Early Reunions (1876-1898)
During an organizational meeting in 1876, a large number of Squire Munro descendants met at the Baptist Church in Elbridge, New York. The meeting was convened at the behest of Squire’s grandson, Nathan Munro (1824–1886) with the purpose of planning the first reunion of the Munro family.
The motivation for this proposed reunion was not partially to emulate the neighboring family’s social event. But the gathering they planned was also prompted by a desire to begin a genealogical study, allowing members of the growing family to be able to identify their more distant relatives by recording that information for themselves and for posterity.
The reunions were a smashing success, often attracting hundreds of descendants who feasted, played and diligently documented descendants out to their second and third cousins.
Early 20th Century
During the early 20th century, reunions became more fragmented as the branches of the family tree grew further apart in both relation and distance. Eventually, the branches lost touch with each other completely.
Throughout the century, many Munro genealogists dreamed of carrying on the project of an updated, unified genealogical record of the descendants of Squire Munro. However, no one had the resources or technology available to achieve a practical result at that time. So, members of various branches copied the original data from the early reunions and added what they could, ensuring that it would be available for posterity.
By the end of the twentieth century, the old guard was gone, the reunions that were held were reduced to just immediate families and the old documents were tucked away in old boxes and library shelfs.
Phase Two (Since 2006)
In March of 2006, nearly one hundred and thirty years since that first reunion, the Squire Munro Project was reborn. Starting with a manuscript of about 500 descendants, most of which was copied down from those original efforts, Mark Conway Munro began researching and compiling the data while working to reunite with other genealogist in the now distant branches of the family. Later joined by John Paul Munro, they exploited the growing availability of research material and original records online to greatly update the various branches of the extended family tree. This project is the result of that collaboration.
