Where the 'Tanner' is coming from in 'Cal Tanner'

Clear back in April I promised to write this post about how Aaron and I are related. I didn't forget, but Ollie scribbled on the paper that I had hand written it all out on, and it didn't look nice for a picture anymore. Aaron got asked to teach in Elders Quorum on Sunday, and the topic was on family history. We decided we could probably be doing more Family History than we've been doing. So yesterday during quiet time I finally got around to making a computer graphic with all the same information. The computer graphic looks a lot nicer, and it's color-coded, and more visually appealing. It was worth the wait, I promise.

Aaron and I share a 10th great-grand father, William Francis Tanner Sr. We found this out by getting on relativefinder.com and signing in with our Family Search accounts. It gives you the option of creating a little group where you can invite your friends and family to join and then you can see how many generations back you have to go before you share any relatives.

Relative Finder showed the Tanner line coming through both of our moms. This really surprised me, because we have tons of family stories, etc about the Tanner line coming through my dad's side. There is even a genealogy book about Nathan Tanner Sr. (who was the father of the apostle N. Eldon Tanner, but we aren't related to N. Eldon, we come from one of his sisters) that has a family tree mapped out in it that my dad is in. (Side note: My brother Tanner is named after Nathan Tanner Sr.) So I investigated, and did a bunch of research using the Nathan Tanner Sr. book. And it turns out that William Francis Tanner Sr. had 3 wives (not at the same time). Aaron comes through the line of the 2nd wife via his mom. Both my parents come through the line of the third wife. Cool, yes? Aaron and I thought so, which is why we decided that if we ever had another baby boy that his middle name would be Tanner. And shortly after that, we found out I was pregnant with Cal. All my kids have family middle names, but I feel like Tanner is the ultimate family middle name because it belongs to both mine and Aaron's families.

As I was fact checking, I did notice that some of the dates from the Nathan Tanner Sr book didn't match up with the dates on Family Search. And there is a small possibility that Jane Tanner is not the daughter of Mary Babcock, but the wife of one of Mary Babcock's sons instead. So I still have some investigating and fact-checking to do. I want to start on our end, and find birth/death certificates and census records for everyone and then work my way backwards. It should be a fun little project. It might take forever, but I feel like it's something I can chip away at a little bit at a time.