Palmetto resident digs deep for her family roots
By CARL MARIO NUDI
Dee Kermode’s journey in researching her family tree has taken her to Wales, Spain and several areas of the United States.
“You have to be driven by it,” Kermode said. “I’m passionate about genealogy.”
The life-long Palmetto resident shares that passion with many others throughout Manatee County, and they meet once a month from October through May as the Manatee Genealogical Society.
Kermode joined the organization to help her learn about genealogical researching methods.
“Becoming a member, you have a common interest that binds you together,” she said.
That also was the reason Manatee Genealogical Society treasurer Karen Dwyer joined.
“I wanted to network with others with the same interest,” Dwyer said.
She got involved with genealogy to expand her knowledge of her ancestors.
“I wanted to persevere my own family history,” Dwyer said, “and find out about relatives and where they came from.”
For Jim Reger, joining the organization was to learn about a specific computer program, Roots Magic.
“I’ve been doing genealogy for more than 40 years,” said Reger, who is president of the 100-plus member Manatee Genealogical Society.
When he moved to Lakewood Ranch he was discussing his interest in genealogy with an acquaintance and his desire to learn about Roots Magic. The neighbor, who is a member of the society, suggested he join.
The society, founded in the 1970s, helps promote genealogical research, which has become very popular because of the ease of finding records on the Internet.
At the monthly meetings held at the Manatee County Central Public Library, guest speakers give presentations on their areas of interest in genealogy, allowing members to pick up new skills.
“Every speaker has a passion for his or her subject, and that may speak to your specific interest,” Kermode said.
At the May meeting held last week, a panel of experts, including Reger; Dwyer; Nancy Johnson, president of Genealogical Society of Sarasota; Jim McHugh, a past president of the society; and Jack Triplett, a vice president, answered questions about their areas of expertise.
To many people, tracing their ancestral roots helps them know themselves better.
“If you don’t know the history of your family how can you go forward?” Kermode said.
That was the reason she started looking into her family history.
“I always wanted to know about my relatives,” Kermode said. “When mother got a letter I would ask, ‘Who is that from?’ ”
All Kermode knew was that her family came to Florida from Minnesota and Iowa.
“When I would go to the library to study for school, I would go to the genealogy room,” Kermode said. “I found a document with the same name as my mother and wondered if they were related.”
This started her on a more than 30-year journey to find out more.
She knew one side of her mother’s family came from Wales, so she, her husband Fred, and her mother took a trip to the country on the western coast of Great Britain.
“It was worth it to walk on the same ground as our ancestors,” she said.
After doing quite a bit of research, Kermode learned there was a book already done on the Thurston side of the family, which made it easier to track down her ancestry.
She found out she was related to some of the Mayflower passengers and early Massachusetts settlers.
“They come alive to me,” Kermode said. “The history of your family extends to the history of the village, the town, the state and the country.”
She has always known she had relatives in Estás, Spain.
Her maiden name is Fernandez and her father, who owned the Casa de Fernandez decorative driftwood business in Bradenton for years, was in contact with his family in Spain as she was growing up.
But there were missing pieces in that branch of the family tree that had to be completed, so she made a couple of trips to her father’s home town.
Kermode met cousins and distant relatives and visited the local church where records are kept.
This all strengthened her passion to learn about her heritage.
Through her research on genealogy Kermode has gotten involved in three lineage organizations — the Colonial Dames, Mayflower Society and Daughters of the American Revolution.
For Dwyer, her journey started with a Christmas gift.
She always had an interest in genealogy and was given a computer program to find your family roots.
“I always had the desire,” Dwyer said, “but never had the time or know-how.”
By joining the Manatee Genealogical Society she learned methods and procedures for researching her ancestry.
Dwyer said along the way she also learned about the history of other places.
In researching her grandfather’s genealogy, Dwyer said she picked up a lot about Ireland and its history.
“Once I started looking into my great-grandfather,” she said, “I got hooked and couldn’t stop.”
Over the years Dwyer has self-published four books, one for each of her grandparents’ families.
They are available for purchase, but she has given many away to the historical societies of where the people in the book have lived.
Sharing her story with others gave Dwyer great satisfaction, but passing on the interest of genealogy to her family was even more satisfying.
For a class project her 8-year-old grandson, Harrison Phillips, a student at Outdoor Academy, asked when his ancestors came to the United States.
“I was so happy to be able to help him with his project,” Dwyer said.
For Reger, learning his family’s genealogy helps him track their movement across continents.
For instance he discovered his mother’s family came from Switzerland, went to Amsterdam then to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.
From there they traveled to Ohio, where Reger was raised and went to school.
“They had to go over the mountains to get to Ohio,” he said. “It’s the migration patterns (of our ancestors) that interest me, not who died.”
In studying his father’s genealogy, Reger found out they were from the Rhineland area of what is now Germany.
But his ancestors, who go back to when William Penn came to Pennsylvania, first traveled east to get to the United States.
“They migrated east because the Danube River flows east,” Reger said. “To me that’s what’s interesting.”
To learn more about the Manatee Genealogical Society, visit the website at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flmgs/index.htm, or send a note to P.O. Box 1194, Bradenton, FL 34206.
The society also maintains a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ManateeGenealogicalSociety