Finding Great, Great Grandfather John Rogers' Parents

Letter from John S. Rogers:
The last two weeks in our missionary assignment have been very different. Instead of having students to teach full time each day we have only had part-time teaching hours which has allowed Kathryn Ann and me the opportunity to spend our remaining time in the Family History Library training as though we were going to have our assignment there instead of the Training Zone. The cross training is to help us become more aware of what is available in the Library to help us become better trainers for our students as well and increase our ability to improve our own research skills. Since most of my ancestry is British, I chose to train on the British Services floor of the Library and Kathryn Ann chose that as well. There are two thick manuals to go through in our training (one for the apprentice and the second for the journeyman level). The apprentice level usually takes new full time missionaries about 4 weeks to complete. Since we have some skills that were useful from our Training Zone experience, we were able to complete the apprentice book in two weeks of half days.

Since I and other of my family members have been searching for the parents of my 2nd great grandfather’s parents for many years, I thought I would see how useful the new tools and information I had learned would be in helping me in my research. I first checked in the Pedigree Resource File that I was aware of previously but not familiar enough to use effectively and I discovered a submission by an Amanda Rogers who had submitted a pedigree sheet for a John Jenkins Rogers born 2 July 1800 in Margate, Kent, England. The birthdate we have for my ancestor was 1 Jun 1800 in Ramsgate, Kent, England. We found this information in John Rogers’ obituary through Utah Digital Newspapers last February. This is the closest date and place for a John Rogers I have ever found so I checked the pedigree and learned that the parents were Daniel Rogers and Elizabeth Doughty who were also married and (Elizabeth was born) in Margate. I used a new site called 1851 English Jurisdictions to check where Margate is in relation to Ramsgate. I learned that Ramsgate had no parish churches and thus no records for this time period, so I looked for surrounding parishes and discovered that Margate is the closest parish to Ramsgate. I found microfilms that contained the baptisms and marriages for that area and time period and was about to go start reading them when I had the inspiration to check the IGI (International Genealogical Index) to see if Daniel Rogers had another son John. That is when I discovered that John Jenkins Rogers was not the son of Daniel and Elizabeth but William and Sarah with several other siblings. I then started looking in New FamilySearch and discovered an extraction record for a John Rogers with a christening date of 20 July 1800 in St. John the Baptist, Margate, Kent, England with parent s of Daniel Rogers and Elizabeth Doughty. I found additional extracted records that showed Daniel Rogers christened 8 May 1766 in Cowden, Kent, England and married to Elizabeth Doughty 13 April 1800 in St John, Margate, Kent, England and learned that Elizabeth was born and christened in the same place. I also found additional records for Daniel’s parents as well as Elizabeth’s parents and siblings. I was a little disappointed to learn that the temple ordinances have already been performed for their parents because I was looking forward to doing that work but was just so very elated to finally have located his parents as well as grandparents as well as other family members.