best they could with what they had and what they knew and believed. It is my hope that you will enjoy learning about our family and find inspiration in knowing who they were and understanding who you are.


Reading documents in this Blog.


All of the documents that have come from my files have been published through Google Docs and it is necessary for you to subscribe to Google Docs in order to read them. It will require you to have a gmail address. You don't have to change your e-mail address--just use the gmail account to use Google's services. I apologize for the need for this extra step, but this is the best way I could find to make the documents accessible. It is relatively easy to sign up on Google Docs.
What's In a Name?

Documentation

The information presented here is well-documented for at least 3 generations beyond Coral & Percy and most often more. Some of the further generations reflect work done by others and were acquired through Ancestry.com & One World Tree. They should be viewed as a "guide" and not specifically as factual. I have tried to remove anything that seemed in error.

Black Family Pedigree Chart

Black Family Pedigree Chart
Clifton Lee represents all of Coral & Percy's children.

Field/Jakeman


James Thomas Jakeman
Family Group Sheet

James Thomas Jakeman
(1853—1921)
Ellen Lee
(1859—1937)   
Marriage about 1878

Ivy Pearl Sims
(1877—1922)

Coral Ellen Jakeman
(1879—1936)

Howard Lee Jakeman
(1881—1883)

James Franklin Jakeman
(1884—1949)

Gladys Annette Jakeman
(1886—1929)

Spencer Wells Jakeman
(1887—1946)

Delores Jakeman
(1893—1893)


     James Thomas Jakeman was born in  Leeds, Yorkshire, England in 1853 to James Thomas Jakeman Sr. and Ann Field.  He was the youngest of 10 children (at least 2 died in infancy). His father worked in a factory making needles. He had an older half-brother, Joseph Field, who encountered the Mormon Missionaries in England and converted to the Church.  Most of his family also joined the Church.  In 1863 at the age of 10, James traveled to Utah with his mother and  16 year old sister, Mary.  We presume that his father had died.  They came on the ship, Amazon.  We are fortunate to have well-documented records of that journey, though none specifically refer to the Jakeman family.  Charles Dickens immortalized this journey in his book The Uncommercial Traveler, Chapter 22.  They came to Minersville, Utah where his sister, Sarah Jakeman Stoney, was living.  They later moved to Beaver.  His brother, Joseph, had settled there and had become a prominent citizen of that town. His sisters Sarah Jakeman Stoney, Susan Jakeman Bagshaw, and Mary Jakeman Waters were also there. This is where the three branches of our family (Black, Lee & Jakeman) all came together.
Elias and Ellen Lee Sims
     Ellen Lee was born in 1859 in Beaver, Utah to John Percival Lee and Eliza Ann Foscue. She was 7 years old when her family cabin at Hawthorne Dell was attacked by Indians (see Foscue/Lee for the story). Her father was a school teacher and education was important in their family.  She was an intelligent woman with talent and strong convictions.  It is tradition within the family that Ellen married once for love, once for church, and once for money.  Her first marriage, at barely the age of 17, was to a young soldier, Elias Sims, who was stationed in Beaver at Fort Cameron.  It is easy to assume that this was a marriage of "love" or at least romantic notion. They had a daughter in Bingham Canyon where it seems he had taken up mining as work.  They divorced or he possibly abandoned her.
     She returned to Beaver and at the age of 19 she married Jim Jakeman.  He was from a fairly prominent family in town.  His half-brother Joseph Field was an entrepreneur and leading citizen.  He had several business including a newspaper and built the town's recreational hall.  Jim's sisters were also married to "solid" men in the community, and the family was active in the Mormon Church.  So, this marriage seems to be the one for "church".
     Jim and Ellen began their family in Beaver.  They soon moved on to several different central Utah towns where they published newspapers.  Jim learned the business of printing from his brother, Joe.  Ellen did writing and typesetting for the paper.  She always had a strong voice for the underdog and seemed never to be afraid of expressing her opinions.  She also became a proponent of Women's Suffrage.  She began to write for the Young Women's Journal and other church publications.  While in Provo, Ellen became the first woman to hold an elected position in the County Democratic Party where she was treasurer.
     Jim ran into some problems with gambling & drinking.  They lost their house to foreclosure.  Ellen divorced him.  She continued raising her family in Provo.
Ellen, speaking against B.H. Roberts in
the Utah State Democratic Convention.
     Jim ended up in Salt Lake City.  At the age of 45 he married 20 year old Hulda Swanson, a Swedish Immigrant.  He started a publishing business called Western Album Publishing and his most noteworthy publication was "Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and Their Mothers" (1915), which he authored. Hulda worked doing typesetting for him.  They had two sons.  By 1920 they were divorced.  Hulda ended up in Los Angeles, CA.  She is there on the 1930 Census and died there in 1942.
      In the 1920 Census, Jim is living in the Hooper building at 69 E First South in Salt Lake City.  He was struck by a car at Second South & Main on May 7, 1921 and he died a week later of his injuries, in the County Hospital.  Family stories say that his death was the first auto-pedestrian death in the state of Utah. He is buried in his sister's (Ellen Jakeman Pitts Bagshaw) family plot in the Salt Lake City Cemetery but has no headstone to mark his grave.
     Ellen continued on, writing in Church publications and the Deseret News and active in politics.  In 1909, at the age of 50, she married Martin Franklin Sanders, age 35, who was the older brother of her son-in-law, Joseph LeRoy Sanders (Gladys' husband).  Martin was a successful businessman having enterprises in Mexico and possibly elsewhere in the southwest.  Ellen lived with him for a time in Mexico.  It seems that this marriage was the one for money.  She had been suffering financially and their marriage changed her circumstances for the better.  The marriage did not last and Ellen reverted to being Ellen Jakeman.
Gladys Jakeman, Coral Jakeman, Ivy sims
       Ellen outlived all of her daughters.  She is buried in Provo City Cemetery next to Gladys and Ivy, and not far from Coral and the unmarked grave of her baby, Delores.  All of Ellen's daughters had troubled marriages.  Ivy and Gladys were both divorced and remarried and Coral lived separated from Percy for many years.
     You might have grown up with "Grandma Sanders" stories or references.
Ellen Lee & James Thomas Jakeman Timeline
Max Wells Jakeman, (cousin)

Georgia Belle Jakeman Smith--Obituary (Cousin)


LEE FAMILY:  See the Foscue/Lee page.

FIELD FAMILY

Ann Field Jakeman
Sarah Benson Field & Joseph Field
     Ann Field was born in 1810 in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, England.  At the age of 21 she had an illegitimate child, Joseph.  Joseph's father was Joseph Such (or Search).  We don't have any records to give us the story.  Joseph was known throughout his life as Joseph Field.  Two and a half years later, Ann married James Thomas Jakeman.  James was born in the village of Sambourne, about 10 miles from where Ann lived.  They had 10 children, with James Thomas Jakeman Jr. (Coral's Father) being the youngest.  We have a few stories about the family in England, but none make any mention of James Sr.  We don't even know when he died except that Ann is listed as a widow on the 1861 England Census.  James was a needlemaker. They lived in Redditch from at least 1845-1848,.  Redditch, Worcestershire, England, was the world center for needle making which began as a cottage industry and blossomed during the Industrial Revolution.  The Jakeman family all worked either in needle making or other textile industries (including the children).  Before James was born they had moved north to Leeds, Yorkshire.  While in the Leeds area, Joseph encountered the Mormon missionaries and was baptized.  He introduced his family to the Church.  It took from 1853 to 1888 for the whole family to immigrate to Utah with Ann coming in 1863 with young Mary & James.

Sarah Jakeman Stoney
Susan Jakeman Bagshaw
Field Family in England
     Jeering's Hall (owned by Field Family)
Ann Field Jakeman--Patriarchal Blessing
Ann Field Jakeman--Obituary
Joseph Field--The Beaver Enterprise
Ellen Jakeman Pitts

St. Mary Magdalene Church, Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, England
 Field Pedigree

JAKEMAN FAMILY
     We have traced the Jakeman family to Job Jakeman, born abt 1700 in Warwickshire, England.  There is little else we know about the family.
     Origin of JAKEMAN--Apparently the name Jakeman has its roots in France, coming from Jacques from which we get Jack, Jakes, Jacques, Jakeways, Jackman, Jakeman etc. The French called anybody Jacques the same way the Scots call anyone Jimmy. Later Jacks or jakes were the armour bearers, no doubt William brought a few over for the Hastings show. They then became the Jake men.
Forge Mill Needle Museum, Warwickshire, England

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