I’m not mad at him or anybody else, really, just frustrated that some key information — key, in my opinion, from the vantage point of 2009 — was omitted, and it’s ironic that a fine historian is the one who omitted it.

I’ve enjoyed all the comments on this thread, thanks. As several of you have pointed out, there is adequate explanation for why diarists and journalists of the past haven’t included all the details I crave, and I recognize that I will no doubt be judged guilty a century from now of the same failure to include details that are key from the perspective of 2109.

This post really wasn’t meant to condemn anybody, least of all Andrew Jenson who did so very, very much to preserve our records. Written Mormon history would today be a much different, and impoverished, shadow of what we do have, had it not been for his untiring and world-wide efforts.

Rather, I really only intended to drag you into my world, where the answers to questions always seem to be almost but not quite within our grasp. My “thing” is to tell the stories of Saints most of us have never heard of before. One of the reasons why we have never heard of them before is, as in this Danish example, nobody at the time thought it significant to record the details.

I’m guessing Andrew Jensen was not alive when the photo was taken. If the names were not recorded, how would Andrew Jensen know the names?

Except, of course, that something like 50,000 LDS immigrants passed through New York City on their way to Utah, some staying two and three years to earn the rest of their passage. A New York Times article from 1867 claims that there was a congregation of 300 in Manhattan, and another congregation in Brooklyn and that some local members were talking about building a “Temple” in New York. But with no missionaries here, there isn’t any branch listed for that time in official Church records.

Who were the local members here then? I wish I knew. The Times article doesn’t mention names, and the only sources I have that mention anything are the occasional immigrant diary or autobiography that mentions living in New York City for a time.

Finding the information about members then is frustrating and nearly impossible.

That’s why it’s important to abridge and record “the good parts version”. Goldman was right to edit good old S. Morgenstern’s record, as this sounds like the summary at the end of his immortal, one-page Chapter 4:

“What with one thing and another, three years passed.”

The most tedious journal I ever had to transcribe for a client was one in which the daily entry pretty much amounted to how many adobes he had made that day. Not of much interest to me, but I suppose even that kind of diary could be valuable to someone studying labor or economics or material culture or something along those lines.

That sounds harsh, and I didn’t mean it to be.

Will historians 100 years from now find his detail a refreshing change from the whining I used to put in my journals?

Soooo, now my request that that you do a follow-up post outlining an historian’s view of important things to consider including in a personal history. If you haven’t already, of course.

Pretty please?