Digging for Roots

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today.

-- Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.


Hello and Welcome!

The above quote pretty much sums up why I am interested in genealogy. The stories of our ancestors make us who we are today. Their life stories, both famous and obscure, rich and poor, remind us of the significance each life has on the rest of the world.

I have created this blog in order to keep my family updated on the findings of my genealogy research. Most of the posts will be updates on research into particular family lines. I will post updates and interesting stories I find on the families I am researching. Along the way I will also post on other subjects related to genealogy. I am especially interested in efforts to digitize ancient records and make them accessible to the public. I will post on these efforts as well as tips on the resources available on the internet that I have found most helpful in my searches.

Here are the main family names I will am researching:

My father's family:

• Frank
• Dickson
• Beasley
• Backer
• Shelton

My father's family is from Callaway County, Missouri.

My mother's family:

• Sullivan
• Hickey
• Gruenewald

My mother's family is from the St. Louis, Missouri area.

My wife's father's family:

• Roberts
• Westerfield

My wife's mother's family:

• Ebelhar
• Riney

My wife's family is from Daviess County, Kentucky.

You can keep up to date on my findings for all of these families by subscribing to this blog's rss feed. Thanks for visiting, and I wish you the best of luck in your own searches.