Roots

I’ve never really been a genealogy buff. Sure, I’ve always been interested in my family roots. I remember how much I enjoyed listening to my grandmother tell stories of what it was like growing up on a small farm in Tyler County. But I never really dug deep to mine all of the nuggets of my family’s history.

All that changed several years ago when my grandmother gave us a box filled with papers from my great-great grandfather, Elisha. It was a lawyer’s dream–a whole assortment of deeds, contracts, and other legal papers dating back 150 years. All of them were written by hand. Many of them used old legal jargon that I had studied in law school, but had never actually seen in my practice. One paper in particular caught my eye. It was a handwritten summons from 1863. Near the bottom, it proudly announced that it was issued in “the first year of the state.” It was thoroughly enjoyable making this journey through the past.

My interest was spurred and I began doing more research. I had always assumed that my family emigrated from England. It’s hard to imagine a name with a more “Anglo” ring to it than Stoneking. But as I kept tracing my lineage, I learned something new and quite unexpected. Jacob Steinkoenig had immigrated to America in the 1700s from Prussia–a part of north central Europe that would become modern day Germany. When he landed in America, Jacob changed his surname to something a little more palatable to the English ear. It turns out I wasn’t English at all. I was German! As if this wasn’t surprising enough, I also learned that Jacob settled in southwestern Pennsylvania and then married Aliquippa, a princess from the Seneca tribe. Not only was there German blood running through my veins, there was Native American blood too!

If you haven’t taken time to trace your genealogy, I want to encourage you to do so. There are some great online resources. I can attest that it’s a wonderful, eye-opening experience.

Do you have a genealogy story of your own? I invite you to share it here. Maybe you’ll inspire someone else to begin this same journey for themselves.

 

I’ve never really been a genealogy buff. Sure, I’ve always been interested in my family roots. I remember how much I enjoyed listening to my grandmother tell stories of what it was like growing up on a small farm in Tyler County. But I never really dug deep to mine all of the nuggets of my family’s history.

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