My last name, Newquist, is fairly uncommon (at least in New Jersey) so it always surprises me when I come across another member of my extended clan. It surprises me even more when said clan member has a blog that's talking about me.

Russell Newquist has a blog called, simply enough, RussBlog and he's occasionally posts about other Newquists he finds on the net. In this entry, he notes that "Ken Newquist", a custodian for a school district in Battle Creek, Iowa, got a raise.

That's not me -- I'm a webmaster in New Jersey (though I bet that other Ken's going to be real surprised some day if he ever goes ego surfing and finds a bunch of posts talking about his salary...) but I did find it a little amazing that there's another Ken Newquist out there. Actually, that there's a third Ken Newquist out there (I'd found another one earlier who was a pastor at a church).

I've known for a while that there were a bunch of Newquists in the Midwest -- there was a Sharon Newquist at Lock Haven University when I was there, and a bunch of Swedes had settled out in Minnesota. I don't know if I'm related to any of them, seeing as how my grandparents came over directly from Sweden (the Midwest Newquists are apparently from a much earlier migration, probably dating to the 1800s.)