A Doug's Life: You, too, Can Find Some Hidden Treasures

You could call it a treasure hunt. That is, if you consider a 236-year-old certificate in German script a treasure.

I do. That's the reason you see such a big smile on my face in this photo, taken inside a history museum in North Carolina a couple years back. Along with me and that ancient rifle ominously displayed in the background is a framed church confirmation certificate of my great great great great grandfather, Johannes Loffel, dated 1779.

The search for this historic document began with my interest in genealogy -- one of the most popular "hobbies" in the world. From the landmark TV miniseries "Roots" in the 1970s through the introduction of Internet research in the late 1990s to the current TV show "Who Do You Think You Are?", interest in one's family history has increased tremendously.

Me? I'm fascinated with the stories of my ancestors. Tracking them down is like digging through a dusty old pile of memorabilia. To find the Johannes Loffel certificate pictured above, it took an Internet lead, a photocopy mailed to me, lots of correspondence and four trips to North Carolina before I finally stumbled into the right room in the right museum.

I had pretty much given up on finding my ancestor's plaque among the dozens that hung on the walls until I walked into a small room with artifacts surrounding an ancient hope chest. There, on top of the chest and illuminated by a spotlight -- as if it was meant for me to find -- was the document that verified my gggg grandfather's confirmation at age 13, just three years after the birth of our nation.

To say I caught the genealogy bug that day would not be entirely correct. I had been infected long before.

There's something within each one of us that makes us curious about where we came from. You can ignore it all you want, but it's there and with many of us, it will come out. In Menifee, you'll all have a chance to get some valuable information in guiding your own personal treasure hunt if you choose to attend Family Discovery Day April 11.

The event is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but is certainly not just for members of the Mormon church. They just happen to have one of the world's most extensive genealogical collections, and thus many knowledgeable family history resources and instructors. Much of that will be available to you that day in a set of classes that run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the LDS Church on Bradley Road in Menifee.

There is no charge for the event and you may sign up for a series of one-hour sessions in which valuable tips will be given and resources listed. For information about the classes and to pre-register, call 951-672-0162 or email familyhistory.menifee@gmail.com.

Now usually this kind of information would be given at the end of the articles I write, but I pushed it up this time in case you get bored with my family tales. I feel, however, that the adventures of my ancestors I have uncovered in filling out my family tree is as entertaining to others as it is to me. Of course, I'm biased.

Take up the hobby and see if you can top my stories.

First, Johannes Loffel really is my direct ancestor, even with the seemingly different surname. Actually, loffel in German means spoon. I have also seen the name written as Loffler. So I guess I came from a long line of spoonmakers. Hey, somebody had to do it. Anyway, they Americanized the name to Spoon in the late 1700s. and Johannes Loffel became John Spoon. Here's a photo of his headstone in the Low's Lutheran Church in Guilford County, N.C.

I have traced my family back to 1531 in a little village in the Black Forest region of Germany. Along the way, several skeletons have fallen out of the closet. Some of my living relatives have tried to push them back inside, but I insist on parading them around. Why not? They make my own personal history come alive.

There's my great great grandfather, Henry Spoon, who died in 1877 when he tried to escape from the fourth floor of an Indiana insane asylum, only to have a rope made of bed sheets break halfway down.

There's Margaret Reitzel, a distant relative who was forced to work as an indentured servant for months in 1755 after arriving in America on a ship without her husband Adam, who fell overboard while working off the family's passage costs.

There's Jake Spoon, who was a horse thief in Texas and Oklahoma Indian territory in the 1800s. Legend says he is the basis for the character of the same name in Larry McMurtry's novel "Lonesome Dove."

I thought our immediate family in California was one of the few Spoon clans in the world. Then I started searching. If you visit Alamance County in North Carolina -- where the family eventually settled in the 1700s after sailing from Germany to Philadelphia -- you'll find plenty.

Drive around for a while and you're surrounded by Spoons -- living and dead. There's a Spoon Road, a Spoon Lane, Spoon Loop, Spoon's Chapel, Spoon mill -- it goes on and on. And so I continue to search for more treasures and attend programs like the one we are lucky enough to have in our town on April 11.

Now I really don't mean to make light of my ancestors or this noble venture. Actually, I take it very seriously. I just happen to believe that with the right resources, a little motivation and a couple of hidden gems in your family line, it's possible to write your own family novel -- or perhaps in my case, a sitcom.

Hey, I'm not the only one who has fun with the search. Here's my wife Kristen, making fun of my claim that I saw a ghostly orb hovering over this headstone in a Savannah, Ga., cemetery. But I swear, I saw it there the night before, when she was too scared to head out in the dark and walk over here.

I have a photo of it that I'll be glad to share with you, but you have to show up April 11 at the LDS Church, 29725 Bradley Road, to see it. And if you ask nicely enough, I just might share some more crazy stories.

It's what keeps me going.

Doug Spoon is editor of Menifee 24/7. He has spent 37 years in journalism as a reporter, editor and college instructor. He and his wife Kristen live in Menifee.