Latest / Stories That Live In Us / From Utah to Iceland: Passing Living Heritage to the Next Generation with Eric Allen | Episode 128

Transcript

From Utah to Iceland: Passing Living Heritage to the Next Generation with Eric Allen | Episode 128 · Stories That Live In Us

0:00
Crista Cowan: Imagine taking your kids from a small pioneer cemetery in Spanish Fork, Utah, straight to the volcanic edge of Iceland and watching them move from politely humoring dad's need to share family history stories to reaching out and touching that history with their own hands.
0:18
Crista Cowan: That's exactly what happened to today's guest.
0:21
Crista Cowan: Eric Allen and I talk about how sharing family stories create deeply grounded, resilient kids.
0:28
Crista Cowan: We talk about the delicious heritage traditions that might be hiding in our kitchens.
0:33
Crista Cowan: And there's a coincidence that is a little mind-blowing.
0:35
Crista Cowan: You're gonna have to hear it to believe it.
0:37
Crista Cowan: Enjoy my conversation with Eric Allen.
0:39
Crista Cowan: Hi, I'm Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family.
0:48
Crista Cowan: Welcome to Stories That Live In Us.
0:51
Crista Cowan: Eric, welcome back.
0:56
Crista Cowan: Glad to be here.
0:58
Crista Cowan: Um, what did we talk about last time?
1:01
Eric Allen: Last time, primarily old photos.
1:04
Eric Allen: Oh, that's right.
1:05
Eric Allen: Digitizing photos and how I've done that.
1:08
Eric Allen: Um yeah.
1:10
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
1:10
Crista Cowan: Well, this time I want to talk about Iceland.
1:13
Eric Allen: One of my favorite subjects, honestly.
1:15
Crista Cowan: You're planning a trip to Iceland right now.
1:17
Crista Cowan: Another one.
1:18
Eric Allen: Another one.
1:18
Eric Allen: I have a problem.
1:19
Eric Allen: Uh yeah, I I took my family there two years ago, and it was wonderful.
1:25
Eric Allen: Took my kids around, had a great time, and and the whole time all I could think was I gotta get back here again.
1:31
Eric Allen: Okay.
1:31
Eric Allen: You know, we we had a wonderful time, but it was like immediately like Iceland pulls you back.
1:35
Eric Allen: You know, there's something unique about that place.
1:37
Eric Allen: I genuinely believe.
1:39
Eric Allen: So yeah, I'm planning another trip if I can without the kids.
1:42
Crista Cowan: Okay.
1:42
Crista Cowan: Well, good.
1:43
Crista Cowan: We'll talk more about the trip with the kids, but tell me, like, did you grow up knowing you had Icelandic roots, or was this a discovery later?
1:49
Eric Allen: So my grandfather was very proud of the fact that he was half Icelandic, but I don't think I ever understood that until uh his 70th birthday.
2:00
Eric Allen: The family got him a trip to Iceland.
2:02
Eric Allen: And uh I knew he'd always dreamed of going.
2:06
Eric Allen: And so, yeah, so I that would have been 1999, and I, you know, I was a teenager, and so I, you know, I I I understood that he was going to do that, and that was really special for him, but didn't really take Icelandic on as an identity in any way at that point.
2:22
Eric Allen: But I was just, you know, happy for him.
2:24
Eric Allen: And so then, yeah, more into adulthood, uh, got really proud of the fact that we were Icelandic, studied it more, did more of my family history around it.
2:33
Eric Allen: And and so that brought out more of that, like, hey, I want to explore this, I want to understand this.
2:38
Eric Allen: And then uh in two in 2023, my parents were called on an LDS mission to Iceland.
2:45
Eric Allen: And so then that sort of pulled us in a little bit more, and you know, then I was like, Yeah, we're going, you know, and taking the all of the kids.
2:54
Crista Cowan: So I love that.
2:54
Crista Cowan: So just for context, um, for people who've seen your episode from season one, is the Icelandic grandfather the same one that was the historian?
3:02
Eric Allen: It actually is the same grandfather.
3:03
Eric Allen: Yeah, he I mean, he yeah, he was a man of many talents.
3:06
Eric Allen: I mean, in addition to he was uh he was this chief design engineer on the Philadelphia Mint, and he was he worked on Saturn V for NASA.
3:15
Eric Allen: So yeah, he was an impressive person.
3:17
Eric Allen: But yeah, he was he was the Icelandic one as well.
3:20
Crista Cowan: And when you say he's half Icelandic, was one of his parents from Iceland, or they just had Icelandic parents?
3:25
Eric Allen: So his mother was born in Spanish Fork, Utah.
3:30
Crista Cowan: As you are when you're Icelandic.
3:32
Eric Allen: Exactly.
3:32
Eric Allen: And uh her parents immigrated to Spanish Fork about eight years before she was born.
3:39
Crista Cowan: And what year was that?
3:40
Eric Allen: Uh they immigrated in 1892.
3:42
Eric Allen: Okay.
3:42
Eric Allen: And she was born in 1900.
3:44
Crista Cowan: Which is a little late when people think about Mormon pioneers.
3:46
Crista Cowan: Right.
3:47
Crista Cowan: Right?
3:47
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
3:47
Crista Cowan: So talk to me about why they came to Spanish Fork.
3:50
Eric Allen: Yeah, so um my great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather, Jakob Björnson was his name, was from the south coast of Iceland.
3:59
Eric Allen: Okay.
3:59
Eric Allen: And um, and then his wife was from, you know, maybe another five miles from where he was from.
4:06
Crista Cowan: For people, for people who don't understand Icelandic geography, how big is Iceland?
4:10
Eric Allen: Not very big, okay.
4:11
Eric Allen: Surprisingly.
4:11
Eric Allen: So, yeah, I mean, it's a country of 350,000 people.
4:15
Eric Allen: You can there's a there's an epic trip you can do.
4:18
Eric Allen: This is the one I'm planning where you drive around the entire country and they call it the Ring Road Trip, which is 800 miles all the way around, right?
4:24
Crista Cowan: And sometimes I drive that in a weekend.
4:26
Eric Allen: Yeah, exactly.
4:27
Eric Allen: Uh, and so, you know, and and and you'll do that in 10 days because there's so many stops to see.
4:31
Eric Allen: So it's not a very big country.
4:33
Eric Allen: Like the the capital, Reykjavik, like he was from about two hours from there, but on the south coast.
4:39
Eric Allen: Okay.
4:39
Eric Allen: He was raised uh poor, it looks like.
4:42
Eric Allen: And and the records say that he, as a child, was living with another family in Iceland.
4:46
Eric Allen: And I've since learned that meant that, you know, his family was not wealthy and would have to have children stay with different at different places where people would sign up to take care of children.
4:58
Eric Allen: And so he would live there, work on a farm there, go to school while they were helping him out while the parents were not far, you know, miles away, not like hours away.
5:07
Eric Allen: Um, and so I don't know the interaction with them.
5:10
Eric Allen: I actually don't know much about his life in Iceland, other than what I found in like church records and things that are sort of moments in time.
5:18
Eric Allen: So he's raised, it looks like as a worker and moved from the south coast of Iceland out to this island off the south coast called the Westman Island.
5:27
Crista Cowan: Okay.
5:28
Eric Allen: Yeah, and I don't speak Icelandic, but in Icelandic, something Vestama Vesteman are or something like that.
5:33
Eric Allen: So the Westman Island is what it's called in English.
5:35
Eric Allen: And again, don't know the circumstances that got him out there, but in 1890, he's living out there.
5:41
Crista Cowan: And is he already married at this point?
5:43
Eric Allen: Uh no, in fact, he didn't get married until he came to America.
5:45
Eric Allen: Oh.
5:46
Eric Allen: But they had a child together over there.
5:47
Eric Allen: Okay.
5:48
Eric Allen: And then the three of them are the ones that that immigrated.
5:50
Eric Allen: So he's living on this island in 1890.
5:53
Eric Allen: I can see him, and he's living in this place called Jan's Hoos or John's House.
5:59
Crista Cowan: It's really original.
6:00
Eric Allen: Yeah, right.
6:01
Eric Allen: And uh and then in 1892, he moves to America.
6:05
Eric Allen: So research, you know, me going there uh and just learning about it, this place, the Westman Islands, is sort of a place where there was a centralization of early Mormon missionaries, and they baptized a lot of people on that island in a place they call Mormon Pond, which uh is actually this incredible location.
6:28
Eric Allen: It's you're you know, it's just off the off the island, and it's basically a hole in volcanic rock that water has spilled over from the ocean that just has created this this you know little pond.
6:41
Eric Allen: And they call that Mormon Pond because that's where they were all baptized.
6:44
Eric Allen: And uh, so a bunch of folks got baptized there and then moved to America.
6:49
Eric Allen: Ironically, my ancestors were never baptized, and they were never actually, you know, LDS at any point in their life.
6:57
Eric Allen: I think he just saw everyone else move from this island there to Spanish Fork and was like, I guess I'll follow along, you know?
7:04
Eric Allen: And so yeah, he brought his family over in 1892 as his wife and one daughter at that point, and they settled in Spanish Fork and then raised their family there.
7:11
Crista Cowan: And so and did the whole island settle in Spanish Fork?
7:15
Eric Allen: It wasn't it wasn't the whole island.
7:17
Eric Allen: Uh there were some people left over, but I think it was in the hundred, I think it was like 350 people.
7:21
Eric Allen: But they all came to Spanish Fork.
7:22
Eric Allen: All Spanish Fork, yeah.
7:23
Eric Allen: So there's like a Spanish Fork, a very like Icelandic area of Spanish Fork, and they still have Iceland days down there.
7:30
Eric Allen: And um, and they actually there is a there was a monument built in Spanish Fork to the early f settlers from Iceland.
7:38
Eric Allen: And so you can go there and there's like a lighthouse, and then there are names of all of the people who immigrated from Iceland to Spanish Fork, and my ancestors are on there.
7:48
Eric Allen: And uh they built the exact same monument right near Mormon Pond on this island in Iceland with the exact same names on it.
7:59
Eric Allen: So when we went out in 2024, went with all my siblings, their kids.
8:04
Eric Allen: We had a group, I think there were 25 of us.
8:07
Crista Cowan: How many siblings do you have?
8:08
Eric Allen: I have five siblings.
8:10
Crista Cowan: And how many grandkids went?
8:12
Eric Allen: I I I think there are um now I think there are 18 grandkids.
8:16
Eric Allen: My mom will kill me.
8:17
Eric Allen: I probably got that wrong.
8:18
Eric Allen: Um, but but I think uh at the time there were fewer.
8:22
Eric Allen: We've had a few births since.
8:24
Eric Allen: And um, yeah, so it's me, I think there were 25 of us that were there with my parents, and we took a picture and you know, did the whole family thing uh at that exact spot.
8:33
Crista Cowan: Have you recreated that photo in Spanish Fork?
8:35
Eric Allen: We did it before we went.
8:36
Eric Allen: You dare.
8:36
Eric Allen: Yeah.
8:37
Eric Allen: So I took I took my kids down because I wanted my kids to really connect with high school.
8:40
Eric Allen: That was important to me as well, because I didn't have that growing up.
8:44
Eric Allen: Um, not that I I missed it, but like now that I have it as an adult and I, you know, do the family history, it was just felt like I wanted to show them that.
8:50
Eric Allen: So we went down to Spanish Fork Cemetery, where my Icelandic ancestors are buried.
8:55
Eric Allen: We showed them, you know, the the plots, we showed them their grave sites, and then we went and took photos at uh at that that monument before we ever went to Iceland.
9:04
Eric Allen: So then they could come full circle and like have that experience across both of those.
9:09
Crista Cowan: How old were your kids when you took this trip?
9:11
Eric Allen: Um, my oldest daughter was um, let's see, she would have been 16.
9:17
Crista Cowan: Okay.
9:18
Eric Allen: And my second daughter, 14.
9:20
Eric Allen: And then my I have twin sons, they would have been uh 10.
9:24
Crista Cowan: Okay.
9:24
Crista Cowan: And so as you're preparing for this trip, like what are you sharing with them other than the trip to Spanish Fork and walking through a cemetery?
9:32
Crista Cowan: And how are they reacting to that?
9:34
Eric Allen: I was sharing as much stories as I had, as much information that I had, which wasn't like a lot, to be honest.
9:40
Eric Allen: Um, and and more like trying to set the stage of like, imagine, you know, your family lived in this place and they left with nothing, you know.
9:50
Eric Allen: And so, really just trying to help them understand that, like, and I think this is important.
9:54
Eric Allen: I try to do this with my kids, like, understand that like these hardships people went through made it so your life is pretty, pretty good.
10:00
Eric Allen: Um, and so really like those were the conversations we were having.
10:03
Eric Allen: Something like, you know, I don't know the circumstances, but there was famine in Iceland, they were suffering.
10:08
Eric Allen: When you go to Iceland, everyone will have the same reaction, which is like, why would anyone leave this place?
10:12
Eric Allen: Because it's just gorgeous.
10:14
Eric Allen: But the reality is they had to leave, you know.
10:16
Eric Allen: I don't think they had a choice, and they're just no one was thriving in Iceland back in the 1800s.
10:22
Eric Allen: You were surviving, and they're a tough resilient culture.
10:25
Eric Allen: Um, but you know, for whatever reason, just the hardships of that justified uh a trip all the way across the ocean and then it's settling in an entirely new country.
10:36
Crista Cowan: Um, so you took your kids to Spanish Fork, went to the cemetery, saw this monument.
10:41
Crista Cowan: Um, and then what was the plan?
10:43
Crista Cowan: Like your whole family's in Iceland.
10:45
Crista Cowan: Were there like family history-specific activities planned, or were you just there to see the country?
10:50
Eric Allen: Yeah, a a bit of both, a bit of all of it.
10:53
Eric Allen: I uh each of my siblings sort of uh we we took an assignment as we were going, which was like, hey, we you know, we're gonna be there for eight days or whatever.
11:01
Eric Allen: You have to plan a day.
11:02
Eric Allen: And it naturally I was assigned the family history day.
11:05
Eric Allen: And so I spent a lot of time researching who the family was, where what where they were living, where their farms were.
11:12
Eric Allen: And and so as Family History Day planning went on, I was looking for the different destinations where we would stop.
11:19
Eric Allen: And as a part of that, I knew that he was on the Westman Islands.
11:23
Eric Allen: Um, and so I was like, well, we'll we'll go see the family farm down here, we'll see her family farm, and then we'll go down and check out, you know, this area where he was from.
11:31
Crista Cowan: Is there a bridge?
11:32
Crista Cowan: Did you have to take a ferry?
11:33
Eric Allen: It's a ferry.
11:33
Eric Allen: Yeah, it's about a 45-minute ferry out to this island.
11:36
Eric Allen: It's very, I mean, it's very um, yeah, it's pretty small.
11:39
Eric Allen: Like the island itself is is really not big at all.
11:42
Eric Allen: And uh, and so yeah, you you you you ride a ferry out there.
11:45
Eric Allen: I knew the monument was there because they mentioned that, you know, in in Spanish Fork.
11:50
Eric Allen: And so we knew we were gonna go see that monument and see their names there, and so that's where I wanted to get that sort of full circle.
11:55
Crista Cowan: So, so I love that.
11:56
Crista Cowan: Were all your siblings and kids into this, or was it like we're humoring Eric?
12:01
Eric Allen: Um, uh my siblings were into it.
12:03
Eric Allen: I think a lot of the kids were humoring us, you know, and they were like, hey, we're going along for the ride.
12:07
Eric Allen: We'll see it.
12:07
Eric Allen: We we promised them puffins because there's that's that's a puffin area of Iceland.
12:12
Eric Allen: And so they they were totally game to go do do all of that.
12:15
Crista Cowan: So and so you get to this island, any any discoveries there?
12:18
Crista Cowan: Like anything that you hadn't planned for?
12:20
Eric Allen: Yeah, I mean we didn't know Mormon Pond ex at least I didn't know Mormon Pond existed.
12:23
Eric Allen: And so that it was called that?
12:24
Eric Allen: Yeah, and that it was called that when we get out there.
12:27
Eric Allen: Um yeah, no, and then and then um, you know, it was just it was just a cool place.
12:31
Eric Allen: We didn't have any other necess oh, actually there is one.
12:35
Eric Allen: Yeah.
12:36
Eric Allen: And I actually uh I didn't know about this before, and now I kick myself, I'll have to do it next time.
12:41
Eric Allen: There's an entire museum on this island dedicated to these folks.
12:45
Eric Allen: And my dad had sent has has since sent me a photo of our ancestor who's on that wall, a photo of him in that museum.
12:53
Eric Allen: So we'll have to get back there and see that section there.
12:56
Eric Allen: There was a famous uh volcano that went off in the 70s on that island, and so it burned a lot of what was around probably when my ancestors were there.
13:06
Eric Allen: Um, and so I don't know how much I could see the original places today, but uh, but still the you know, the the vibe of the whole thing was definitely real.
13:15
Crista Cowan: I love that.
13:16
Crista Cowan: Is there anybody left on the islands that is connected to or still related to people in Spanish Fork?
13:21
Eric Allen: Yeah, and I don't know the answer to that, honestly.
13:24
Eric Allen: And I and I I have since spent some time, not a lot of time, researching the siblings of my second great grandparents who left and learned, you know, that that many of them lived until the 1950s, you know, 1960s.
13:39
Eric Allen: And I haven't found family that's living there yet, but they're there.
13:42
Eric Allen: And you know, through time of of me doing more research, I'm sure I'll find some real family communities.
13:47
Crista Cowan: And Iceland has a really unique genealogy thing.
13:50
Eric Allen: They do, yeah.
13:51
Eric Allen: They have uh they've basically mapped their entire history.
13:55
Eric Allen: Uh I I again I'm gonna butcher Icelandic, but it's something like Iceland book, you know, the Iceland book.
14:01
Eric Allen: And it's for any Iceland, Icelandic citizen, they can find themselves on this in this book, basically a website now, and it will map their entire genealogy for them.
14:10
Eric Allen: That work's all been done.
14:12
Eric Allen: And the the reason I'm told, I don't know if this is a rumor, that they did that was because you know, when you start dating someone in Iceland, a country of 350,000 people for a thousand years, you're probably you're you're definitely related.
14:24
Eric Allen: Yes.
14:25
Eric Allen: The question is how closely related you are.
14:26
Eric Allen: So people would say, like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna check before we get too far along in our relationship, you know, how close we are.
14:32
Eric Allen: And um, and so yeah, you you know, you can do that.
14:36
Eric Allen: I as a not as an American citizen don't have access to that.
14:39
Eric Allen: But um would you know an Icelandic person will be able to do that and then find how I'm related to them.
14:45
Crista Cowan: So anybody who has roots in Iceland, if they just connect with somebody in Iceland, yeah, can gain access.
14:51
Eric Allen: They've got their history.
14:52
Crista Cowan: That's amazing.
14:53
Eric Allen: I don't know that they have the stories.
14:54
Eric Allen: I don't know that they have all of that filled in, but like the names and dates are done for everyone.
15:00
Eric Allen: That's crazy.
15:01
Eric Allen: Yeah, lucky, right?
15:03
Crista Cowan: We wish, right?
15:04
Crista Cowan: Because because, and I love that you brought that up because it's real, it really is the stories, right?
15:09
Crista Cowan: Here at Ancestry, we talk a lot about like filling in your family tree.
15:13
Crista Cowan: And I think there's a lot of people who do that, and then they're like, now what?
15:16
Eric Allen: Right.
15:16
Eric Allen: Oh, I'm done.
15:16
Eric Allen: Yeah, you don't, you're not done.
15:18
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
15:18
Crista Cowan: So as you think about that with your own family history, like you're going back to Iceland.
15:23
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
15:23
Crista Cowan: What like are there I know you're going with friends and it's a an opportunity to explore the country, you know, for as a tourist.
15:30
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
15:31
Crista Cowan: But are there is there gonna be another family history day?
15:33
Eric Allen: I will definitely hit spots.
15:35
Eric Allen: Okay.
15:35
Eric Allen: Um, you know, and and this time, I it sounds like, you know, I don't know for sure yet, uh, I'll be going with my first cousin, okay, who's also, you know, from that same grandfather.
15:46
Eric Allen: Uh as I'm planning the trip, we're close, and and I was telling him about it, and he was like, Yeah, I gotta go.
15:50
Eric Allen: And so for him, as you know, even as we're planning days with friends, he's like, Hey, can you and I peel off one of the days and go see some of these spots?
15:57
Eric Allen: Like, I'm not gonna go to Iceland without visiting these locations um where our ancestors are from.
16:02
Eric Allen: So for sure, we would do that.
16:04
Eric Allen: Um, in terms of like what else I could find, I would definitely spend some time and we'll spend some time.
16:09
Eric Allen: You know, I'd love to find a relative, you know, and maybe they have more stories.
16:12
Eric Allen: I think, you know, to that point about stories, like as I discover facts, you know, trivia, like born, lived, died, all I want to do is uncover context and stories about these people.
16:25
Eric Allen: And and frankly, I don't know that much.
16:27
Eric Allen: I know more about their life here uh when they got to Spanish Fork, which was which was tough, you know, it sounds like in many ways.
16:34
Eric Allen: And, you know, my my second great grandfather, I'm told, felt a little bit like an outsider because one, he was uh Icelandic in Spanish Fork, and two, he was not LDS in Spanish Fork.
16:44
Eric Allen: And so, you know, like I I I'm I think they had a wonderful life, and you know, his kids all stayed here and and stayed there.
16:51
Eric Allen: And uh, but I but you know, I mean, I I don't think it was without challenges.
16:55
Eric Allen: And and uh I think he was a sheep farmer in Iceland, and when he was here, he worked for the railroad.
17:02
Crista Cowan: So yeah, what kind of what kind of life did he build for himself here?
17:05
Eric Allen: Yeah, I mean, I did they built a home here, I knew that they had uh five or six children, I'd have to look for sure.
17:12
Eric Allen: I think it was five children.
17:13
Eric Allen: They were raised in Spanish Fork.
17:15
Eric Allen: My great-grandmother uh became a school teacher and met my great-grandfather in Salt Lake City, and then they got married.
17:22
Eric Allen: Um yeah, and it but but but Jacob and his wife Gudrun, they spent their entire time in Spanish Fork uh and until they passed away.
17:32
Crista Cowan: So in my family, I have a great-grandmother who was born in Dallas, Texas.
17:37
Crista Cowan: Okay, spoke German as her first language.
17:40
Crista Cowan: Obviously, too into Dallas Texas.
17:42
Crista Cowan: No, her parents were both German immigrants, and they lived in a German community and they went to a German Lutheran church, and they she started school in a German school that was connected to the church.
17:52
Crista Cowan: Like she did not speak English until she was, you know, like in upper grade school.
17:56
Eric Allen: Yeah.
17:56
Crista Cowan: Um, and that that was always so funny to me because I knew her, she had this German accent like to the day she died.
18:02
Crista Cowan: Right.
18:03
Crista Cowan: And yet her younger sister, who was significantly younger than her, spoke with the biggest Texas twang you've ever heard, right?
18:08
Crista Cowan: That's fantastic.
18:09
Crista Cowan: So fantastic.
18:10
Crista Cowan: Um, but I think about that when you have these insular communities of people, yeah.
18:15
Crista Cowan: I suspect your great-great-grandparents probably never learned to speak English.
18:19
Eric Allen: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like my my grandfather said they they spoke words.
18:22
Eric Allen: Okay.
18:22
Eric Allen: You know, they knew English words, but I don't think they spoke very much.
18:26
Eric Allen: Because they didn't need to.
18:27
Eric Allen: Yeah, they didn't need to.
18:28
Eric Allen: And to their children, they only spoke Icelandic.
18:30
Eric Allen: And so my great-grandmother knew Icelandic and you know could have conversations with them.
18:33
Crista Cowan: But but beyond that, yeah, I don't think they were and then at what point do people decide not to pass that on, right?
18:39
Crista Cowan: Like she meets somebody and marries somebody that's not Icelandic, and now those traditions are getting lost.
18:46
Crista Cowan: But are there any Icelandic traditions, foods, celebrations, anything that you recognize now that's been passed down?
18:53
Eric Allen: Yes, absolutely.
18:54
Eric Allen: Um one of my favorites is uh something I grew up with from my grandfather, and it's called roller wrappers.
19:03
Eric Allen: Now I'm sure there's an Icelandic word for this, but for us, all all it was was uh they were long, thin pancakes and butter spread across the top with cinnamon sugar and then rolled into like a crepe.
19:18
Eric Allen: Like a like a like a cigar, like size.
19:21
Eric Allen: But it was but it was but they were pancake texture, they weren't thin like crepes, they weren't eggy like that.
19:27
Eric Allen: And so like we would, yeah, we would have these, we would have our pancakes, and then we'd always get a roller upper at the end.
19:32
Eric Allen: And so yeah, that was that and come to find out since my parents had been there and lived there, that that is an Icelandic thing that they do, you know.
19:39
Eric Allen: The I guess the other one I would say is on um we we definitely did this on Christmas Eve, the Icelandic tradition is to give a book to people, and then people sit around and just read books.
19:51
Crista Cowan: That sounds cool.
19:52
Eric Allen: Yeah, on Christmas Eve together.
19:53
Eric Allen: Yeah, it does.
19:55
Crista Cowan: I think but also probably because it's cold.
19:57
Eric Allen: Yeah, I would assume you're not going out, you know, on Christmas Eve in Iceland.
20:01
Crista Cowan: Well, I love that you didn't grow up identifying as Icelandic, but if anybody looks at you, right, your height, your coloring, like you are very Icelandic, right?
20:09
Eric Allen: Right.
20:09
Eric Allen: I am I'm I'm 40% Scandinavian, um, a combo of Sweden and Iceland.
20:15
Crista Cowan: So love our ancestry DNA.
20:17
Eric Allen: Yeah, absolutely.
20:18
Eric Allen: Yeah, I know that.
20:19
Eric Allen: The other, the other half, you know, 50 to 55% is uh is from England.
20:23
Crista Cowan: There you go.
20:24
Crista Cowan: Well, you made a fun discovery about this part of your family tree as it relates to somebody here in the office.
20:30
Crista Cowan: And I love this story.
20:32
Eric Allen: Yeah, it's uh it's fun.
20:34
Eric Allen: So I uh I I'd have to guess it was eight years ago now, hired someone on my team um as a as a young uh web developer.
20:43
Eric Allen: And I never clocked it that his last name was Gessleson.
20:49
Eric Allen: Uh, but I guess now looking back, I I should have really understood that uh that is a very Icelandic sounding name.
20:57
Eric Allen: So uh through course of conversation and telling him I was visiting Iceland, he was like, Oh, hey, we should talk about Iceland because my family has a ton of connection to Iceland.
21:06
Eric Allen: And uh, and so then he was telling me about it.
21:08
Eric Allen: His uh his grandfather was uh one of the first to open up the new LDS mission in the 1970s, I believe.
21:18
Crista Cowan: Okay.
21:19
Eric Allen: And he did that with Andy's Andy on my team, Andy Gessleson, his father and his father's twin brother.
21:26
Eric Allen: And and so he was telling me this story and and and about how they had gone there and then they you know they worked there and how you know he hadn't been back, but but he had this like deep connection, and then his going back one generation, his great grandfather, his name I believe was Gesley Geslissen, right?
21:46
Eric Allen: Which is super common with the patronymic naming over there.
21:49
Eric Allen: Um, like I have Bjorn Björnsons in there, Amy, so that's a thing.
21:52
Eric Allen: Uh so he had this Geslie Geslissen, and I was like, Oh, well, let's look and see if we're related to each other in any way.
21:58
Eric Allen: Uh turns out You know, Andy and I don't share enough DNA to be related, but his father and my grandfather do.
22:06
Crista Cowan: Oh, okay.
22:06
Eric Allen: So they are related to each other.
22:08
Eric Allen: And I and I haven't figured out exactly where I just again need to connect to the Iceland book, and I and I'm sure I could.
22:14
Eric Allen: But I did some research and I was trying to say, like, okay, so you know, I said, Do you have family on this plaque?
22:18
Eric Allen: And he was like, Yeah, you know, Gesley Gasluson is on there.
22:21
Eric Allen: And so then just doing research, uh I found that Gesley Geslissen left Iceland in 1885 after living in Jonsus on Westmont Islands.
22:37
Crista Cowan: The same house.
22:38
Eric Allen: The exact same house that my second great grandfather lived in before he moved here.
22:43
Eric Allen: I have not connected that they knew each other directly yet.
22:47
Crista Cowan: Like their time there didn't overlap.
22:48
Eric Allen: Yeah, because I I I I don't know exactly when my second great grandfather moved to that house, but he was living there in 1890, which was five years later.
22:56
Eric Allen: Yeah.
22:57
Eric Allen: And and uh and so, but but certainly they knew of each other.
23:01
Eric Allen: Like he had to have known, you know, of the people who left there and went to Spanish Fork.
23:05
Crista Cowan: That's what Well, and then they both ended up there.
23:07
Eric Allen: And they both ended up in Spanish Fork.
23:08
Eric Allen: Andy and I have since done some research on where they lived, about um a half a mile from each other.
23:13
Eric Allen: And in the census, I want to say it was the 1910 census, both of them were listed as uh working for the railroad.
23:22
Crista Cowan: Okay.
23:23
Eric Allen: So I, you know, Andy, as Andy and I have connected on this, we're like, yeah, they knew each other, our families knew each other.
23:28
Eric Allen: And so it's just amazing how it comes full circle like that.
23:30
Eric Allen: I never put it together.
23:31
Eric Allen: I'd worked with them for, you know, six years before I ever connected it.
23:35
Eric Allen: But turns out, you know, we we followed a similar path, and our ancestors certainly did and may have even, you know, known each other and worked together.
23:43
Crista Cowan: Oh my gosh, I love it.
23:44
Crista Cowan: And that, like when we talk about the stories that we want, it's not just the stories of our ancestors and their lives.
23:50
Crista Cowan: I love that concept of the way our ancestors' lives intersected with the lives of the people we're living and working in, you know, moving in the world around today.
23:59
Eric Allen: Yeah, absolutely.
24:00
Eric Allen: I totally feel that.
24:01
Eric Allen: I really enjoy those parts of our stories where, you know, they help us connect more to people who are around us today.
24:07
Eric Allen: And certainly Andy and I have a deeper connection today and a friendship, you know, just because we both can relate to, you know, some of what that was like.
24:15
Crista Cowan: So love that.
24:16
Crista Cowan: That's such a fun serendipitous moment.
24:18
Crista Cowan: Well, as you think about like kind of back to your trip with your kids, um, do they still do they ever talk about it?
24:24
Crista Cowan: Do they feel more connected now to their family history?
24:27
Eric Allen: They definitely do.
24:28
Eric Allen: To my kids, that was, you know, that was a trip of a lifetime.
24:31
Eric Allen: They really enjoyed it and I appreciate that.
24:32
Eric Allen: I have one son who, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to tip the scales, but I suspect could could carry the family historian Gene, um, who often identifies with the Icelandic.
24:43
Eric Allen: You know, he said, Oh, yeah, I remember we saw the farm.
24:45
Eric Allen: My Icelandic ancestors, my Icelandic ancestors.
24:48
Eric Allen: When we were over there, we visited a museum right near the family farm.
24:52
Eric Allen: And there was a there was a boat, a ship in the museum.
24:55
Eric Allen: And he reached over to my wife and he said, I want you to take a picture of me touching the boat that would have been one of the, you know, the uh from the place our ancestors were from.
25:05
Eric Allen: And so, yeah, he has a real affinity toward it.
25:07
Eric Allen: And my kids have, yeah, they've they've carried that and are proud now more than I was when I was that age, because I just didn't know to have part of their heritage be Icelandic.
25:16
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
25:16
Crista Cowan: So well, and that's part of why we do what we do, right?
25:18
Crista Cowan: Like we grow up sometimes a little bit in oblivion to the world that came before us, and now we can share those stories and those experiences with our kids.
25:28
Eric Allen: Yeah, absolutely.
25:28
Crista Cowan: That's a lot of what I'm in it for.
25:30
Crista Cowan: Love it.
25:30
Crista Cowan: Well, uh, we have a new segment on the show called One Word, One Story.
25:35
Crista Cowan: It's like a little word association game.
25:41
Eric Allen: Okay.
25:42
Crista Cowan: We're just gonna share the first thing that first memory.
25:44
Crista Cowan: Like it can be a family history story, it can be something from your life.
25:47
Crista Cowan: Just first memory that comes to your mind.
25:50
Eric Allen: The word Iceland's not in there.
25:51
Eric Allen: We've covered it.
25:51
Eric Allen: I don't know.
25:56
Crista Cowan: The word is cake.
25:57
Crista Cowan: The word is cake.
26:00
Eric Allen: I assume you're laughing because we we have a cake stories.
26:03
Eric Allen: We have cake stories at work, actually.
26:06
Eric Allen: Uh we uh there I have baggage with cake at work.
26:09
Eric Allen: People know me as the cake guy now, honestly.
26:11
Eric Allen: How how it's kismet.
26:13
Eric Allen: Um uh we had a member of the team just you know, to sort of keep people together during COVID era, started posting just quizzes and fun games on our internal uh team page.
26:24
Eric Allen: And one of the things was here are nine items you have to get rid of one of these items.
26:29
Eric Allen: And it was like ice cream, hamburger, french fries, uh cookies, you know, I can't remember all of them, but one of them was cake.
26:38
Eric Allen: And a lot of people on the team were choosing cake, and they were like, I would just get rid of cake.
26:42
Eric Allen: I don't like cake.
26:43
Eric Allen: And I and I really came to the defense of cake, like, what's going on, people?
26:47
Eric Allen: How are you killing cake?
26:49
Eric Allen: Like, you know, why are why are we choosing French fries over cake?
26:52
Eric Allen: Like, what's happening?
26:53
Eric Allen: And so then it became just this huge debate for weeks about like, well, if you had the right cake, does cheesecake count as cake?
26:59
Eric Allen: Like, you know, and then I I uh I said some of the best cake I've ever had is famously called the Cruise Cake because Tom Cruise buys this cake from a bakery in LA and sends it out to his entire Christmas list.
27:11
Eric Allen: So it became a thing that we were gonna have a cake party at my house, and we did.
27:15
Eric Allen: We had the whole team over.
27:16
Eric Allen: I got Tom Cruise cake, a couple of those, so that we could we could eat them, and and then I try to convince the team that like this shouldn't kill cake.
27:24
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
27:25
Crista Cowan: Well, I will say I was at that cake party.
27:27
Crista Cowan: I was one of the people who chose to get rid of cake.
27:30
Crista Cowan: Okay, see.
27:30
Crista Cowan: Um, and the that cake almost won me over.
27:34
Crista Cowan: Okay, I will say that.
27:35
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
27:36
Crista Cowan: Um, yeah, so my cake memories actually have to do with birthdays growing up.
27:40
Crista Cowan: I am not a huge cake fan.
27:41
Crista Cowan: Yeah, obviously.
27:42
Crista Cowan: And so it's just a thing.
27:44
Crista Cowan: I don't know.
27:45
Crista Cowan: But uh, so whenever anybody asks me what I want for my birthday, yeah, like it was always rice crispy treats or brownies.
27:53
Eric Allen: Okay.
27:54
Crista Cowan: And now, like now my go-to for my birthday instead of cake is brownies and ice cream.
27:59
Eric Allen: Is is are brownies cake?
28:01
Crista Cowan: I've no brownies are not cake.
28:03
Eric Allen: They're not cake, okay.
28:05
Crista Cowan: You can make it cake like brownies, but I don't like those.
28:09
Crista Cowan: I like my brownies fudgy.
28:10
Crista Cowan: Okay.
28:10
Crista Cowan: So anyway, there you go.
28:12
Crista Cowan: Not cake.
28:12
Crista Cowan: Fun word.
28:13
Crista Cowan: Okay.
28:13
Crista Cowan: Well, if you've got a story about cake, we would love to have you share it in the comments if you're watching here on YouTube.
28:20
Crista Cowan: If you're listening on your podcast app, just write a story about cake, share a photo, put it on your Instagram or your Facebook, tag us, let us know.
28:29
Crista Cowan: I would love to read your one word, one story.
28:32
Crista Cowan: Well, Eric, thank you.
28:36
Crista Cowan: Yeah, so great to be back.
28:38
Crista Cowan: I know.
28:38
Crista Cowan: I love your passion for family history.
28:41
Crista Cowan: I love learning about your passion for Iceland.
28:45
Crista Cowan: And I hear you have a new passion in the wings with whales.
28:48
Crista Cowan: So maybe we'll have to have you back.
28:50
Eric Allen: That's a teaser, I guess, for maybe a future episode.
28:53
Eric Allen: I'm doing some family history work and research about my Welsh family that I didn't know about until only a few weeks ago, but I'm very excited about where this could take me.
29:01
Crista Cowan: Okay, well, maybe next season we'll do whales.
29:03
Eric Allen: I'm here.
29:04
Eric Allen: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.