I looked in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings for Treasure Chest Thursday.
The treasure today is the 2006 newspaper article about me and my genealogy addiction in the Chula Vista Star-News for 20 October 2006:
The transcription of this article is:
"Keeping tabs on family means following lines through history
by Marco Ochoa, Star-News News Assistant
"Since 1987 the Chula Vista Genealogical Society has helped curious folks discover not only their ancestors but the history of their families. One of the society's goals is to promote interest in the fields of history and genealogy.
"The organization's first vice-president, Randy Seaver, developed his interest for his genealogy when he read 'Roots' by Alex Haley in 1981. The following year, Seaver and his family visited several of his aunts and uncles in New England; his relatives also happened to share an interest in their family's history. They had heard stories that they were descendants of Peregrine White, a baby born on the Mayflower, and that their ancestors had owned a castle in England.
"Seaver was intrigued by this. However, it was not until 1988 that Seaver began conducting research in libraries. The story about the castle later proved to be untrue but the research confirmed that they were descendants of White. Seaver is the 12th generation descendant from Robert Seaver who immigrated to Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1634. Seaver even traced his own ancestry back to several English noblemen.
"'Through my research, I found that I am descended from Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, King Alfred the Great, and many English noblemen. But then, so are most people of English nd European ancestry. ' He also noted that he is the 10th cousin of Tom Seaver, member of the baseball Hall of Fame. He has also learned that he is a distant cousin of various presidents, authors, and entertainers.
"Seaver conducts most of his research at local libraries and the Latter Day Saint's Family History Center. He said, however, that the most effective means of researching your family is simply speaking to your relatives and collecting information from home sources. Seaver says that, though the Internet contains a lot of information, not much of it is significant.
"'The Internet is very useful, but you still have to do research in libraries, courthouses, cemeteries, and historical societies in the places that your ancestors lived,' he said.
"Though it can be hard work, Seaver enjoys researching his family's history because he says it is like a treasure hunt.
"'I wouldn't do this if it wasn't fun, you never know what you are going to find. The harder you look, the more you find,' he said.
"Seaver graduated San Diego State University with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and worked as part of an Aerodynamics and Thermodynamics group for 35 years.
"In the early 90s Seaver met several members of the society at the library and was invited to their meetings.
"He got to know some of the groups leaders ad eventually joined the organization. Seaver began working at the society in 2003 and was elected First Vice-president of Programs in 2005 where he arranges for speakers to talk at the CVGS meetings. The Chula Vista Genealogical Society meets on the last Monday of every month in the Civic Center Library Auditorium."
The source citation for this article is:
"Keeping tabs on family means following lines through history," The Chula Vista Star-News newspaper, Friday, 20 October 2006, pages 2, 12, Randy Seaver article; indexed database and digital image, accessed in Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 24 May 2023).
I also found this article through Ancestry.com's "California, U.S. Newspapers, Stories and Events" indexed record collection, recently added by Ancestry.
I think that this interview was conducted via email, so I had a chance to answer the reporter's questions at my leisure to try to not to mess things up too much! He did a pretty good job.
I started doing research in 1988, and by 2006 I had almost all of my American research done, with a few exceptions. I did not recall the "English castle" story until reading this. I think my aunt told me about it in an oral interview at some time in the late 1980s. As we all know, 2006 was still "repository centric" and using the Internet for finding records was growing, and it still is.
The Chula Vista Star-News newspaper publishes weekly (since the 1920s) in South San Diego County, mainly with local news, human interest items, local events, and advertisements.
In November 2006, I was elected President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, started a monthly round-table Research Group meeting, and became Newsletter Editor in 2009. In 2016, I started a monthly DNA Interest Group, and in 2020 started Zoom meetings during the COVID pandemic. CVGS continues to meet on Zoom for three meetings - the Research Group, DNA Interest Group and the General Meeting with a speaker. I've made at least 200 formal presentations to CVGS, San Diego Genealogical Society, other Southern California societies, local civic groups, and a local senior education center since 1996.
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