Gear Descendants Visit Galena
In mid-June, two relatives of Hezekiah Gear (an early Galena settler, War of 1812 veteran, and prolific philanthropist) visited Galena, and made a point to visit the Museum. Pictured here at left is Peggy Seubert of East Peoria, Illinois. Gear is her great-great-great-grandfather. Pictured at right is Donna Loper of Vancouver, Washington. Gear is her great-great-great-granduncle (her great-great-great-grandfather is Hezekiah’s brother Charles). This makes Peggy and Donna 5th cousins, who met up with each other to explore their family roots in Galena.
To help visualize these relationships, you can use this chart to the left. By placing Peggy in the “Self” position (A), Hezekiah Gear, her great-great-great-grandfather, is represented with (B). His brother Charles, is represented by (C), and Donna, Charles’ great-great-great-granddaughter is represented by (D). By tracing these branches of their family tree, we can see their personal relationships to the original individual. In this case, we see that Donna is Peggy’s fifth cousin. Feel free to use this chart, created by Alice J. Ramsay, in your own family research projects.
