AN author and historian from California to try to trace descendants of a Jerseyman who died in 1858 while serving as a sergeant in the US Army’s 10th Regiment of US. Infantry.

Bill MacKinnon says that William H Morton was born in the Island and emigrated in around 1855 at the age of 29.

The reason he is keen to find Sergeant Morton’s descendants is that at the time of his death in New Mexico Territory, his comrades found in his possession photos of two little girls whom they believed to be his young sisters.

‘I would like to contact Sgt Morton’s descendants in order to learn more about his life on Jersey and the fate of his sisters and to provide them with information about his colourful military service in the American West as well as about the time, place, and circumstances of his unusual death, which became quite publicly known in the US,’ says Mr MacKinnon.

‘I know nothing about Mr. Morton’s Jersey family, but I would guess that he was relatively well known on the Island, since US Army records at the time of his enlistment at New York in 1855 describe him as being six feet-six inches tall.’

As an independent historian MacKinnon’s articles, essays, and book reviews on the American West have appeared in more than 30 journals and encyclopedias since 1963. The award-winning first book of his two-volume study of the Utah War of 1857-1858 (At Sword’s Point) was published in 2008.

If anyone can help Mr MacKinnon, they can e-mail MacKBP@msn.com or write to him at 2039 Boundary Drive, Santa Barbara, California 93108-2251, USA, 805.565.1592.