I am looking for information on a Levi (in some trees he is called Levi Joseph Sawyer, but I don't know where the Joseph comes from) Sawyer, supposed to have been born in Burslem Staffordshire on 17 Mar 1825. I looked through what was available for this parish on familysearch, and while it showed some of his reputed siblings, nothing for him.
I found this old thread for what is supposed to be the same family:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=561525.0There is a book mentioned in that thread, The Richard and Harriet Hopkins family, Empire Prairie pioneers, which covers what is supposed to be the same family, but Levi is only mentioned in passing.
There are a couple of records on Ancestry.com, "Seventy Quorum Membership, 1835–1846", and "Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1848", which give Levi Sawyer and 1839 LDS baptism date, and also give his parents as Ralph Sawyer and Mary Winkle, but I cannot find the works that they base their information on (i.e. contemporary record of this parentage, although I do believe it is 99% likely).
Levi does seems to fit with this Wisconsin Sawyer family in the above book, but they are supposed to have immigrated in the early 1840s, so I don't know how Levi got baptized LDS in 1839, unless it was in England, but the book doesn't mention any Mormon connection. However, in looking at the history of LDS missionary work in England, the Staffordshire potters seem to have been early targets for conversion.
In the 1841 Census, in Burslem, there are a John and Joseph Sawyer living together. John's age roughly corresponds with John, son of Ralph, baptized in 1820, and the 'Joseph' is said to be about 15 in 1841, which is close to Levi's stated birth date of 1825. However, their occupations both seem to be called mining (tough to read), and not potters, and John appears in the household with his father Ralph in the 1841 census.
I have seen some mention online that he married an Elizabeth Bell in 1845 in Nauvoo IL, but I couldn't find a record of it. He did marry Rose Ann Ball in WI in 1851, and she appears with him in the 1855 Wisconsin State Census and later the Federal 1860 Census in Utah. I cannot find him in 1870 or 1880, but he does appear, as a widower, on the New Mexico 1885 Territorial census with his family, including my great-great-grandmother Rosa Belle, as well as his oldest son named Ralph - however, online trees have this son Ralph being born in 1851, and dying in 1856 or so, but the census clearly calls this Ralph Levi's son. His age is also off from the 1851 Ralph, and this young man does not appear in the 1860 census with Levi.
The Ralph Sawyer/Mary Winkle family also seems to have lived in Liverpool for a time.
