Merced County Genealogical Society

2007 MCGS Officers

President, Anne Field
1st Vice President, Karen Theofanides 

2nd Vice President, Shari Stetson
Treasurer, Nevora Nush
Recording Secretary, Karen Albright 
 
Membership, Gloria Hennessey
Hospitality, Michle Burroughs
Past President, Jim Granger

~ Getting to Know Your Board Members ~

Anne Field,  President -

I was born in Florida but my family -1 have two sisters - lived all over the country since my father was in the Navy. Graduated from Florida State University, Tallahassee, with a B.A. in History and a minor in Library Science. Left for Adelaide, Australia, in 1968 to marry Gene Field whom I had met while working several summers at Tuolumne Meadows Lodge in Yosemite.
My children, Lucie and Victor, were born in Adelaide and were very young when we came home. We moved to Patterson where I worked for the Stanislaus County Library and then at Patterson High School Library. In 1979 I went to work at the Patterson Irrigator, a newspaper and print shop.
I started taking classes to finish my teaching credential at Stanislaus State University and then entered San Jose State University to complete my Masters Degree in Library Science and my Library Media Teacher Credential. After working at the Stanislaus County Library for a short time I accepted the position of District Librarian for the Atwater School District, retiring after twenty years in June 2006.
The research bug hit about 1974 and I joined the Patterson Genies. My ancestors come from England, Ireland, Bermuda, France and Spain, and, according to my DNA test - from the area around Iraq. I have a good friend who lives in Salt Lake City and have visited there countless times to do research. My aunt and I wrote a book on our Irish ancestors which kept me busy for several years. I'm now in the process of scanning all the old family pictures from both sides of my family as well as working on my genealogy web page (www.annefield.net). I love genealogy and am looking forward to leading the MCGS in 2007.

Karen Theofanides, 1st Vice President -

I was born and raised in Merced....a native! I am married to an understanding husband, Mark, and have 3 children, Alison, Stephanie and Demetre. I have lived most of my life in Merced, except for a year in the Philippines and a few years in Fresno. I was trained at Castle AFB Hospital and worked as a registered dental assistant for about 14 years. I was a stay-at-home mom for many years, then self-employed until last May when I retired. My husband retired this past December and we hope to travel, doing genealogical research and visiting distant cousins we've met thru internet research. My interest in genealogy began when I was about 20 years old and my ex-husband brought home some genealogy forms given to him by a co-worker. That's all it took for me to want to fill in each and every blank on those forms! I called and/or wrote to every living relative I could find for information. At that time, all but one grandparent was living and many great aunts and uncles were still living. I was lucky to gain lots of information from family contacts. At this time, my sister is the only other relative in my immediate family interested in genealogy.......my children's genealogy genes haven't yet developed! I have used my genealogy to join at least 3 lineage organizations, including Daughters of the American Revolution, and have spoken to several elementary school classrooms about genealogy. Surnames I am currently researching are: SMOTHERS, DEGOUGH, ROOT, POLLARD, MAYFIELD, ASHBY, BRANSON, JORDAN, MOSS,

I was born in Chicago three months before the US entered WW II. My father had been drafted in 1940, so when war was declared he was stationed in England for the duration. While dad was overseas, my sister and I were privileged to attend nursery school in Chicago at Hull House which was founded by noted social worker Jane Addams.
In 1946, our family moved to California. All of my education prior to college took place in the Lynwood Unified District. After graduation, I went to work for the City of Los Angeles and took night classes. Deciding that the life of a secretary was not for me, I quit my job and started college full-time. It was there that I met Rick Albright, who had just completed his stint in the US Navy.
Money was scarce for dating, so Rick and I found things to do together that were free. One of those choices was tracing our ancestry. The Los Angeles City Library had almost all of the Vital Records for Massachusetts. We started with what we knew about our family history. Found families in Massachusetts with similar surnames and started working forward to 1850, the first census to list all family members to make definite connections.
Usually, genealogists counsel people to start with the known and work backwards to the unknown. We did the opposite in that pre-computer era and were extremely successful with a combination of youth and determination. We validated our finds with visits to the big LDS Library in L.A. where we were able to access census records.
While I am a first-generation American on my mother’s side, she was born in Sweden, on my father’s side I can claim ancestors among many of those first families arriving between 1630-40.
Rick claims the Pilgrims among his early American family members. We discovered that we are cousins. Yes, cousins in the late 1600s with over 2000 great-great grandparents just on the paternal side.
When we finished with our Associate of Arts degrees at Compton Junior College, we decided that we’d work for a year so that we could marry and take a honeymoon in Europe. Which we did. We worked a year, were married, January 8, 1964, and then went to Europe for a honeymoon until our money ran out. During those four months, we spent two weeks in Sweden visiting with cousins, aunts, uncles and touring family home places.
In December 1964, we relocated to Merced.
Rick went to work at the Merced Sun Star while I continued my studies at Stanislaus State and started teaching for Merced City Schools in January 1968.
Over the years, we’ve pursued genealogy when time allowed. When my father retired from pharmacy and caught the bug, he spent most of the hours of his retirement years documenting, corresponding, and fleshing out our original discoveries. He passed away in 1998. I now have over 8 file drawers full of our combined research.
What did we do during those years between pre-honeymoon and retirement genealogy?  We took trips to Russia, England, Germany, Alaska, Canada and the Southwest; raised a son with all the activities associated with parenting: soccer, baseball, music; and worked in very demanding professions.
Rick retired in 2001 and I retired in 2003. We’ve been slowly completing all those projects that we started and put aside while we took care of the demands of the times.
I’ve completed five needlepoint pillows, started taking piano lessons, organized albums for my 35 years of teaching and 21 years of Nutcracker performances, and begun the monumental task of weeding out not only our accumulations over the years, but those of our parents and grandparents.
Currently, we are completing our part of the research for the Black History Exhibit at the Courthouse Museum, winding up the final details of this year’s Spelling Bees for the Merced City School District, and looking forward to a few months of getting up each day and just doing what we feel like doing that day.

Gloria Schwinn Hennessey,  Membership -

I was born in Merced (no hospital in Le Grand!), but have lived all of my life except four years, three of which were when my daughters and I were experimenting with living in town, on my family property, the Schwinn Ranch seven miles east of Le Grand.
My college education was interrupted after completing two years when I married my first husband. I went to work as the Le Grand Elementary School secretary in 1969. In 1972 I decided to complete my college degree which I did at Chapman University. I started my teaching career in Le Grand as a fifth grade teacher in 1974. After three years my daughters and I moved to try city living, which we found we didn't like, during which time I taught in Forestville and Gustine before settling in with the Atwater School District in 1979.1 had 22 wonderful years at Elmer Wood School teaching fourth grade—loved teaching the children California history. I also served as history mentor for the District for a time. I retired in 2001 after a total of 26 years.
In 1990 I treated myself to a trip to Australia. It turned out to be a life changing trip as it was there on the Great Barrier Reef that I met Tim my second husband. He had a charter bus business and had a group, not mine, out on the reef that day. My tour director introduced us. Tim and I found we had a lot in common and talked for hours; we really clicked. After many letters and phone calls getting to know each other better, Tim decided to immigrate to America, Le Grand in particular, in 1991.
My family now consists of three daughters, four adult grandchildren, one stepson, one stepdaughter, and two step-grandchildren. Good thing Tim and I like to travel as our children are in Canada, New Zealand, Florida, San Jose, as well as Le Grand. Travel we do, a lot.
Only in the last few years have I become interested in genealogy. It started with an article I read about Ancestry.com. I decided to look up my parents hoping to find info about my grandparents who had passed on before I was born. What I did find was a husband listed for my mother that I had never heard of, nor had anyone else! That grabbed my interest. When I saw the MCGS's notice in the Merced Sun-Star with a program for beginners to genealogy, I decided the time had come to get help. I'm so happy I took the plunge as I'm having fun searching. My family surnames are Schwinn, Buchanan, Carey, and Herren. Thanks to Dorothy, Marj, and Lorraine for the help on Wednesday afternoons.