From Europe to Oklahoma

My maternal aunt researched our ancestry, beginning in 1950 and into the 1970’s. Her research was not published; she compiled her ancestry in several notebooks. She gave me a copy of those notebooks, as well as numerous letters she received from genealogy correspondents. Her compiled genealogy often did not state the source for either relationships or facts. Her research was extensive and provided excellent clues for my research focused on two primary objectives:

1) reliable records and/or proof statements to either support or refute her findings, especially for direct line ancestors and their siblings; and

2) expand her research to identify more distant ancestors and to update the family history to include more recent generations.

Reviewing and discussing her family history research was fascinating, and created a question regarding my paternal ancestry.  I soon discovered that no compiled genealogy existed for my paternal ancestry, and most family members possessed only scattered documentation and facts. I became aware of several family stories, with conflicting facts often cited by each storyteller. So my first attempts in genealogy research involved searching for documentation that corroborated or corrected the facts from these stories. Experiences with these first attempts created a passion for research, but much less  passion for keeping records of my searches, preparing and following research plans or focusing on discrete research questions or objectives.

The purposes of this blog are:

1. the preservation of the process and results of my ancestral research for future generations,
2. encouraging communication and data exchange among current generation “cousins”, and
3. examining the family stories or traditions to evaluate their likelihood of accuracy.

I will be blogging about my ancestors and the migration paths taken by my direct line ancestry to arrive in Oklahoma around 1900. My ancestry appears to be 100 % European.

I welcome your comments on any posts, to question, define and/or extend our shared ancestry or to note consistent or conflicting facts or relationships pertaining to those ancestors.

My objective, that I hope you share, is the development of a family history documenting facts, relationships and stories with a high level of confidence in their accuracy. Only through open and constructive communication among family members will we be able to achieve that objective.