Hello: This is my first post. I began this process because I have been encouraging my husband to begin a blog where he can post his many opinions on current affairs. In order to help him begin I have had to research how to set up a blog. Therefore it seemed reasonable to have a blog for myself.
My Introduction to Genealogy:
Genealogy, or more specifically, family history, has been of interest to me from a very young age. My parents would frequently talk about our personal family history at the dinner table. This was not a structured conversation but one that centred around the current activities of various members of both their families. As they were each the seventh child of a family of eight many names and relationships were discussed. Talk often extended into how a given member of the family was connected to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Members of the towns in which we lived, being small communities, often also came into the conversation by being connected to someone in the family either through a personal relationship or by their occupations.
When I was fourteen my maternal (Spoonemore) grandmother was visited by distant relations from Oregon, US. Our Canadian family was referred to as "The Lost Spoonemores" by dint of my grandparents and their children immigrating north from Washington State into British Columbia, Canada. Apparently, more distant relations did not know or perhaps did not remember where this branch of the family had gone to.
This title caught my imagination as to how these families were connected. It was made more intriguing by a triple set of marriages where two brothers married sisters and the brother's sister married the sister's brother. Well, how to figure out this relationship. My grandmother and the visitors did not know how to work this out, nor did I, but the problem stayed with me.
In the early 1970s another distant branch of the family came to BC to interview the descendants of the "Lost Spoonemores". The result was the book Sponheimer Kindred by Eunice Cook Konold and Hazel Brown Kennedy, published in 1975 by Sunlight Press, Inc., Lakeside, California 92040.
Sponheimer Kindred is a one-name study of the various branches of the original immigrants from the Palatinate in Germany in the 1700s. It is a considerable tome with over 650 pages of genealogy and accompanying photos and stories; beautifully bound in a maroon hard cover with the title in gold lettering. A copy now resides in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Library in Salt Lake City in Utah.
My mother ordered three copies for our family. One for myself, one or my sister and one for herself. My mother's copy is now in the keeping of my brother and will eventually pass on to his niece, the daughter of my other brother. Other members of the Spoonemore family also own copies.
This book was my first introduction to a structured genealogical format and has been invaluable.
Over the years I had attempted to research my father's side of the family (Johnston McCarthy) with little success. When my son entered high school I felt it was my time to take up genealogy in earnest. I now have multi binders of family history for many branches of the family, both Spoonemore and Johnston.
I am now in the process of compiling a book on my computer for the Johnson/Johnston/Johnstones in much the same manner as my mother's Sponheimer Kindred book.
Some of the stories and connections I have discovered will be posted as time permits.
Judith (Spoonemore Johnston) Ueland
February 16, 2019
