On a local note, in casual conversation with fellow
genealogy dabbler and Morgan Hill resident, Sherry
Hemingway, Janie learned of a compelling shared connection.
“She and I are descended from the same Thomas Rogers of
the Mayflower four generations down, until [the family
line] split.”
While Knopf only spends a few hours a week on her
research, she says the time flies by when she goes online.
She hopes to leave her grandchildren a legacy of their history,
and to interest other friends in digging deeper into their roots.
Dave Peoples: Steeped in Local History
Dave Peoples, the friendly owner of the Garlic City Mercantile
in Gilroy, has been exploring his genealogy for more than
half of his 74 years of age, before the Internet came along to
streamline the process. He’s a Californio—a term for those
descended from families who received large land grants
when they came to California between 1830 and 1880; a
second generation Gilroy resident, whose grandmother was
born and raised in
San Jose, and whose
direct ancestors owned
significant chunks of
local property, includ-
ing, he said, “From
about IBM hill south
to the north end of
Morgan Hill,” and parts
of Harvey Bear Ranch.
His interest in pursuing
history’s mysteries stem
from two origins: first,
to answer a curiosity
about whether his wife,
a Colt, might be related
to the revolver creator
Samuel Colt, and second, to address a statement his grand-
mother had told him. “She told me ‘David, you need to know
that outside of Calistoga there’s a place called Franz Valley
that should belong to us.’” While his wife does turn out to be
distantly related to Samuel Colt, the Franz story revealed a
Sea Captain with a family scandal.
“One of the progenitors of our family is a Captain Franz
who founded Franz Valley.” Peoples found out that their
daughter had an illegitimate son at a very young age. Captain
Franz’s wife raised the baby as though he were her own but,
“When Captain Franz died, his wife kicked the illegitimate
son out when he was sixteen.”
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GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
Peoples spends between six to ten hours per week on
Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker, two sites that make
searching for your ancestors, and compiling your family tree,
much simpler than the early days when everything was done
by mail. Peoples has visited numerous libraries and archives,
including one of the most comprehensive archives, the Family
History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. “It’s amazing all the
information that’s there, but I’ve really exhausted what they
have,” he said.
He jokes, “You don’t have to go very far to meet somebody
you’re related to,” and admits that “at one time or another,
[my family] were probably related to fifty percent of the
people in Gilroy.”
He’s been able to trace his family back to “The fourth
Sheriff of Nottingham, between 1200 and 1300, and his wife’s
family back as far as 1348.” But there’s a lone link in his family
chain that he drives him mad with frustration. “If there were
a record of all my computer searches, ‘James Peoples, 1798’
would be the most researched name in all of history,” he said
with a laugh. In genealogy, these missing links are referred
to as a “brick wall,” he said. “We know the factoids of what
happened to him, but we don’t know where he was when
he died. There’s no recorded history,” he says. This is not a
total surprise, since he knew that numerous records in the
Tennessee Valley, where the elusive James Peoples lived, were
destroyed through massive fires or floods over the years.
Genealogy also led him to connect with a fourth cousin
named Richard, whom he met in person in Centralia,
Illinois years ago. He says it felt like they’d known each “for
absolutely years. We are an absolute match, just getting along
famously.” So famously, he stayed an extra week on his trip,
and he and his cousin strolled through local archives and city
halls claiming to work for a fake organization just to have
access to their family history. “We just had the greatest time
for a whole week.”
Since his daughter and grandson don’t want to take up the
genealogy mantle, he plans to bequeath his four filing cabinets
to a library, as soon as he decides which one.
Getting started in Genealogy
For anyone interested in dabbing in
genealogy, you can start by running a
Google search on yourself and your
grandparents. From there you can
plug in information to websites like
Ancestry.com and/ or software, like
Family Tree Maker, to extend the process. The Family History
Library in Utah also retains numerous records.
JULY/AUGUST 2017
gmhtoday.com