Genealogy

Genealogy

Genealogy

Both my wife and I enjoy genealogical research, but this is one of our hobbies that is inactive at the moment. We will undoubtedly both continue our research sometime in the future, but for now other interests prevail.

There are a number of aspects of the hobby that I enjoy, but I think it is the challenge of solving mysteries that I enjoy the most. It's like playing detective - through research you gather clues and as you gather them you must consider them as a whole, not individually. Add in a some knowledge of history and geography, as well as a little luck, and there's a good change you'll find the answers you're looking for. It's extremely exciting when a major breakthrough is made after weeks, months, or sometimes even years of working to identify a particular person in your ancestry.

Eventually, this page will be expanded to include information specific to our research but that will have to wait until I start spending more time on genealogical research again. In the mean time, a sampling of the family names which we have most actively researched is provided below. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Family Names

The following are some of the key family names that I am interested in as part of my research.

               Alderman                                     Hallenbeck                                      Neville

               Blocher                                        Higgins                                            Ribble

               Bussey                                         Hooke                                              Sharp

               Butler                                           Huff                                                 Snook

               Coppage                                      Loman                                             Spoor

               Deal                                             Malone                                            Troutman

               Drawmer                                      Mayhew                                          Truman

               Goodrich                                      Montgomery                                    Westover

Genetic Genealogy

In recent years, the science of genetics and genetic testing has begun to play a significant role in genealogical research. In 2005, I submitted a sample for Y-DNA genetic testing. My father, who died when I was 14 years old, had left me little information about his family. His father had died in a construction accident 3 months before his birth and he new little about his father's family. I had identified the person I believed to be his father and had enough documentary evidence to provide a relatively high degree of confidence, but because of some inconsistencies between what I found and the little bit of information provided by my father before he died, I still had some doubts about the accuracy of my findings. After genetic testing and a comparison of genetic markers against others in my same supposed paternal family line, all doubt was erased - I had definitely identified the correct paternal line in my research. Without genetic testing, I would probably never have known for sure.

If you are interested, additional information on genetic testing for family history research purposes can be found at numerous websites including the FamilyTreeDNA website.

Last Updated: 12 Dec 2007