Ancestry Magazine

My serious efforts to learn more about my Moon ancestry began in 2003, when the company I worked for installed a group of paintings on loan from the New Britain Museum of American Art. Among them was one by a Samuel Moon. My father had often said we had a painter in our family tree, but he had no details about it.

I had looked into our tree once while visiting New York in 1997. While in college, I would go to the F. Franklin Moon Library at SUNY’s Environmental Science and Forestry School to study. It was nice and quiet, and there was something fun about studying in a library with my family name. On my 1997 trip, the Moon library staff shared their 50-year anniversary booklet, which had some details about F. Franklin Moon, who I learned had been the dean of the school at one time. According to the booklet, Frederick Franklin Moon arrived in upstate New York from Easton, Pennsylvania, close to where my family is from. The commemorative booklet also referred to Franklin Moon’s Quaker background. My background is Quaker as well. Another interesting coincidence? I wondered.

When Samuel Moon’s paintings were installed years later, I decided it was finally time to dig. I discovered that Samuel Moon, the painter, also from Easton, was the grandfather of SUNY’s F. Franklin Moon. Then I searched Marquis’ Who’s Who and found three entries under the name “Frederick Franklin Moon.” The final one was very much alive. I found his phone number, and with a quantum leap of faith I called him. I left a voicemail explaining who I was and that I thought he might be a distant relative. I heard nothing for about six weeks. Then the call came: “Hello, distant cousin. This is Fred Moon.”

That was the start of conversations that led to a genealogy of Fred’s family going back far enough to tie into my family tree. With Fred’s help, I realized there had been a missing offspring on my own tree, which was why I hadn’t previously known about the connection.

Now I show three successive Samuel Moons and three Frederick Franklin Moons. I also discovered that my newfound cousin Fred’s mother is still alive and resides in Connecticut where I work and live. She and I have talked, and she has since introduced me to another of Samuel Moon’s 92 paintings—Napoleon Going over the Alps.