This is us at our first meeting as a group, back in January of 1999 (from left to right, standing): Tim Goodhind (descendant of RICHARD), Cindy Palmer (descendant of JOHN), Alan Goodhind (descendant of HENRY) and seated, Liz Banas (descendant of RICHARD) who has since earned a certificate from the National Genealogical Society.
And this a recent (1996) photo of our wonderful English cousin, David Goodhind, of England (descendant of TOM), the major source for the history of the Goodhinds in Great Britain to be found on this web site:
We are also deeply fortunate to have made contact with another cousin here in the United States, through our cousin David in England: Rev. Malcolm McQueen of San Antonio, Texas (descendant of WILLIAM II), pictured below:
In the spring of 2013, another Goodhind descendant and researcher contributed quite a bit to our knowledge of her branch of the family, descended from William and Ann's daughter ELIZABTH. Valerie (Martin) Wright lives with her family in the UK and runs an online business called Vee Pretty®. Valerie has been a treasury of information and we continue to be grateful for her sharing so much with us! This is Valerie, below:
We are all very pleased to have you here with us. Ourselves, we all came together here from different directions, but with one common goal: to learn more about the Goodhind clan and our collective history by sharing what we know about our own families.
This is as much your website as it is ours. I am going to make every attempt to keep it updated as time passes. But, as you are busy and have so little time of your own these days, so are all of us. Please bear with us as we amend this site and try to stay somewhat in touch with the many branches of our family.
How we came together
I thought I might mention here briefly how we all met and what we've managed to accomplish so far. Being all from the same family, so to speak, you might think it was easy to connect but that's not how it happened.
Over the years the Goodhind family, like most families, has drifted apart. The most senior members of the family, who knew HOW we were all related, passed away. And sadly, it is not the habit of younger generations to visit one another to discuss our family.
In a way, I was kind of fortunate. After our mother died when we were eleven (not fortunate), my brother Pat and I were raised by my grandmother, Henrietta (Hawver) Goodhind, and our maiden aunt, Dorothy Goodhind (our grandfather, Murray M. Goodhind, had passed away the year after we were born). Since she was around every day, Grandma used to share many stories about the family. Because she was the 'matriarch' of our line, other family members used to visit frequently. Thus, we probably had more contact with the rest of the family than any other single group.
My grandmother liked to go visiting, and so we traveled around, spending time with our aunts and uncles and cousins. We also hit every cemetery in Western Massachusetts! She loved cemeteries! I am thankful now because I know where a lot of the family is laid to rest. However, as a child, I was totally bored. That's strange to note too because, these days, I look forward to visiting a new cemetery like a child looks forward to Christmas!
Anyway, many years later, in the mid-1980s, I helped to transcribe a genealogy of the Goodhind family written by cousin Alice Marsh Sperl. I wasn't particularly interested in it at the time but I was happy enough to help out with the typing. Copies were distributed to some immediate family members and that was about it. Alice passed away in 1996 and I put my copy in a drawer. I guess I supposed that would be the end of that.
Then in October of 1998, my son needed some material for a family history project at school. I pulled out the genealogy and began reading in earnest. Somehow, I got hooked. I don't remember quite when it happened but suddenly I was immersed. I wanted to know everything I could about our family. Perhaps you reach an age (or a state of mind, more accurately) when you realize that your family is an important part of who you are. Perhaps, as you watch the generation just before yours reach an elderly age, you finally come to realize that so much of what they know will all too soon be gone...and then no one will ever know what they went through. Whatever the reasons, I was bitten by the genealogy bug!
I saw that there was quite a bit of information that Alice had not been able to find so I started poking around. Genealogy is now a big thing on the Internet and, over time, I found resources like Cyndi's List, Rootsweb and Genconnect. One evening, I came across two e-mail addresses for people looking into the Goodhind family. I wrote them straightaway. The answers came back quickly: one was from my first cousin, Liz Banas! The other was from a cousin one branch of the family away, Cindy Palmer. I found that both of them were already deep into research.
Cindy was able to contact another American cousin, Alan Goodhind. By January 1999, we met, bringing together three branches of our family for the first time in at least a couple of generations. One of the first projects we agreed to work on was a family reunion. It happened on June 19, 1999 at Look Park in Northampton, MA. You can read about that and look at some pictures at this link.
The four of us (plus cousins David, Malcolm, Valerie and Nigel) continue to write each other and to work on research. We hope to keep track of each other as the family ages and grows. This website is intended to serve as a center point for that purpose and we hope you will check it often.
CONTACT US!!
We would very much like to keep abreast of you and your family. We have included here a link for e-mail to help you keep us up-to-date on your lives. We would like to know when you change addresses, e-mail addresses and the like. We'd like to know when there are new children in the family, marriages, divorces, deaths; who graduated, who got a new job. Let us know what your parents are doing, where they are; who's in good health and who is not. It would be wonderful to be able to post the equivalent of a family newsletter here for everyone to read. But for it to be successful, you have to have news!
I am constantly updating Alice's Goodhind family genealogy as new information comes in. I would be happy to send a copy (e-mail, printed or digital) if you'd like it. Just send along an e-mail to me at the link below.
Our research continues. My study is now astrew with papers and pictures, and on my computer are dozens of files and correspondence from family members. We are still trying to track down Browns from South Hadley, Browns from Great Barrington and relatives in Canada. If you are possibly from one of those lines, please check out the page at Missing Cousins.
This is our family. While a reunion every year may not be possible, in this day of instant communication, we can still stay in touch. Write often. We're all just a click away!
Tim Goodhind (formerly Masloski)
Sunderland, MA
February 2013
Tim's current e-mail
