Family genealogy fun

[joshuaream]

I'm lucky that my family has always had a solid interest in genealogy and for the most part they belonged to churches that kept very good records of birth, adult baptism, marriage and death. We came to NYC to spend X-mas with my in-laws and the small town of Reamstown Pennsylvania was close enough that we took the kids down to see where their last name came into the US.

Here are my two children with their 11th great grandfather's English headstone, the German one is barely legible. He left Germany before the big Mennonite migrations, and was the first european settler in Lancaster County when he bought 200 acres and from the Delaware Indians along Cocalico creek. He later bought 700 acres from William Penn's son, and settled 12 other 'Pennsylvania Dutch' families in the county.



This road sign was pretty cool.

[Scotto]

We had a family named "Ream" just down the road from us when I was little. And they named a park in my home town after one of them.

My family (most of them) all came from Germany around 1880, they were schwabbish people and in Germany at the time you could only be Catholic or Lutheran. My great-grandfather owned land in the Fox River valley, he had hundreds of acres and was friends to a tribe of Algonquin Indians who he let stay on his property, when the other people were running them off. They called him "The Good White Chief" and many times he'd come home to find they had lain a freshly gutted deer on his back porch, but he never saw them.

On of my great grandfathers married a Native American woman, and the family kept it a secret of who she was. Back in the day there was a lot of obvious persecution, and it was hidden for so long that I didn't find out for sure until I did my family tree some years ago. I had heard rumors from family friends that we had Indian blood, but I thought it was just rumors. I have only one picture of her, but it's one of my favorite ones. She is beautiful.

[kirby]

Cool story Scotto about your ancestor.

We had a similar "secret" in the family. Still can't get to the truth. It seems any one who knew is gone.

Joshua, that would be a great trip for your kids I'm sure. Yourself as well.

I can't follow any of my ancestry beyond about the early 1600's. My wife, however, has been doing genealogy work since the eighties. Spent hours at libraries. She has been able to research and confirm one branch of her ancestry to the year 6 a.d. Cool stuff.

[Steve Valentine]

My wife got started doing the geneology of her family about a year and a half ago and has traced it back quite a ways. She has me out on weekends sometimes driving her to remote cemetaries so she can pictures of headstones and markers she is trying to find. She has mostly done her side of the family but has also traced my side back a ways and has found Indian blood on both sides.

[drdave514]

Good stuff JR. It's great that you are able to track down all of that stuff. It wouldn't surprise me if our ancestors knew each other as my great grandfather(x8) settled in what is now Brownsville, PA around 1740 and traded with the Indians between there and the east(72 trips).

Genealogy is a great interest to me. I was able to track down 12 of 16 great great grandparents and some lines much farther back. The Ferguson line was pretty easy as Thomas, the first into the US, was a prominent pioneer and is in many texts along with his grandson.

Steve, I would imagine your wife has used Ancestry.com but if not, it's a great resource. You can sign up for 2 free weeks and get TONS of info. I found a staggard bloodline going back to 384 BC. Yes, BC. Lot's of marriages and not a direct family name(Ferguson, Hankins, Leath, Stewart) line but pretty cool none the less. Draft cards, Census data, marriage records, etc... Ancestry.com was a huge help.

[lillyput]

It is a really fun thing to do. It was confusing at times as they all had large families. There would be one son and one daughter named exactly after the mother and father. So in each generation there appeared another Bernard Moore. I agree ancestry.com can provide more information than one can utilize.
Good idea Joshua!

[drdave514]

The repeated names thing can be a real pain. Isaac, James and Thomas would probably cover half the the male first names spanning the first 4 generations of 50 people in my paternal family. If it weren't for date of birth, residence, etc.. one could never make heads or tails of it.