Root Hunter Genealogy

Root Hunter Genealogy Hi, I’m Kaneitha…Family Historian, Genealogy Researcher, Contributor and Artist.

Since the mid-1990s, I have researched and collected history, photos & stories of my family. I honor my family & help present & future generations by regularly contributing genealogical information to my blog and other websites such as ancestry.com, familysearch, and findagrave. I recently began mixing my love of family history & art by creating family tree chart designs now available on Etsy.

04/23/2026

The Spencer line begins with Joseph Spencer Sr., who settled in Wayne County, Indiana, before the Historic National Road reached the region in 1829. His parents remain unknown, though DNA suggests a connection to the Spencers of Spencertown, New York. He married at least twice and fathered seven children.

His son Joseph Spencer Jr., a veteran of the War of 1812, married Jane “Jinny” Ring in Wayne County in 1813. Jinny had arrived from North Carolina with her Quaker parents as part of a migration of over 300 Quakers seeking fertile, slavery-free land. Unusually, she was named in an early Indiana census—a designation typically reserved for widows. They raised eleven children before her death in 1840.

Thomas Spencer, born in Wayne County, married Charlotte Heltzel, daughter of Henry Heltzel, the “Stony Creek Artist” whose Fraktur folk art is preserved in Virginia museums today. They settled in Wabash County and raised five children, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1872.

Their son Samuel Spencer married Martha Lowry, whose father had abandoned the family for the California Gold Rush and never returned. Samuel and Martha moved to McDonald County, Missouri, where they raised ten children. In 1906, Martha filed for divorce. Samuel went to Oklahoma; Martha went to Idaho.

Their daughter Martha “Pearl” Spencer married David “Ed” Boyd in Noel, Missouri, in 1905. They became early settlers of Barrymore, Idaho. David died at 41 after a failed appendectomy, leaving Pearl to raise nine children alone on the Idaho frontier. She endured.

⚠️ Some photos and depictions in this reel may have been created by AI and are used for storytelling purposes only

04/20/2026

The family of Rowan traces its origins to John Rowan of Greenhead in Lanarkshire, Scotland, born in 1548. A Lowland laird, he held significant acres across the North Channel in Antrim, Ireland. His son, John Rowan Jr. (d. 1614), lived through the Plantation of Ulster, establishing the family firmly as Scots-Irish landowners. His grandson, Rev. Andrew Rowan, was inducted as rector of Dunaghy, Antrim, in 1661 and resided at Old Stone “Clough.” He married twice and fathered nine children.

Andrew’s son, Rev. John Rowan, married Margaret Stewart of County Down. Their son Stewart Rowan (b. 1698, Rathfryland) made the pivotal crossing to the American colonies, settling on 300+ acres in West Pennsboro, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. His son John Rowan (b. 1730) pushed further west to the Somerset County frontier.

John Rowan Jr. married the widowed Martha Moorhead in 1798. Martha had been born in Antrim and crossed the Atlantic as a child, settling with her family in the Jersey Settlement of Somerset County. Together they raised a large blended family in Salt Lick, Fayette County. Their daughter, Kesiah Rowan Eicher, displayed remarkable resilience: abandoned by her husband, she inherited her father’s land in 1840 and supported four children alone in Washington County, Pennsylvania, working as a blacksmith.

Kesiah’s daughter, Martha Eicher (b. 1826), married James Lewellen, a man of Welsh descent. During the American Civil War, James served as a Union cavalry sergeant and fought at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. While he faced the horrors of war, Martha held their large family together on the Pennsylvania home front. Their survival through the nation’s darkest hour marks the closing chapter of this family’s journey from the Scottish moors of the 16th century to the battlefields that defined America.

⚠️ Some photos and depictions in this reel may have been created by AI and are used for storytelling purposes only

04/18/2026

The Hartleys: From Derbyshire Grit to Desert Zion

Born in the lawless limestone wilds of Peak Forest in the late 1600s, William Hartley Sr. entered a world of lead miners, clandestine marriages, and howling moorland winds. His grandson Samuel (baptized 1743) married Elizabeth Alsop—whose ancestors guarded the gilded gates of Chatsworth, seat of the Dukes of Devonshire. He acquired property near Chesterfield, trading white crags for market-town brick.

Then came Catherine Hartley, baptized in Norton in 1784. She married William Sheldon at St. Thomas’ Church, Brampton, in 1808. While Jane Austen wrote of drawing rooms, Catherine raised eight children in a cramped cottage, mending linen by tallow light. Her hands were calloused, her back strong, her faith rooted in Derbyshire soil. She was the quiet matriarch who held the line.

Her son William James Sheldon (born 1816) inherited that grit. In 1844, he and Harriet Johnson heard a new gospel. By 1849, they were crammed below deck on the Henry Ware, sailing to New Orleans—trading English drizzle for the American frontier. They joined the Mormon migration, crossing plains and deserts to help settle Beaver City, Utah. Imagine the son of a Derbyshire mother, raised among hedgerows and parish bells, now digging irrigation ditches beneath the snow-capped Tushar Mountains.

He died in 1901 at age 84—not in a Derbyshire cottage, but on the porch of his daughter’s home in Woodville, Idaho.

Legacy: From Peak Forest’s peculiar chapel to the Mormon Tabernacle. From Chatsworth’s gilded gates to Beaver’s dusty streets. Miners, gatekeepers, mothers of eight, and pioneers of faith. The Hartleys crossed an ocean and a continent—but carried Derbyshire in their bones the whole way.

⚠️ Some photos and depictions in this reel may have been created by AI and are used for storytelling purposes only

04/16/2026

The Garber Family: A Genealogical Summary (1730s–1868)

Hans Garber arrived in Philadelphia with his sons in the 1730s, settling in Cocalico, Lancaster County—the oldest Amish settlement in America.

Michael Garber preceded them, landing in 1734 aboard the Hope Galley with his wife and infant daughter. He settled in Lancaster County and raised six children.

John Garber Sr. established a farm and grist/saw mill in Allen Township, Cumberland County, near the Susquehanna River. He predeceased his father Michael, dying in 1785.

John Garber Jr. enlisted in Revolutionary War militia service in Leacock, PA, in 1779. After the war, he migrated to Montgomery County, Ohio, married twice, and fathered eight children.

Abraham Garver attended his father’s estate sale in 1835, then moved his family to Wabash County, Indiana, where he lived past 1860.

Elizabeth Garver, Abraham’s daughter, was abandoned by her first husband after the California Gold Rush. She returned to her father’s home with two daughters until remarrying in August 1860.

Martha Lowry, Elizabeth’s eldest daughter, married in 1868 and relocated to McDonald County, Missouri, carrying the family line into the post-Civil War Ozarks.

Over seven generations, the Garbers moved from Swiss-German immigrants in colonial Pennsylvania to settlers of the Ohio Valley, Indiana prairie, and finally the Missouri borderlands—a quintessential American migration story.

⚠️ Some photos and depictions in this reel may have been created by AI and are used for storytelling purposes only

04/11/2026

The Stokes line begins with Christopher Stokes Sr. , living in Tytherton Lucas, Wiltshire, England, in the 1500s. His son, Christopher Stokes Jr. , arrived at Jamestown Island, Virginia, in 1622 with his wife Mary and toddler son William.

William Stokes, age 5, witnessed a December 1624 inquest into another child’s drowning. He later inherited 1,000 acres on the York and Warwick Rivers.

William’s son, Sylvanus Stokes, patented over 800 acres in Charles City County on the Nottaway River in the 1720s. Sylvanus Stokes Jr. , his son, patented over 600 acres in the early 1700s on Raccoon Swamp, south side of the Nottaway.

Mary Stokes (daughter of Sylvanus & Susannah Stokes) married John Edwards Jr. of Buckskin Creek, Dinwiddie County. They then traveled over 150 miles southwest to Orange County, North Carolina, settling on Collins Creek.

Their son, likely named after his maternal grandfather David Jones (who helped build the Truelove plantation for London clothier Rowland Truelove), was David Edwards. David lived on the Haw River and was one of four sons of John & Mary Stokes Edwards. All four sons died between 1781–1782, likely as part of the Orange County Regiment engaged in skirmishes and battles against the British during the Revolutionary War (1776–1782). David died in 1782 at just 37 years old.

⚠️ Some photos and depictions in this reel have been animated by AI and are used for storytelling

01/12/2026

The line from me to my Norwegian ancestors isn’t very long. Less than 100 years before I was born, Lars Oddson, my 2nd great-grandfather, left his homeland forever and settled in Minnesota, USA. Records from the Vossaboki show that Lars’ (and his wife Ingeborgs’) ancestors lived in Voss for at least 4 centuries. My DNA confirms a strong connection to the people of this specific region.

⚠️ Some photos in this reel have been animated by AI and may contain errors

My English family history research mostly matches my English DNA results (from ancestry.com). There do appear to be a f...
01/04/2026

My English family history research mostly matches my English DNA results (from ancestry.com). There do appear to be a few discrepancies though, namely my connections to Cornwall, Derbyshire, & Nottinghamshire which don’t show on ancestry.com’s DNA map. They are ALWAYS updating their map however so perhaps my DNA will show a connection in the near future. Another possibility (that is also true of my Irish DNA & Research) is that my research on these families isn’t able to go back far enough to indicate where they originated from, before they settled in Cornwall, Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire.

Let me know if we share any English surnames or places of origin?

My family history research matches my DNA results (from ancestry.com) almost perfectly, but it doesn’t show a DNA connec...
12/29/2025

My family history research matches my DNA results (from ancestry.com) almost perfectly, but it doesn’t show a DNA connection to the region research showed my Shaw ancestors emigrated from before arriving in Massachusetts in the early 1700s. Further research revealed that although the Shaw family left from Cork, Ireland, before arriving in America, they were of Scottish origin, specifically from Perth. My DNA does indicate a link to this region of Scotland. Do we share any Irish surnames or places of origin?

12/23/2025

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

Photo #1: my grandfather (on the left) Taken c. 1915 in Nebraska

Photo #2: my aunts and uncles. Taken c. 1940-1950 in Minnesota

Photo #3: my mom (on the left) & aunt. Taken c. 1954 in Washington

Photo #4: me (on right) with sisters. Taken c. 1979 in Washington

Photo #5: my kids. Taken c. 1997 in Idaho

⚠️ Some photos in this reel have been animated by AI and may contain errors

12/22/2025

Watch me grow from baby to mother in 24 seconds. Spanning the years of 1975-1993.

⚠️ Some photos in this reel have been animated by AI and may contain errors

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