{"id":124176,"date":"2023-09-25T17:32:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T00:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=124176"},"modified":"2023-10-28T12:49:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T19:49:22","slug":"exploring-jonestowns-family-roots-emily-yaden-schneider","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=124176","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Jonestown\u2019s Family Roots: Emily Yaden Schneider"},"content":{"rendered":"

The information in this article comes from genealogical research conducted by Emily Yaden Schneider on families living in Jonestown, as well as from <\/em>an article on Family Trees<\/em><\/a> that she wrote, and an interview conducted 21 September 2023 by Rebecca Moore.<\/em><\/p>\n

On 9 March 2019, we opened one of the most amazing emails we\u2019ve ever received. In it, the writer told us she had been working on the genealogies of individuals who died in Jonestown and had discovered some previously-unknown connections between families. She also identified a few \u201cmissing\u201d persons, that is, individuals who had not been listed in the Family Trees<\/a> developed by Fielding McGehee.<\/p>\n

Since that time, Emily Yaden Schneider has generated numerous genealogical charts that show the many ties between Jonestown residents who died in 1978. She has also contributed greatly to the development of the Family Trees on the website. Working outside of the website, Yaden Schneider has also created a page on Ancestry.com listing all the individuals who died and as many genealogical threads as she can find. As a result, she has been contacted by people seeking information about family members through Ancestry.com. This means that, at times, she has been the one to notify inquirers about the death of their relatives in Jonestown. \u201cI like being able to help people in this way,\u201d she says. Not everyone welcomes the Jonestown connection, however, and Emily reports that some genealogies leave the death date blank or even put 19 November, although other records clearly indicate the death occurred in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

But how would a person with no connection to Peoples Temple or anyone who died in Jonestown find a way to this work, much less spend as many countless hours on it as she has?<\/p>\n

As a child, Emily spent a lot of time with her parental grandmother. \u201cShe would entertain us with stories of her growing up, and her family growing up, and her dad\u2019s family.\u201d This got her interested in genealogy, and eventually she created genealogies for all her family and friends. She joined a research group that traced family histories of those who died in disasters, like the sinking of the Titanic<\/em> and major coal mine accidents. This coincided with her finishing Jeff Guinn\u2019s book The Road to Jonestown<\/em>. She wondered if anyone had developed histories of those who died in Jonestown. \u201cI Googled Jonestown and it came up with a list of people who died. It had all of their birthdays.\u201d That was the beginning of Emily\u2019s work on Family Trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to find family origins,\u201d she says. \u201cI like to see how generations have traveled.\u201d In one family \u2014 \u201cI can tell a person\u2019s life story, but I can\u2019t remember their name,\u201d she concedes \u2014 the great-grandfather came from Trinidad and moved to New York. The family later moved to Chicago, and from there to California, where they joined Peoples Temple. \u201cI like tracing migration patterns, and you really see that when you do genealogy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yaden Schneider also likes to see the interconnectedness of our world. \u201cIn our society, we have this idea of the self-made man, the idea of independence. But,\u201d she adds, \u201cyou can\u2019t do anything on your own. It\u2019s the connections between the community and different people that make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, Emily has been making a big difference. By locating one woman\u2019s place of birth and finding her father\u2019s name, Emily assisted one Temple survivor in obtaining Medicaid benefits. In another instance, she identified the husband of Agnes Jones, Jim Jones\u2019 adopted daughter, who had given up her own child for adoption.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say how accurate the family trees are,\u201d she admits. \u201cSometimes I can only say I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s right, but it\u2019s not certain.\u201d She cites the case of Novella Sneed, which would seem to be an uncommon name. Yet Emily found three women named Novella Sneed born within five years of each other in Austin, Texas. She had to research the history of all three of them to come up with the right Novella Sneed.<\/p>\n

In addition to using public records and other documents, Emily also turns to the articles, reflections, and remembrances published on the Jonestown website. The writers may not be related to the individual, \u201cbut they grew up with this person so readers know more than a government record can provide. What they were really like, not just what the paper documents said. You can infer info from the documents, but you can\u2019t really know what they were like from those.\u201d<\/p>\n

By verifying and correcting the genealogical information on the Family Trees, Emily Yaden Schneider has contributed a great deal to the Alternative Considerations<\/em> website, making it as accurate and comprehensive as possible. She has also reconnected family members even in death, restoring their dignity and humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The information in this article comes from genealogical research conducted by Emily Yaden Schneider on families living in Jonestown, as well as from an article on Family Trees that she wrote, and an interview conducted 21 September 2023 by Rebecca Moore. On 9 March 2019, we opened one of the most amazing emails we\u2019ve ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":124171,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-124176","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124177,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124176\/revisions\/124177"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}