About
William Mortensen Vaughan
I am William Mortensen Vaughan, a great-grandson of Erastus Julius Smith and Josefina Bernhardina Beckman. Their daughter, Violet Stella Smith, was my maternal grandmother. Violet's daughter, Merle Mortensen, was my mother.
That family connection is the foundation of this website, although my genealogical interests extend beyond Erastus and Josefina to the generations who came before them, their other descendants, and related families.
My interest in genealogy includes examining original records, following family migrations, tracing relationships across generations, and comparing documentary evidence with genetic genealogy. I use resources such as FamilySearch, WikiTree, AncestryDNA, and FamilyTreeDNA in that work.
One of my central projects is investigating the identities of Erastus Julius Smith and Rasmus Julius Sørensen. I have developed the hypothesis that they were two different people and that Erastus's biological parents were Jørgen Christian Pedersen and Christine Jensdatter. I have documented this investigation in Erastus's biography, including records of the Danish journey to Utah and details of six autosomal DNA matches associated with Jørgen's and Christine's ancestral lines.
I established RasmusJuliusSmith.com as a place to organize and share genealogical research about Erastus Julius Smith and Josefina Bernhardina Beckman, their descendants, and their forebears. I intend to add biographies and supporting source material as the project grows.
The Biographies page provides the directory for this work.
I welcome corrections, supporting records, suggestions, and inquiries from family members and other researchers. You may contact me at [email protected] or [email protected].