Latest / Stories That Live In Us / From People Who've Done Hard Things (with Jordan Lundskog) | Episode 22

Transcript

From People Who've Done Hard Things (with Jordan Lundskog) | Episode 22 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:02
  Jordan Lundskog: And the stories that I've uncovered since then have been so fulfilling to understand who my grandpa was, the role that he played in my life, who my grandma is and how she became who she is, and then so many other people who came before that made major sacrifices to get me to where I am today.
• 0:22
  Crista Cowan: Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future.
• 0:30
  Crista Cowan: I'm rista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:34
  Crista Cowan: I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.
• 0:42
  Crista Cowan: Stories that live in you can change everything.
• 0:48
  Crista Cowan: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I love chatting with my co-workers from Ancestry about family history.
• 0:52
  Crista Cowan: It is something that we do here in the podcast studio as often as I can get one of them in here, but it is also something that we do in the office, and one of the people that I love seeing headed for my desk is Jordan Lundsgog.
• 1:06
  Crista Cowan: Now, we've worked together for a few years and he is a product manager whose responsibilities are specifically for the memories section of the Ancestry family trees.
• 1:18
  Crista Cowan: That's the place where you upload your photos and your stories and attach them to the people and recognize who those ancestors are, to start to build out a really rich family history and preserve it on ancestry.
• 1:34
  Crista Cowan: As the product manager responsible for that portion of the whole Ancestry experience, Jordan has had some really great interactions with customers and some really great stories that he's collected, but none of those stories are more important than his own.
• 1:50
  Crista Cowan: Now, Jordan's a young father with some young children.
• 1:54
  Crista Cowan: You'll hear him talk about them a little bit, but one of the things that he talks about in this episode quite a bit is his grandfather.
• 2:02
  Crista Cowan: His grandfather passed away when he was a teenager and he was really close with him, but in the ensuing years he's actually grown closer to his grandfather because of the stories that he's uncovered and because of the way that he serves as a bridge between generations, making sure that his children know the stories of their ancestors, and, in particular, that grandfather of his.
• 2:28
  Crista Cowan: So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jordan Lundskog.
• 2:31
  Crista Cowan: Okay, well, Jordan, how long have you and I worked together?
• 2:40
  Jordan Lundskog: I've been at Ancestry for six years.
• 2:41
  Crista Cowan: I think we've worked together for about four of those six years, okay, fantastic.
• 2:43
  Crista Cowan: Well, tell me a little bit about why Ancestry, like is there something that drew you to the company?
• 2:47
  Crista Cowan: Was it more about your particular career path or was there something about Ancestry in particular?
• 2:53
  Jordan Lundskog: Funny enough, a recruiter called me.
• 2:54
  Jordan Lundskog: Ancestry wasn't on my radar and as soon as they called I couldn't say no, because it's a Utah original and it's a brand that just really brings families together.
• 3:06
  Jordan Lundskog: I think the mission is fun.
• 3:07
  Jordan Lundskog: I didn't know that's what I was looking for, but the mission is fun.
• 3:10
  Jordan Lundskog: And then there's such a unique set of challenges that we face as we're helping people capture their family stories.
• 3:16
  Jordan Lundskog: So I think that's what keeps me coming every day is finding new ways to use technology to help people find their stories, tell their stories and connect to their families.
• 3:26
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, so are you also a Utah original.
• 3:29
  Jordan Lundskog: My family is from here.
• 3:30
  Jordan Lundskog: I was born in Alabama because my dad was working out of state, but yeah, I've got deep roots here in Utah.
• 3:35
  Crista Cowan: On.
• 3:35
  Jordan Lundskog: Both sides, on both sides, yeah, okay, my uh.
• 3:38
  Jordan Lundskog: On my mom's side they were founding members of Midway up in Wasatch County.
• 3:43
  Crista Cowan: Are they Swiss?
• 3:45
  Jordan Lundskog: They weren't Swiss.
• 3:45
  Jordan Lundskog: Funny enough, they were.
• 3:47
  Jordan Lundskog: What were they?
• 3:49
  Jordan Lundskog: They came straight from England and Ireland, so they were a couple of the non-Swiss folks that snuck in there and got accepted.
• 3:55
  Jordan Lundskog: Then on my dad's side I have folks who came across on the Mayflower, and then my great grandpa came straight from Switzerland, um, to Salt Lake Valley.
• 4:07
  Jordan Lundskog: So everyone's like here.
• 4:09
  Crista Cowan: but yeah yeah, utah roots all the way around.
• 4:12
  Crista Cowan: So was that, was that stuff you knew before you started working at Ancestry?
• 4:17
  Crista Cowan: Or is this all information that has come to light since you, since your job?
• 4:21
  Jordan Lundskog: Funny enough I knew a lot of it because my grandma, my great grandma, was heavily involved in the Utah pioneers up in uh in Wasatch County.
• 4:31
  Jordan Lundskog: Funny enough though she was on my, on my grandma's side and she was a transplant, so everyone else, she was really focused on preserving family stories.
• 4:41
  Jordan Lundskog: But as a transplant from California where the rest of the family was from the Valley, when I really dug in and got to know the characters, that was the biggest part is knowing the characters in my tree and then being able to connect the dots and the stories and the experiences they had.
• 4:52
  Jordan Lundskog: That's what really, I think, broke through and connected everything for me.
• 4:57
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 4:57
  Crista Cowan: So were you raised in a family environment with reunions or family stories being told by grandma and grandpa, pictures being brought out and you just didn't pay attention?
• 5:08
  Crista Cowan: Or was that not a part of your family culture?
• 5:10
  Crista Cowan: I?
• 5:10
  Jordan Lundskog: think there were some stories that came up, but they come up a lot more when I like know the right things to ask.
• 5:17
  Jordan Lundskog: That's that.
• 5:18
  Jordan Lundskog: So, yeah, stories came up, but one of the stories we could talk about a little bit later that just blew my mind I had a great grandpa no second grade grandfather who had an accident up in the mountains above Camas.
• 5:29
  Jordan Lundskog: He dropped a gun.
• 5:30
  Jordan Lundskog: First time it just fell out of his holster and he picked it back up, so they were sending up a tent.
• 5:35
  Jordan Lundskog: The second time he dropped it it hit a rock and shot him straight through the heart and just like killed him.
• 5:39
  Jordan Lundskog: I'd never heard that story before.
• 5:41
  Jordan Lundskog: Like that that story existed in my family, but I'd never like heard it.
• 5:44
  Jordan Lundskog: And and then, as I was able to talk through my family, um, yeah, they were aware of it and and it's interesting to see how that defined like that branch of my family where my second grade grandma was like 30, had three kids and had to figure out how to raise her family and just it it.
• 6:03
  Jordan Lundskog: It was interesting to hear about how that affected her personality and who she was as a human.
• 6:06
  Jordan Lundskog: So stories would come up, but I think they come up a lot more now that I know who to ask about and trying to fill in those gaps where, um, I sorry, one of the things, I I think one of the other things has been really interesting at Ancestry.
• 6:19
  Jordan Lundskog: I worked on a product called We Remember, where we capture memories of people that passed away and for whatever reason that started to like click in my mind that like, um, we don't have forever to capture these stories and so I'm down to one grandma now, um, and so capturing as much as I can of that line, even though I'm not a pro genealogist, I don't know who else is going to do it, so I got to capture that.
• 6:44
  Jordan Lundskog: I got to make sure the photos are kept for future because my kids love hearing those types of things.
• 6:49
  Jordan Lundskog: I've got to make sure that my kids have those stories to pass on.
• 6:52
  Jordan Lundskog: But it's so fascinating how they latch on to stories, because I've mentioned about the Mayflowers, we celebrate Thanksgiving and they've latched on to that.
• 7:01
  Jordan Lundskog: Hey, remember, great, great, great grandpa was a part of that.
• 7:04
  Jordan Lundskog: Or we talk about the civil war or, um, some of the other conflicts, um, the revolutionary war, there's a few ancestors that kind of fit in there.
• 7:13
  Jordan Lundskog: Or my grandpa served during the korean conflict and it's just so fascinating how they latch on and start to like identify with that, and it's been.
• 7:21
  Jordan Lundskog: It's been fun to jump into my wife's side too, and she's got a rich family history as well, but start to understand who are the characters in her family and how my kids just really understand like who are they?
• 7:31
  Jordan Lundskog: They've come from people who've done hard things and make sure that that's like built into their DNA, cause like the world's not going to tell them that, so it's um, anytime I can get like a picture and show them or kind of just tell them a little story on the table.
• 7:44
  Jordan Lundskog: It's a lot of fun to just connect the dots.
• 7:47
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it is.
• 7:47
  Crista Cowan: And now, as you're making that intentional choice to make that a part of your family culture, this urgency that you feel to collect those stories from elsewhere in the family, that becomes a really tangible thing.
• 8:01
  Crista Cowan: And there's so many stories and so much to collect and there is we don't know how much time we have, and so what is kind of the mechanism that you're using for doing that?
• 8:12
  Crista Cowan: I mean ancestry, obviously, but like, do you have a routine?
• 8:16
  Crista Cowan: Do you have a plan at all?
• 8:19
  Jordan Lundskog: Oh, I feel a little guilty because my because I work in this space and I understand how psychology works For most of our users if there's like somebody passes away, for most people they have seven to 10 days to act on that, to make progress, to keep that urgency moving forward.
• 8:39
  Jordan Lundskog: My grandma passed away this last December and I have all these great intentions of things that I'm going to be supposedly doing, but we're sitting here in August and I've made minimal progress, so I wish I had a better plan.
• 8:50
  Jordan Lundskog: I try to spend a little time each week to document some of the stories I've captured, make sure the photos that I've gotten access to are linked to people that's the most important thing If you can connect to who is in a photo or who is in a story and then I try to make those accessible to as many people as possible.
• 9:09
  Jordan Lundskog: So I have a public tree on ancestry.
• 9:11
  Jordan Lundskog: To make that accessible to folks in family search, because that's an easy place for a lot of people to go and dig into.
• 9:17
  Jordan Lundskog: I would love to.
• 9:19
  Jordan Lundskog: I'm working towards recreating um like scrapbooks or photo albums in something that's more similar to chapbooks.
• 9:28
  Jordan Lundskog: It's just like a little coffee table eight by eight book that can just be handed out or gifted to different folks in the family.
• 9:34
  Jordan Lundskog: So that's what I'm working towards, but most of my stuff currently lives in the structure of a tree, either an ancestry or family search.
• 9:42
  Crista Cowan: Which is good because it preserves it and it makes sure that it's accessible.
• 9:45
  Crista Cowan: Like you mentioned um your grandma that passed away recently.
• 9:48
  Crista Cowan: Was she your dad's side or mom's side?
• 9:50
  Jordan Lundskog: On my dad's side.
• 9:51
  Crista Cowan: And is your dad also interested, or are you kind of the one who's carrying that torch, I think?
• 9:58
  Jordan Lundskog: I think there's a little more interest now, like there's on that side of the family.
• 10:02
  Jordan Lundskog: They were always telling stories and I just wasn't interested Now that I'm like thinking more deeply about it and it breaks my heart now.
• 10:08
  Jordan Lundskog: But there's just like that side of the family.
• 10:10
  Jordan Lundskog: We'd also have family reunions and we'd go sit down and watch slides and I didn't understand what slides were for the first time.
• 10:16
  Jordan Lundskog: So I was so excited as a kid I'm like I don't know what watching slides is, but that sounds awesome.
• 10:20
  Jordan Lundskog: And then we sat down and it was these colored, poorly colored photos that didn't move.
• 10:26
  Jordan Lundskog: But that is probably what I want to spend the most time figuring out how to digitize either, you know, using just getting something good enough to make sure that doesn't get lost.
• 10:37
  Jordan Lundskog: If I wait forever, I could pay thousands of dollars and figure that out, but that's just not going to happen.
• 10:42
  Jordan Lundskog: So trying to find the best way to preserve those slides so we can pass them on because they're so rich, we just scanned 50 of them for the video to play at her funeral and like the stories that just come out when you just show a single photo, like a thousand words is an understatement because there's a thousand words from each person who has their own perspective of that given photo.
• 11:02
  Jordan Lundskog: So my dad yeah, he's got boxes of photos that we're going to be working on scanning together and knock it out together.
• 11:09
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, I love that.
• 11:10
  Crista Cowan: That idea of a photo as a spark of a memory is something that we've used in my family for a really long time.
• 11:19
  Crista Cowan: But what you just shared about how then you know everybody has a perspective of that event or that story or that person in that photo and that then becomes this repository of things that you can connect to that photo that gives you this complete picture of who they are, because what I've discovered in my family stories is oftentimes I'm looking at it from a single perspective, like I have a memory of that person or that event, or they shared their words and that's all I have left is their words and their perspective of that event.
• 11:54
  Crista Cowan: So whenever you can get that 360 view of a whole person, I think that's such a beautiful thing and photos are a really great way to do that.
• 12:03
  Crista Cowan: So in your family, as you've now kind, of embarked on this family history journey it sounds like you're becoming the keeper of all the things.
• 12:16
  Jordan Lundskog: There's always one purpose.
• 12:16
  Jordan Lundskog: It's just kind of happened that way.
• 12:17
  Jordan Lundskog: It's funny because I was you and I talked about this in the office the other day.
• 12:25
  Crista Cowan: But when I was 16, my grandpa passed away suddenly, and it was right around my birthday.
• 12:27
  Jordan Lundskog: This was my mom's dad, so it was right around Thanksgiving and I was the last cousin who got to see him in the hospital before.
• 12:37
  Jordan Lundskog: Things just went downhill after that and I didn't really understand like that was a triggering event for me, first time someone close to me had passed away.
• 12:45
  Jordan Lundskog: But all these years later, that is my driving force for why I care, because I only got 16 years with my grandpa and so I owe it to my kids to know who my grandpa was and the role that he played in my life and in their life, and that it's just.
• 13:02
  Jordan Lundskog: I don't know that I would dream that I would end up at Ancestry working on building tools and focusing on helping other people to do the exact same thing, but that that's why I care, and the stories that are uncovered since then have been so fulfilling to understand who my grandpa was, the role that he played in my life, who my grandma is and how she became who she is, and then so many other people who came before that made major sacrifices to get me to where I am today.
• 13:31
  Jordan Lundskog: It's it's unreal when you dig deep and understand who you're from and where you're from and how you're from Like it.
• 13:37
  Jordan Lundskog: It just it's pretty humbling to dig into those types of experiences.
• 13:41
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, before you started learning more about your grandpa's life, is there some memory from your childhood about him?
• 13:48
  Crista Cowan: That is like, when you think of him, this is what you think of.
• 13:52
  Jordan Lundskog: Oh, he was a diehard Cougar fan, so it was uh.
• 13:55
  Jordan Lundskog: Watching a Cougar game with him was just entertainment galore, regardless of how the game was going on TV.
• 14:02
  Jordan Lundskog: I also have a distinct memory that I couldn't live down.
• 14:05
  Jordan Lundskog: When I was four years old, we were moving back from Texas, my grandpa flew out to help us and drove back in the moving truck with us, and anytime I would ever meet any of his friends or anybody, a stranger, whatever, he would tell the story of little George when he was four years old, leaving Texas with tears in his eyes, telling grandpa, I didn't have a friend in the world.
• 14:24
  Jordan Lundskog: So those are two or three things that I that I like always remember.
• 14:29
  Jordan Lundskog: And he was always whistling too.
• 14:30
  Jordan Lundskog: He always was just whistling some song.
• 14:32
  Jordan Lundskog: So there's two or three things like that that like even today.
• 14:36
  Jordan Lundskog: Anytime I catch myself whistling a song, it just takes me right back to remembering grandpa.
• 14:41
  Crista Cowan: I love that.
• 14:41
  Crista Cowan: So since then you know, now you're an adult, you have children of your own and you've been seeking to understand him better.
• 14:49
  Crista Cowan: Are there stories that have come out?
• 14:50
  Crista Cowan: Do you have any favorite stories about him that you didn't know before?
• 14:54
  Jordan Lundskog: So the week before I started at Ancestry I didn't know newspaperscom existed before then, but I got access to newspaperscom and so I just put in LeVar wild to see what I could find.
• 15:05
  Jordan Lundskog: And I found a high school photo of him playing football.
• 15:08
  Jordan Lundskog: I knew he, I knew he played sports, I knew he loved that, but I'd never seen a photo of that.
• 15:13
  Jordan Lundskog: And so there's the caption his name at the bottom of him playing for South summit high school against Tooele.
• 15:18
  Jordan Lundskog: I sent that to my mom, I sent that to my grandma and it just went like mini viral within my family because nobody else had ever seen any documentation of him playing sports in high school.
• 15:28
  Jordan Lundskog: So that was the first discovery that I think really clicked for me.
• 15:31
  Jordan Lundskog: And then all of a sudden all these other papers and documents and things started coming out.
• 15:36
  Jordan Lundskog: My grandma had the presence of mind.
• 15:38
  Jordan Lundskog: Four years before my grandpa passed.
• 15:40
  Jordan Lundskog: He had another scare with his heart, so she started documenting his history with him and this, like these documents, had existed for a while and I'd never just asked about them.
• 15:49
  Jordan Lundskog: So I dug in and digitized them and it was so interesting to just read through.
• 15:54
  Jordan Lundskog: His whole life joined the army to fight in the Korean conflict he was stationed in San Francisco, which we happen to have an office in San Francisco.
• 16:12
  Jordan Lundskog: I didn't know this at the time, I didn't know this until three years ago, but there's a military scrapbook of all the photos of his time at bootcamp.
• 16:17
  Jordan Lundskog: And he ended up being stationed in Germany with the 501 transport unit.
• 16:21
  Jordan Lundskog: But I found pictures of my grandpa standing right in front of the Bay bridge, in front of, like, the Bay area, where I'd.
• 16:30
  Jordan Lundskog: I'd been there a handful of times with our ancestry office and one of the one of the sweetest moments I've had at ancestry was being able to go back and recreate some of those photos, standing in the exact same spot where he likely stood.
• 16:42
  Jordan Lundskog: And, uh, obviously the city looks different, but there's just something about being in the exact same spot where he likely stood, and obviously the city looks different, but there's just something about being in the same place as your ancestor.
• 16:49
  Jordan Lundskog: So it was interesting to kind of step into a couple of those spots and just stand where he stood.
• 16:55
  Jordan Lundskog: And then there's just funny newspaper articles where I learned about his Eagle Scout project.
• 17:04
  Jordan Lundskog: I learned about how he broke his ankle one time running through a field his favorite car that was, I think green, that he bought when he was younger.
• 17:16
  Jordan Lundskog: Yeah, it's just been.
• 17:17
  Jordan Lundskog: It's been so fascinating to get to know him in like different phases of life that I've already been through and kind of connect on that basis.
• 17:24
  Jordan Lundskog: I think it's been a really fascinating experience.
• 17:26
  Jordan Lundskog: But that the newspaper articles have really like spurred so many conversations and spurred oh yeah, we probably have a photo of that, or, or here's, here's the other details you don't have about that.
• 17:39
  Jordan Lundskog: So it's been interesting to just kind of see, like going back to your three 60, the photos are powerful, the newspaper articles, the written documented stories are so powerful, but I don't have it all sitting in a family book.
• 17:51
  Jordan Lundskog: So I'm trying to figure out how do I like box this up and make this something meaningful that my siblings will care about, my mom and her siblings will care about and my kids can identify with and care about?
• 18:02
  Crista Cowan: There's this interesting thing about the process of discovery, right?
• 18:06
  Crista Cowan: So as you've been going on this journey, you've made these discoveries about your grandfather which have given him a whole new dimension for you, and it's interesting to hear you talk about how do I then package that up to share it?
• 18:19
  Crista Cowan: And so my question is always and I struggle with this for myself like I want to do the same thing.
• 18:25
  Crista Cowan: I want to share these discoveries with my family members, but I wonder if it will be as meaningful for them to just have it packaged up and handed to them, or if somehow we need to figure out a way to help them go on that same journey of discovery for themselves.
• 18:39
  Jordan Lundskog: That's such a deep question because that's one of the trickiest parts.
• 18:43
  Jordan Lundskog: You see the Ancestry commercial and you're like, oh cool, I can go figure out if I'm related to George Washington, but there's a price you pay to get there to really understand that and I'm not.
• 18:52
  Jordan Lundskog: You get what you pay for.
• 18:53
  Jordan Lundskog: So the stories are valuable but it can be a lonely journey if they don't like the rest of the family doesn't fully understand who these people are.
• 18:59
  Jordan Lundskog: Two of the things that that I've two of the most impactful experiences I've had is playing with technology and trying to just create ways for people to just kind of browse and explore who an individual was and kind of connect the dots on their own.
• 19:15
  Jordan Lundskog: The most impactful, though I wasn't prepared for this, but last year, as Apple was working on their VR headset, we went out and spent some time kind of exploring what we could do with it and there was something about blowing up a photo to full life size in that like high quality environment where it felt like I was literally staring into my grandpa's eyes in a way I haven't done in 20 years.
• 19:39
  Jordan Lundskog: That I think can introduce people to our ancestors in a way that takes maybe a little bit less effort, if that makes sense.
• 19:49
  Jordan Lundskog: I remember specifically looking at a photo where I was eight years old.
• 19:52
  Jordan Lundskog: My grandpa was standing right behind me and it was funny to look into my own eight-year-old eyes as I have an eight-year-old at home but then to look just like I didn't have a growth spurt till after my grandpa passed.
• 20:02
  Jordan Lundskog: So being able to look eye to eye into my grandpa's eyes for the first time in 20 years was like I didn't.
• 20:09
  Jordan Lundskog: It felt so silly to be standing there with a Vision Pro on my forehead and tears streaming down my cheek, just like stepping back in time, almost so.
• 20:18
  Jordan Lundskog: I'm really excited about the role that technology can play in, like an AR and a VR perspective.
• 20:24
  Jordan Lundskog: That doesn't require you to be an expert, but I think there will be.
• 20:28
  Jordan Lundskog: Some of these experiences allow us to step into rich environments that can help people get up to speed faster than the years it can take to really get to know some of our ancestors.
• 20:40
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, the possibilities are so exciting and yet it still requires somebody to be willing to step into that space.
• 20:48
  Crista Cowan: And Ancestry has done studies that show that over 50% of Americans can't even name all four of their grandparents.
• 20:55
  Crista Cowan: And so for you that was an emotional experience because you already had a relationship with him.
• 21:00
  Crista Cowan: But when you start to get back further, or when you start to consider there are people who don't know, those people, that kind of changes, I think, a little bit that process of discovery.
• 21:09
  Crista Cowan: So the connection has to be made.
• 21:11
  Crista Cowan: There has to be an emotional connection, I think, before people are willing to go on that journey.
• 21:16
  Crista Cowan: And it's always interesting to me to see what sparks that in different people.
• 21:20
  Crista Cowan: For you it was the loss of your grandfather at 16.
• 21:24
  Crista Cowan: No-transcript to people, but there's something about being in that journey that fosters that connection, and so I love that we get to figure out different ways.
• 22:11
  Crista Cowan: You get to figure out.
• 22:13
  Jordan Lundskog: I think we're figuring out together and, I think, just making it as like human as possible.
• 22:16
  Jordan Lundskog: I think the tree is a really powerful, the pedigree is a really powerful tool as like a map.
• 22:22
  Jordan Lundskog: But it can't be the way that people get to know their family, the dates and the names.
• 22:27
  Jordan Lundskog: Everyone's got it right Everyone's born, everyone dies, marriage happens, but that's not who our people are.
• 22:35
  Jordan Lundskog: So if we can find a way to incorporate just I don't even know the right voice to use but just just talking to them, talking about them as if we knew them or as if they still exist, I think is a really powerful way to just start to connect the dots.
• 22:50
  Jordan Lundskog: Because the dates and the pedigree is what put me to sleep for years, that I just thought, oh, my work's all done, like family trees built back forever.
• 22:58
  Jordan Lundskog: But it's not.
• 22:59
  Jordan Lundskog: There's, there were gaps in my tree that I needed to come to ancestry to kind of like understand and and kind of dig into and get a little bit deeper on.
• 23:08
  Jordan Lundskog: And, like you said, there's these individuals who I didn't even know existed before I came to ancestry and, apart from preserving my grandpa's story, these other ancestors have become my like focal point.
• 23:19
  Jordan Lundskog: How do I learn everything I can about these people, connect the dots and make sure that their legacy lives on, cause there's only two or three people that even knew they existed at this point.
• 23:28
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, so do you have a?
• 23:29
  Crista Cowan: Do you have a favorite, one or two?
• 23:31
  Crista Cowan: Tell us about, tell us about this.
• 23:32
  Jordan Lundskog: So yeah, this has been like a two and a half year journey.
• 23:36
  Jordan Lundskog: So just talking about like the time it takes sometimes to make some of these discoveries, james Knott Polk McGee is my fifth great grandpa.
• 23:43
  Jordan Lundskog: He grew up in Missouri and was a Civil War vet but, being from Missouri, he chose to fight for the Union.
• 23:52
  Jordan Lundskog: This is where it gets interesting, because I had someone reach out on Ancestry from Missouri.
• 23:55
  Jordan Lundskog: He chose to fight for the union this is where it gets interesting because I had someone reach out on Ancestry from Missouri last name McGee.
• 23:59
  Jordan Lundskog: I'd never met before and that's a line that we just don't have a lot of information about.
• 24:03
  Jordan Lundskog: And he said hey, I think we're looking at the same line.
• 24:08
  Jordan Lundskog: I have this photo in this old family Bible that I think might be our fifth great grandmother.
• 24:15
  Jordan Lundskog: Her name was Sophronia America Peake and that's where, like so, fasting back and forth as I've talked with William McGee, this member of Ancestry, we started to piece together some of these items that I couldn't find anywhere else.
• 24:30
  Jordan Lundskog: Census record had limited information, but he found a.
• 24:34
  Jordan Lundskog: He found like a family book it was like Pike's, pike County people, places and something else and he sent me three or four pages that documented who James John McGee was, who he fought for in the civil war.
• 24:49
  Jordan Lundskog: He had three wives because the first two passed away in childbirth at some point.
• 24:54
  Jordan Lundskog: He had three wives because the first two passed away in childbirth at some point.
• 24:55
  Jordan Lundskog: Anyway, just started unlocking all these fascinating things and then my grandma gave me a thumb drive that had a thousand photos on it.
• 25:03
  Jordan Lundskog: I wanted to know who James Snot McGee was A cousin of mine years ago, had the presence of mind to just scan a bunch of shoe boxes all together and get them digitized.
• 25:12
  Jordan Lundskog: And they've been sitting on a thumb drive and last year I found a photo of James not Polk McGee.
• 25:18
  Jordan Lundskog: Now, the reason he really is important to me is he was a dead end for a long time in my tree.
• 25:22
  Jordan Lundskog: Legend has it that he chose to fight for the union and was disowned from his family, had some disagreements, so he changed the spelling of McGee from M-C-G-E-E to M-A-G-E-E, which created some fun challenges and conflicts, as we're like digging back into the tree.
• 25:42
  Jordan Lundskog: But the fact that he had the courage to stand up for what he believed in, even if family didn't, has just had so much impact on me.
• 25:49
  Jordan Lundskog: And the photo I found is him older he's he's standing in front of, uh, he's got his dog in front of him and this dog's got like a top hat on and uh, I I just cannot stop digging in to like learn more about who he was.
• 26:06
  Jordan Lundskog: One other treasure that my grandma had she had a box of a few other things.
• 26:11
  Jordan Lundskog: She had a handwritten note that he wrote to his son, who was living in California at the time, just checking in on him, saying hey, we miss you, hope you're doing well.
• 26:21
  Jordan Lundskog: Here's kind of what's going on with our family.
• 26:23
  Jordan Lundskog: Um, there's like no punctuation at all throughout the whole thing, but it was unreal to see a handwritten note from a civil war, that who had a massive impact on my family.
• 26:35
  Jordan Lundskog: So I made sure to digitize that, transcribe it, gave it back to my grandma, so she has the original document.
• 26:43
  Jordan Lundskog: But just piecing together these different pieces from a family book that someone had the presence of mind to write as a community, having a photo, having a handwritten note, having a handwritten note, just really starts to craft.
• 26:53
  Jordan Lundskog: Like who was James?
• 26:54
  Jordan Lundskog: Not Polk McGee, who lived a long time before I was born, but like he is.
• 27:03
  Jordan Lundskog: He is one of my all-time favorite family tree members, and my kids too, they've latched onto.
• 27:05
  Jordan Lundskog: Hey, remember we had we had that guy who fought in the civil war.
• 27:09
  Jordan Lundskog: They don't know his name yet, but they remember that we've talked about the story and how he, he um had the courage to stand up and go against the grain in a time that, like I was, I was huge.
• 27:20
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, especially in that particular place.
• 27:22
  Jordan Lundskog: Yeah, in that particular place, and so and the other thing, that's funny, like I remember watching, remember the Titans and they talk about um Gettysburg and it was brother against brother and I I kind of just like would always just smirk at that and I never really fully understood that, but in my family tree there very much is that possibility that it could have been brother against brother standing up for what they believed in.
• 27:42
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:43
  Crista Cowan: It's interesting because we talk about history and as kids you know your kids now going through grade school like they're they're learning things that seem so abstract but yet we're so impactful on our country and on the culture that we live in today.
• 27:57
  Crista Cowan: And when you start to finally come to that realization that people you are connected to were intimately involved in those, it becomes something that is part of your DNA.
• 28:15
  Crista Cowan: The Revolutionary War becomes something part of your DNA.
• 28:18
  Crista Cowan: I have two grandfathers who both fought in World War II.
• 28:21
  Crista Cowan: That is not just an abstract thing for me.
• 28:24
  Crista Cowan: As I listened to my grandmother recount the stories that my grandfather shared with her or read the diary that my other grandfather kept during the war, those become very real experiences and I think that matters because all of those things are what helped shape our communities, our country, our world and understanding them at a really personal level and the personal costs and the personal choices that people made that.
• 28:54
  Crista Cowan: I think that that connects us and helps us realize that the choices we make today matter for the future.
• 29:04
  Jordan Lundskog: Yeah, that's deep.
• 29:06
  Crista Cowan: So you have this Missouri McGee connection to the Civil War.
• 29:11
  Crista Cowan: You've talked about your grandfather and your connection to him and the path that that set you on.
• 29:16
  Crista Cowan: Is there one or two more, any other ancestors that stand out that you think?
• 29:20
  Crista Cowan: These are the stories I want to make sure that I tell and continue to tell.
• 29:24
  Jordan Lundskog: On my dad's side, the Lundsgog, which is where I get my Swedish from like 40% Swedish.
• 29:32
  Jordan Lundskog: My second grade grandpa came from Sweden.
• 29:34
  Jordan Lundskog: His son, Gustav, was in Sweden and then he called for him to come when he was 10 years old and came by himself from Sweden and he was supposed to meet a cousin in New York.
• 29:46
  Jordan Lundskog: I don't know how he did that, Like I don't know how he left Sweden not speaking any English, met a cousin in New York and then made his way to Salt Lake City to finally see his dad after a number of years.
• 29:58
  Jordan Lundskog: When he got here, he just locked in and did everything he could to learn the language, work hard, start a family.
• 30:07
  Jordan Lundskog: My dad didn't even know him because he passed, I think, when my dad was just a kid or even younger.
• 30:14
  Jordan Lundskog: Maybe it was before he was even born.
• 30:16
  Jordan Lundskog: I'm trying to remember.
• 30:16
  Jordan Lundskog: But he had the courage to stand up, come here.
• 30:21
  Jordan Lundskog: If he would have said no or would have got lost or anything along the way, my story becomes something completely different.
• 30:28
  Jordan Lundskog: But because he made it all the way to Salt Lake, my story happens.
• 30:34
  Jordan Lundskog: But I don't know enough about my Swedish roots yet, so there's a lot of work still to do there.
• 30:39
  Jordan Lundskog: I don't speak Swedish, which is tricky.
• 30:41
  Jordan Lundskog: But my biggest regret is because my grandpa went back and served a mission in Sweden and met family.
• 30:47
  Jordan Lundskog: I wish I would have dug in and spent a little more time talking to him and understanding language a little bit more.
• 30:52
  Jordan Lundskog: And and who are these people and how is, how's the connecting tissue work with that?
• 30:58
  Jordan Lundskog: He, he would, he would.
• 31:00
  Jordan Lundskog: Sometimes he couldn't stop laughing.
• 31:02
  Jordan Lundskog: But my grandpa would sometimes sing happy birthday in Swedish.
• 31:05
  Jordan Lundskog: He didn't have a lot of Swedish left, he could remember, but he would always just laugh so hard trying to sing happy birthday to you in Swedish.
• 31:13
  Jordan Lundskog: So I think that, just like I can't imagine sending my 10 year old from, like doing the reverse, If I send him from here to Sweden and hope that he meets his cousin or something like that is just wild.
• 31:25
  Jordan Lundskog: And he has a cell phone and there's airplanes and there's airplanes and there's all these other things.
• 31:29
  Crista Cowan: You're still not sending him alone.
• 31:30
  Jordan Lundskog: Yeah, I'm still not going to send him alone.
• 31:31
  Jordan Lundskog: So it was.
• 31:32
  Jordan Lundskog: It was unreal to just see that he was able to do that and like just lock in and focus on life after that.
• 31:41
  Jordan Lundskog: That was I don't know.
• 31:43
  Jordan Lundskog: That one's touched my heart, but I need to learn a little bit more about his, his story and his experience.
• 31:48
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, well, I'm not.
• 31:49
  Crista Cowan: What you've just illustrated really beautifully is this idea that there are little things in our family stories that trigger connection, like this father who sends away for his 10-year-old son to come halfway across the world by himself, and you looking at that as a father and thinking what on earth, but then also just recognizing that that child had to have that courage to come and go through that whole experience as well.
• 32:16
  Crista Cowan: And now you want to know more, probably about both of them.
• 32:20
  Jordan Lundskog: Well, yeah, cause I'm trying to teach my nine and 10 year old how to be resilient, or my 10 year old how to be resilient and how to do hard things, and that I don't need to send them across the world to figure that out, but there are definitely little building blocks that that help them kind of retain.
• 32:33
  Jordan Lundskog: I can only imagine that my, my great grandpa, like anything after that, would have been easy If you think about like anything else he was asked to do in life trying to find a job, learn a language.
• 32:44
  Jordan Lundskog: Any of those other like he made it across the world and made it alive.
• 32:48
  Jordan Lundskog: So just anything was easy after that.
• 32:52
  Crista Cowan: That's amazing.
• 32:52
  Crista Cowan: You bring up a really good point too, which is the resilience that we gain.
• 32:56
  Crista Cowan: It's not just about perspective, it's not just about connection.
• 32:59
  Crista Cowan: There is something to be said for knowing that if they did hard things, we can do hard things too, and for me, that is one of the reasons that I continue to share family stories with my nephews and my niece.
• 33:13
  Crista Cowan: That's the reason I continue to share them, even with my nephews and my niece.
• 33:14
  Crista Cowan: That's the reason I continue to share them even with my siblings, wherever they are in their stage in life, because something about knowing that that is in us is so empowering, and so I love that you have that perspective as well.
• 33:26
  Crista Cowan: Well, I think I love this arc of family history experience that you've had and the journey that these individual stories have taken you on, as you think kind of collectively and you've touched on it a little bit but as you think collectively, about your family history experience and how you're trying to transmit it to your children.
• 33:45
  Crista Cowan: What is your hope for the future for?
• 33:47
  Jordan Lundskog: them.
• 33:49
  Jordan Lundskog: They recognize who they are and the sacrifices that people made, and that they'll make choices that make themselves proud and make their family, who's living, and the ancestors proud of the legacy that they're defining.
• 34:06
  Jordan Lundskog: And I hope that when they're going through something hard, they'll remember that they've had a lot of other people who made it through hard things, that they're cheering them on, pushing them on, and I hope they'll always be curious, just like ask the questions, try to understand more about who they are, where they came from and who they can become.
• 34:26
  Crista Cowan: Well, your curiosity, I'm sure, will spark some of that and certainly it is a blessing a whole lot of Ancestry customers.
• 34:33
  Crista Cowan: So thank you for sharing your story and for being here.
• 34:36
  Crista Cowan: Appreciate it.
• 34:37
  Jordan Lundskog: Thank you.