Tales and Tidbits about This American Family Tree

This report is fairly trimmed and g-rated for a 5th grade talk I am giving tomorrow. Although these are fairly wholesome people the big reveal is that Mary Ann Hoopes Yearsley became a 3rd wife for Albern Allen and they had a daughter together. He was still married to Marcia/Marsha Allen and also had married an Elizabeth, with whom he had at least one other child. People of their time and place I suppose but here it is, my pioneer notes for 5th graders, learning about the Oregon Trail, absenting the previously mentioned information from above... Allen Family pioneers (8) The Allen and Hadlock families Albern Allen (4th great grandfather - 4ggf) born in Connecticut but met Marsha  in upstate NY where they married. They did not have much money so someone from their community went to the government and asked for help. The government had just declared war on Mexico so they struck a deal. Money for wagons and supplies but a regiment had to be formed to go to war. Albern became a private and

Allen, Albern. (1802-1867)  4th Great Grandfather         Albern Allen was born in Connecticut and fatefully moved to New York state where he met his first wife, Marcia, and became a convert to the Church of LDS in 1835. He moved several times with the first LDS members ending up serving as a Private in the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican American War.       The battalion is the only religion based unit in the history of the US military. It came to be that at the time the Mormons faced much persecution and this had been ignored by the US government. A member went to Washington to appeal for federal aid to pioneer west rather than continue to face persecution where they were. It happens that at that time the US had just declared war on Mexico to contest the territories that now make up the US southwest. A deal was struck for a group of men to muster for the US army in exchange for funding and protection to move west. It took Brigham Young 3 weeks to obtain the numbers he needed.      It