Group Introductions

Please introduce yourself and tell a little about your research interests.

The last of my lines to settle in Monroe County, Mississippi, did so in 1896, so I am interested in Monroe County and some of its surrounding counties--especially Itawamba County, Mississippi, Lee County, Mississippi, and Lamar (formerly Sanford County), Alabama.

I enjoy reading about colonial periods in Virginia and North Carolina because a lot of my Southern ancestors came from those states.

I'm also interested in Ohio's Amish country where my Lantz and Yoder families lived for a while--mainly Holmes and Wayne Counties.

I also enjoy reading about colonial times in New Hampshire and in the Cape Ann/Boston area of Massachusetts where some ancestors lived. I've got a couple books on Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island where the Rathbone/Rathbun family resided.

I dabble in most areas where ancestors lived, but I find myself collecting more for these counties or periods. I purchase lots of social history relating to these areas/times.

On my paternal lines my forebear Hendrik Van Cooten left Utrecht, Netherlands for the Dutch Demerara colony (now Georgetown, Guyana) in about 1776, so I'm interested in this area, and British Guiana, and Guyana.

Sons of his went to England in about 1800, so I'm interested in England, Bristol, Oxfordshire, and Guernsey in 1800-1900.

A ggrandson came to Australia in 1874, so I'm interested in the family history since then in Australia.

My maternal line is German, based about Brandenberg and Uckermark, arriving in Australia in the 1860s.

>3 rodneyvc: It's interesting you have a non-British line in Australia so early. You certainly have a varied European ancestry that went to some interesting locations.

Immigrant ancestor (and brick wall) Thomas Black came from Scotland to Manhattan in the early 1790's when he was in his late teens. He married a young widow, Rebecca (Van Kleeck) Jones, whose Dutch ancestors had resided in colonial New York for several generations. I have not yet been able to determine where in Scotland Thomas' family originated, and whether he immigrated alone or with other family members.

Thomas and Rebecca remained in Manhattan for several years, with Thomas laboring as a stevedore loading and unloading boats on the Manhattan docks. In around 1803, they migrated to Onondaga County in Western New York to settle on bounty land in the town of Manlius that Rebecca had inherited from her father Peter Van Kleeck.

They had several children (based on early census data), but I have only been able to find information on three lines: Two sons (Thomas Jr. and Abram) and one daughter (Rebecca).

My line is through Thomas Jr., who married and moved to Ohio in about 1833.

Hi, I'm Linda, and I am working on family histories for my own and my husband's lines. My mother's family is almost exclusively English on both sides; my father's mainly German and Eastern European; my husband's English, Scottish, Irish and German (or possibly Dutch). Join me on my own thread where I'll go into more detail periodically about my researches.

Hi, I'm Lois.

I have waffled about joining this group because I fear spending more time talking about genealogy than actually doing it, if you know what I mean.

I'm a Mainer by birth, and have lived in New England all my life with the exception of one adventurous year in California in the 70s, My family tree is 400 years New England. Nearly all of my immigrant ancestors came between 1620 and 1650 and their families have been intermarrying and intermarrying now for hundreds of years ...

Not sure how active I can be here, but it's always nice to be around fellow enthusiasts. I'll set up a personal thread and put the rest of my blather there. I am certainly happy to help anyone with the New England area, or Ancestry.com or DNA-related stuff (oh, the stories I have!).

>7 avaland: It's easy to spend too much time talking and not doing it. I think I've finally found a happy balance between the DNA and traditional research, but it took some time to find a way that achieved progress on both fronts. I think a lot of genealogists these days spend too much time watching webinars and don't find the time to research. They need to be more selective in their viewing. For me, the current challenge is finding the balance between various involvement areas, particularly when one became more time-consuming than I have time to spend on it.

>8 thornton37814: I get that.

Hello! I am a 'refuge' from Amazon, FB, Goodreads & Google, looking for other groups to share my love of genealogy with (without the censorship, thank you very much). I have been working on my tree for about 3 years, still consider myself to be a newbee genealogist, but also a pretty good sleuth!
I have retired to the same area my Father grew up in (Lewis County, Washington State, USA) and thus am doing quite a bit of local history to fill in the gaps in his family stories. His mothers family was 2nd gen immigrants from Denmark (Larson). His father's are from Scotland (Buchanan). My mothers are English (Rice) and French (Hasbrouck).
I wish I could double the hours in the day to learn all their is about all these histories! Every little bit of knowledge is a connection to my past, and connections are what it is all about. Well, that and the occasional fascinating Rabbit Hole :). Just go ask Alice!

>10 IrvinaBuchanan: Welcome! There are lots of rabbit holes to go down in genealogy.

Nice to meet you, Irvina. I'm always interested in family trees that are different from myself.

Hello all, I'm really impressed with how Lori's developed this group! I'm looking forward to chatting genealogy with you all.

I'm a lifelong genealogy enthusiast. My grandmother on my mother's side told me fascinating stories about her family in Kentucky and Illinois, so fascinating that after Roots caused the first big surge in genealogy interest, my mother and I went to our local genealogy library and started researching. I've been off and on over the years, but have compiled a massive amount of information about my family, my husband's family, my half-brothers' ancestry . . . you get the idea. I am almost entirely a US researcher, but I have dipped my toe into 19th century English and German records. I've also personally used DNA to bust a brick wall in Stewart County, Tennessee (yes, the DNA led elsewhere).

>3 rodneyvc: My g-g-grandparents came to the US from Germany in the 19th century, bearing the name Kowitz. Many years ago, an Australian television actor named Peter Kowitz appeared in A Town Like Alice. My mother and grandmother kept wondering if he was related. Another win for DNA--yes, he's related. DNA shows we are related to the Kowitzes who emigrated to Queensland from the same area of Prussia (it's now in Poland) as our Kowitzes did. It's likely that the Australian immigrant was an uncle or first cousin of the American immigrant. I suppose if you decided to immigrate halfway around the globe, either Australia or the US was a valid choice!

ETA: Does anyone here have a Kirtley lurking in their family tree? or Henderson County, Kentucky, ancestry?

>13 NinieB: I'm glad we're getting some activity here! Congrats on your DNA happy dance!

>13 NinieB: Hi Ninie. Sorry, no Kowitzes or Kirtleys on any of the family trees I've worked on. My husband's mother's side originates in the southern Ohio area (Ironton), that's the closest we get to Kentucky blood. However, he did live in Lexington for all of his teen years :-)

>1 thornton37814: Good morning! I'm Norma Jean Jordan Hunter from Missouri Ozarks. My ancestors are from Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Scandinavia, Germany, Alsace ... I have been researching since I was a child when I helped my maternal grandmother with our family history. She was our family historian. I was fortunate to inherit her research and family pictures and articles.
After my paternal grandparents died, I began researching that side of my family. I have learned so much about my ancestors.
I'm researching JORDAN, PARKER, SELLERS, RICHARDS, LUTES, BARRETT, VEST, BRAWLEY, DAVIS, TURNER.

>16 GigiHunter: Welcome! My husband's Koons (Kuntz) ancestors came to Pennsylvania from Alsace in the 18th century. What surnames can you trace to that region?

>16 GigiHunter: Welcome. I'm on vacation so I'm not checking in quite as often as usual.

>17 laytonwoman3rd: The only Koons ancestor I have is in North Carolina, and we don't know anything about her real parents. She was reared by a man named John Parker.

Greetings from Australia, I have been researching my family history for some 20 odd years but my interest in the family story began as a teenager when my great aunt quietly told me we had convict ancestors.

My ancestors are predominantly English and Scottish, however there's a touch of both Irish and Prussian. I have always been interested in the stories of the women in my family...and, as we all know, the women are harder to trace, the further back you get.

Looking forward to 'meeting' you all and expanding my library.

Cheers
Robbie

Hi from San Diego, California. I am a passionate genealogist who researches primarily in the Southern US.

Areas of greatest interest:
Alabama - pre-statehood to present (French, Spanish)
Texas - Pre-statehood to present (Mexico)
Georgia - Pre-statehood to present. (Colonial)
South Carolina - Colonial to present
North Carolina - Colonial to present
Virginia - Colonial to present
Tennesee - 1790s - present
Kentucky - 1790s - present

Too many surnames to list. LOL!

>20 jphawthorne: Welcome! I research in all of those states, but mine mostly landed in Mississippi, so I need to add one to your list. Some descendants from Mississippi made it into Texas, of course, and also Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma in the South (or near-South) states. Some from my New England families were in what was Ohio County, Virginia at the time, but would now be West Virginia, but they lived there only briefly en route to Ohio and later Illinois.

I hadn't seen this older post before and since I have not replied, will do so now.

I have used genealogical resources since the 1990s. Of course I research my relatively-rare surname Keeline and all of the branches I can trace.

But long before that, at least since 1988 in a serious manner, I have been researching juvenile series books (think Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, and literally hundreds of other series and thousands of volumes). I am interested in providing details on the authors and artists and editors and publishers who made these popular books. So I use genealogical resources and four newspaper archive subscriptions to dig up information about them. It seems there's always something new that shows up on a subsequent search. Some things are accurate and some are wild guesses and false. I'm writing a Series Book Encyclopedia with this kind of information. In the near future we will add a virtual Series Book Museum site to be somewhat similar to our Stratemeyer.org site. I have a lot of things in mind in the next few years.

James

>22 Keeline: Sounds like an interesting project on the series authors.

Hello! Hugh Glen from South Africa, researching my and my wife's ancestries. My Glens came originally from Dunbartonshire (which is unusual), Scotland; "Grandma Glen"'s people came from Kent. My mothers people came from Kelso, Berwickshire and from Ennis, Co. Clare. Better Half's family come from the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland (Dublin) and St. Helena.

>24 hfglen: Welcome!

>23 thornton37814: , I find it to be interesting. Sometimes the only data you can find or photo or an author comes from a newspaper or genealogy archive of some kind. I just found a few for my Stratemeyer Syndicate Ghostwriters book project. Eventually I hope to replace the poor newspaper-microfilmed-scanned images with something better but these may suffice for the first edition release. There are about 100 writers for the group that made popular series. When possible I am including a photo and signature facsimile plus basic information about them, the work they did for the Syndicate, and any biographical references that are known. It is one of several projects. I'm pushing to get this and the Series Book Encyclopedia out this year for strategic purposes. They have been in the works for too long.

James

>22 Keeline: James, the childrens series research sounds great! The father of an old friend of mine ghostwrote Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries (think I have that right) and I've always wanted to know more.

Hello Gen-LTers, I'm a longtime LT member but have recently been exploring a little. I don't think I've ever introduced myself in this group, so here goes. I've been doing family history research since the mid 90s and about ten years ago began writing in-depth essays about my ancestors. I inherited all my maternal uncle's research and some research my paternal grandfather did and have built on their work (plus lots of family stories!). My maternal ancestors are from the South (GA, AL, SC, VA) where I've done most of my research. My father's side came via NC, KY, OH, IN, to Tennessee and Arkansas. I'm on Wikitree (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dobson-5247) and love it and I'd encourage anyone to sign up, even if you're just curious. It is a very friendly group who really care about accurate sourcing.

>28 airgid: I have played around on WikiTree and created documented work when I have done so, but it's been a long time since I've done more than Microsoft Word on anything. These days I mostly do client research and find a little time once in a while for my own research.

Hello Cousin! If that's you (Thornton-3675), we're 17th cousins! (I'm Dobson-5247)

>22 Keeline: I am just reading old messages.
I loved Nancy Drew books as a teenager ( I am 87 now) and was surprised to find that Carolyn Keene was more than one author when I was reading about Carolyn Keene a few years ago.

>31 mnleona: You might enjoy reading Girl Sleuth, about the people behind the creation of the Nancy Drew books. It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall it being very interesting.

>32 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks. I made a note to myself to check my library.

>30 airgid: It's possible we may be closer on the Boykin line, but I need to work some more to get a strong connection on it. We believe our Thornton line goes back to a Thomas Thornton/Martha Boykin in Perquimons County, NC in the 17th century, but there are a couple of generations that need to be shored up. Mine is a Quaker line.

>27 airgid: @airgid,

It would depend on the time frame when your friend's father was working on Nancy Drew. I have more information about the time when the Stratemeyer Syndicate was a separate entity (1905-1985) than when Mega-Books was a book packager or Simon & Schuster did the production in-house with contract writers. Each phase is a little different.

Sometimes it is harder to identify the books written by people post-Syndicate than during the time when they existed.

If you are able to tell me what you know (writer, titles), I can probably provide a lot more context based on what I do know. Perhaps it is someone I know about or maybe it is a new name to expand the understanding and documentation.

James

>31 mnleona: @mnleona,

When I managed an antiquarian bookstore for a dozen years (1988-2000) with children's books as a specialty, we were sharing the story of the authorship of these books at least once a week if not daily.

The first Nancy Drew books were published in 1930 and there have been about 650 titles since then from several series. So it is quickly impossible for one person to be involved in all of them over 95 years. Even Enid Blyton's 600 or so books were limited to her lifespan.

But the real story behind these is so much more interesting than if there had been a single person writing them. Likewise, there are hundreds more series and thousands of volumes more than most people know about.

If you have any questions about this kind of book, try to get my attention and I will answer. I obviously did not see this for a while (Dec. 3).

James

>32 laytonwoman3rd: , it is a pretty good book. It is one of the first to use the Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection from NYPL. As with any reference, there are areas where it could be improved but it is better than most of anything on the topic that is out there. I remember when the author traveled across the country to visit us and learn the basics about the Syndicate and Nancy Drew. She learned a lot by the time the book was published. Aside from a few appearances in connection with the book, though, she has not continued to research and publish about series books. For me it is a life-long process. I've been active since 1988 and have many concurrent projects. One of them is The Annotated Nancy Drew to include the newly-public domain texts in heavily annotated and introduced form. But Nancy Drew is just one of the hundreds of series that I pay attention to.

James

Hello Family Historians! My name is Carol Fuller and I manage a blog entitled, Piedmont Trails. My genealogy research began back in the 1980s and I find myself in deep research almost daily. My ancestors departed Scotland, Ireland, England, Spain, and France for the "new world" beginning in the 17th century. I love the discoveries that enhance my ancestor's lives. Wish you all well, and Enjoy Your Journey to the Past!

>38 Piedmont_Trails: Welcome, Carol. I assume you are in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. I had one family that made its way to Wilkes County, but most of my NC ancestry is Eastern.

>39 thornton37814: Thanks for the "Welcome In" and you're correct on the region and state. I find tens of thousands of families migrating to this historic area during the mid-18th-century. It's amazing the amount of surnames who passed through North Carolina before venturing west or other places.