The Treasure That Keeps On Giving

Earlier this week I blogged about finding the article for my Great Great Uncle David John Davies' funeral. I was left with two more questions: how did he die? Who did his wife remarry?

I've discovered both, although I don't know much more than that about the second. The reason I discovered both is that through talking with the publisher of "Heroes of the Faith" magazine I was led to an online digital archive of old pentecostal magazines. The archive is kept at University of South California.  Redemption Tidings (The one that records David John Davies' funeral) is in the archive. To date I have searched through 24 volumes of it from 1924 - 1950. 

I began by searching for more on David John Davies and then his wife. This led me to discovering mentions of my Great Grandfather Price and even a couple of my Grandfather Idris. Then on a whim I searched for my other Great Grandfather involved in the early Pentecostal movement and found him as well.

The copyright is out of date but I wrote to the British AOG who published Redemption Tidings just in case there was a problem and they have given me permission to write about anything relating to my family that I find in the Redemption Tidings archives as long as I don't make money off it. They also gave me permission to do so for those articles that are still under copyright, which was very nice of them!

To date I have found 40 mentions. Many of them are just references to preaching, some contain photographs, some addresses and there's the occasional reference to bible passages they spoke on. There's even a written account of my Great Grandmothers healing and of course on David John Davies' death. From all of this I should be able to record some of their movements and places which they lived. This is invaluable since the 1931 and 1941 census' in Britain don't exist due to WW2. 

The search engine on the site allows you to download whole volumes or perform searches for key words. As I searched for "Davies" I also found myself discovering the story of two missionaries called "Davies" who travelled to Japan, and were there as WW 2 began. The tale of their return across war torn seas was enthralling. Another side benefit to the research. 

I haven't finished searching yet so I will keep working on it. I won't share pictures here because they will all come out in blogs in the future. I never thought it would lead this far and it's a pleasant surprise, if your ancestors were involved in the early American or British pentecostal movement I can recommend the archive as a place to search!