Descendants of a big pioneer family that came to Utah in the 1850’s are gathering Thursday to meet with a British genealogist. Peter Cousins comes from Leicestershire in the English Midlands. His research on a British industrialist named Orson Wright led him to the Greenwell family, whose forebears joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1850’s and emigrated to Utah.
In just a few days in Utah, Cousins says he’s met dozens of people descended from Ambrose Greenwell, who had five wives and forty children.
“I think over the moon is the expression, the greetings we’ve had from these people this week. One couple, amazing, they picked us up the other day. They took us out to Ogden, gave us the tour around Ogden, took us to the cemetery where all the Greenwells are buried. 42 graves so far, I’ve found, of Greenwells in that cemetery.”
Cousins is planning a meeting Thursday evening at 6:30 in the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City to welcome anybody who’s connected to the pioneer Greenwells. He says there’s actually very few members of the family left in England – because so many came here.
Cousins has invited relatives of the Greenwell family to contact him at petercousins@ntlworld.com