Guarding Family Knowledge

Women have traditionally played a strong role in passing along family knowledge through a position called kin keeper.

Within a nuclear family, the kin keeper task usually falls on one individual, often the oldest daughter or one of the oldest daughters. Kin keepers serve the rest of the family by preserving family knowledge and maintaining familial connections. Tammy K. Hareven writes in Family Time and Industrial Time, “Kin keepers kept track of different family members who immigrated or who married and left town; they scheduled family reunions and celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries.”

One manifestation of the kin keeper is the genealogist, a family history researcher who uses recorded documents to track his/her lineage over time.

Genealogy is a hobby that has been increasing in popularity in the last several years. As baby boomers retire more individuals are taking up the challenge. Advances in technology and the digitization of records have made documents more accessible than ever before. Advertising for websites like Ancestry also encourage people to take up genealogy.

Lambton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society

Groups like the Lambton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society are opportunities for genealogists to mingle, connect with researchers who have expertise in specific countries, and learn from other's mistakes.

At their monthly meeting on January 8, 2013 the Lambton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society shared some thoughts on genealogy:

Who was the kin keeper in your family? Who inspired you to become involved in genealogy?

• Became interested through a mother or aunt
• Became interested through the study of history
• One researcher was discouraged from doing genealogy and told by his family, “You'll never find anything.”
• Genealogist as “fact checker” – go back into the records to see what can be proven from stories passed down from grandparents

Why is it important to study and preserve family history?

• To preserve the information for the next generation
• For health reasons – to know your genetics
• Study of genealogy may help with some of our current social issues – encourages you to get beyond your insular family and make connections with other people around you
• Sometimes the only way someone's story will be passed on is through this research – otherwise there's no one to remember them
• Orphaned or adopted children can connect with their families

If you're interested in reading more about the OGS, Dana Thorne attended the Lambton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society meeting on January 8, 2013 to ask a series of questions about the role of women as kin keepers. The responses provided by the members of the Lambton OGS are provided in their entirety.

Julia (Jones) Salter

Julia Maria Jones was born in 1984 in England and has left local history bus with a detailed historical record of her voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

Her father Henry Jones was the founder of the first commune in Canada, a settlement called Maxwell located at what is now Bright's Grove. Henry's vision was inspired by Robert Owen, a Welsh social reformer and mill owner who introduced socialist reforms for his workers and wrote essays about communes and social living.

In 1830 Julia made the trek across the ocean with fifty other men, women and children to establish a communal settlement in the New World. She was a great record keeper and through her diaries we have a vivid glimpse of their arrival up the St. Clair River from Detroit. The group landed 10 miles from Maxwell and walked the rest of the way. We are fortunate that Julia kept these diaries, as they offer unique insight into the long road from Western Europe to settlement in North America. A transcription of an excerpt of her diary.

Julia lived in Sandwich (Windsor) and Detroit before she returned to Sarnia about a year before her death on Friday, October 20, 1893. She is buried in Lakeview Cemetery.

Jones Family Tree

Here is an example of a simplified family tree, assembled through genealogical research. Both Julia (Jones) Salter and Elizabeth (Jones) Faithorne are featured as daughters of Henry Jones and Elizabeth Pinhey.