Untangling Roots Brings Family Branches Together

When sophomore Heather Lawson and freshman Jennifer Duncan enrolled in a cultural geography class last fall at Pierce College, they never dreamed they would learn a lesson that would change their lives.

They spent hours researching their lineage to trace their ancestors’ migrations for instructor Gail Hobbs, who noted uncanny similarities between stories, dates and even names in the two students’ papers.

“Heather’s is the first paper I graded,” Hobbs recalled. “And I remember thinking, ‘Maude Applegate--that is such a great name to have in your family.’ ”

Two days later, while reading another student’s work, that name leaped out at her again. “I thought, there is no way in the world there could be two Applegates,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to get to class.”

That Monday after class, Hobbs called the two women--18-year-old Duncan, of West Hills, and Lawson, 20, of Woodland Hills--to the back of the room from their seats on opposite ends of the fourth row.

“Do either of you by any chance know a Maude Applegate?” she asked.

The women erupted in screams when they realized they were second cousins who shared common great-grandparents. Lawson’s grandmother was the sister of Duncan’s grandfather.

A feud--its cause long since forgotten--divided their families decades ago.

“We flipped out,” said Duncan, getting excited all over again. “It was unbelievably exciting. We had always wondered what happened.”

“I had a wedding picture of her grandmother,” she added. “Heather looks so much like her.”

At first glance, nothing in the women’s appearance hints they are related. Duncan’s hair is long and blond; Lawson’s is short and dark. Duncan’s face is rounder, Lawson’s more oval.

Both girls credit Hobbs with being observant enough to notice the details that reunited them.

“A lot of teachers would have just passed over that,” Duncan said, referring to the Applegate name that first piqued Hobbs’ curiosity.

An award-winning instructor, Hobbs has students spend 10 weeks preparing geographical family trees.

The most industrious students spend hours poring over documents at the Mormon Temple genealogical library in Westwood, surfing the Internet, scanning microfiche and scouring military documents. They assemble old photographs and coax long-forgotten stories out of their parents and grandparents. All that work is crammed into 10 to 20 pages of maps, clippings and a family narrative.

Now reunited, Duncan and Lawson are inseparable.

The day they discovered their shared family heritage, Lawson moved across the room to sit beside Duncan. Months later in a different class, the two still sit side by side, whispering to each other during a lecture.

“They are best friends,” said Hobbs, who has the two in another geography class this semester. “It is like they are joined at the hip.”

“We’re buds,” Duncan said.

In January, Duncan took Lawson to meet her grandfather Donald Fiske Duncan, who stopped speaking to his sister 30 years ago.

At age 95, he was so old and sick he could no longer speak. He died in February.

Lawson plans to introduce Duncan to her grandmother, Janice Marguerite Duncan, in the near future.

Both said their parents have “flipped out,” and long-lost cousins on both sides of the family are eager to meet each other. Lawson and Duncan said they are planning a family reunion in November.

“We’re going into the future,” Duncan said. “We got family!”

“We’re blood,” Lawson added.

Since their discovery, the two have continued their research, returning to the genealogical library where they began, sifting through family artifacts and reexamining old memorabilia with new eyes.

More details keep coming out all the time.

They stumble over each other to tell the story of their great-grandparents, Maude Applegate and Taylor Edward Duncan. Maude’s family ran a produce business in Kansas City, they said. The couple moved to California in the early 1900s because Duncan dreamed of becoming a movie star.

“He was a Roman soldier in some silent movie,” Lawson said.

“I heard he was a singer,” Duncan said, turning to Lawson. “An opera singer or something.”

Hobbs said this is a first in her 24 years of teaching college geography.

She’s taught three sisters from one family in one summer. She’s had younger siblings follow behind older ones over the years. She’s even had students who came from the same village in Lebanon.

“But I’ve never had anything like this, with anyone discovering anybody,” she said.

“There are so many people in the San Fernando Valley,” said Duncan, still incredulous. “It’s like, who else is related? That’s what I think when I walk down the street.”

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All in the Family

Connecting class projects, Pierce College geography teacher Gail Hobbs noticed that two students had the name Maude Applegate nestled in their geographic family trees. It turned out the two students--Jennifer Duncan and Heather Lawson--were long-lost second cousins. Here is their shared family tree.