The Westerfield Family

The Van Westervelts: From the Netherlands to Colonial America

  The Westerfield family has its roots in the Netherlands. The name Westerfield was originally Van Westervelt, meaning "of the western fields" and refers to an area near the town of Meppel, on the east coast of the Zuider Zee. The first immigrant Van Westervelts, Lubbert and William, were from Meppel. Beyond that, little is known. Walter Tallman Westervelt, a 19th century genealogist, speculated the family could be traced back to a Dirk Van Westervelt born about 1550 in the Netherlands. However, there is no documentation of a link between the line descended from Dirk Van Westervelt and the immigrant families of Lubbert and William. Since Van Westervelt is a place name, it is quite probable multiple unrelated families from the same area might have chosen to adopt it. Like most Dutch at the time, Lubbert and William often went by their patronymic Lubbertsen instead. It is only in the subsequent generations in America that the Van Westervelt surname was solidly adopted.

 New Amsterdam, circa 1660.

 The Westerfield family story in America begins, like many others, on the docks of New York City. Only it wasn't New York City when the Westerfields arrived, it was New Amsterdam. In June of 1662, Lubbert Lubbertse Van Westervelt, his brother William, and their families stepped off the ship Hope and on to the streets of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Lubbert and William were farmers, and immediately purchased land in the nearby colony of Flatbush, on Long Island. The Van Westervelt brothers prospered quickly, and by 1672 Lubbert was able to sell his lands for a large profit of 4,000 guilders (about $48,000 in today's currency, though its buying power was significantly more).

  Lubbert then moved his family to Hackensack, New Jersey.  He and his family show up in the congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church at Bergen in 1676.  In 1686, they are listed as founding members of the Dutch Reformed Church at Hackensack (the "Schaarlenburgh" congregation).  Lubbert died sometime around 1686 in Hackensack.  His wife, Geesie (Grace) Roelofse Van Houten, appears in church records as late as 1696.  

  The records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Bergen County, New Jersey provide an excellent paper trail not normally found in early colonial America.  From these records it is possible to trace the Westerfield family from Lubbert the immigrant, to his son Lubbert, (born c. 1661 in Meppel, died c. 1695 in Hackensack), to his son Jan (born 27 Mar 1686 Hackensack), to his son Jacobus (born 7 Sep 1712 Hackensack, died 1743, Closter, NJ), and finally to his son Jacobus "James" Westervelt (born 1 Jul 1737 Hackensack, died 1780, Kentucky), founder of the Westerfield family of Kentucky.

The Westerfield Massacre

  Jacobus Westervelt married Maria Demarest in on November 5, 1754 in Hackensack, New Jersey. This couple anglicized their names as James and Mary Westerfield.  In 1769, James and Mary left New Jersey with a group of Dutch settlers for the Conewago Valley in Pennsylvania, where they established the Conewago Dutch Colony near present day Gettysburg. James and Mary Westerfield stayed on a short while in Conewago and soon joined a group pushing farther west to Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia).  In 1780, the family (and much of their Dutch relations) moved west again, traveling west to Fort Pitt (modern day Pittsburgh), then down the Ohio River by flat-boat to the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville). 

  In the spring of 1781, about 30 people set out from Louisville for Herrod's Station (now Harrodsburg in Mercer Co., Kentucky) along the Wilderness Road.  The Wilderness Road was the primary route for settlers traveling west from Virginia to Tennessee and Kentucky.  It had been trail-blazed by Daniel Boone in 1775.  By 1780 it extended to Louisville.  The Westerfields were actually traveling the trail in the opposite direction of most settlers as they were headed back east, having come down the river to Louisville on flatbed barge. Indian raids upon settlers traveling the trail was a significant problem between 1780 and 1790.

The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians by Charles Ferdinand Wimar (1853), depicting a similar abduction in 1776.

  This group included James and Mary Westerfield, their children, and a cousin named John Westerfield and his family.  The group had traveled about 15 miles southeast along the Wilderness Road, and camped somewhere near Clear Run Creek in Bullitt County (the old Wilderness Road at this point was roughly located where modern day Interstate 65 runs through the county -- their camp was likely somewhere around mile marker 119), when a group of Indians, likely Shawnee, attacked the party in the middle of the night.

  Two of the Westerfield's daughters were killed in the attack. Mary Westerfield survived along with three of her daughters by hiding in a sink hole.  Her husband, James, was killed by the Indians.  James had been a large man, weighing upwards of 300 pounds.  After he was killed, three Indians wrapped themselves in his great coat and danced.  Most of the remaining settlers were scalped and killed.  A few were taken as prisoners.  These included James and Mary's daughter Deborah Westerfield and her cousin Polly Westerfield.  A few settlers escaped and made it to the nearest fort, alerting soldiers on duty there.

  A soldier named John Ryker, gave the following account:

"In the month of __ 1781 went with a party of men under Floyd Whittaker to Bullets Lick to bring back families defeated and massacred by the Indians (such as survived) while moving from Beargrass to Harrodsburgh, massacre was at Clear Station. Went on 2nd trip to bury the dead. Distance not now recollected, suppose it was fifteen miles. Time occupied in going both trips was about 3 or 4 days."

  After recovering, Mary Westerfield went in search of her missing daughter Deborah.  She was informed that the Shawnee, allies of the British, would likely try and sell their prisoners to the British at Fort Detroit.  She traveled alone on horseback north to Detroit. On the way she was attacked and taken prisoner by the Shawnee.  Her horse was shot out from under her and she was held captive while the Shawnee stole more horses from a nearby farm.  The Shawnee then took her to Fort Detroit, where she was released by the British officer of the fort, who informed her that her daughter and cousin had indeed been there, but had been taken back east to Quebec. Mary searched for her daughter in Michigan and Canada for about a year before returning home.  Meanwhile, the girls were either set free or escaped and eventually made their way back to their family via Philadelphia and then west back to Kentucky.

The Westerfields - A Kentucky Bourbon Tradition

  James and Mary's eldest son James Jr. was not present with the rest of his family on the Wilderness Road that fateful day.  This is because he stayed behind to serve in the Revolutionary War.  He was perhaps the James Westervelt who was a Corporal in the 2nd and 3rd Regiments, Duchess County NY Militia.  If so, he was likely present at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights on August 27, 1776, which by number of troops involved was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War.
 James Jr. and his wife Phoebe Cozine settled in Harrodsburg, in Mercer Co., Ky.

Cornelius Westerfield's Homestead, c. 1930

  James Jr.'s son Cornelius married Elizabeth Bruce in 1802 in Nelson county, Kentucky. The couple moved to Ohio county around 1805. He lived in what became Daviess County, on the banks of Deserter Creek south of Whitesville,  Ky. Cornelius distilled his own whiskey and around 1810 he began a commercial distillery on his farm. He was one of the founders of what became a thriving bourbon whiskey industry in Daviess county during the 19th century.   Westerfield Bourbon proved extremely successful and his family continued in the distilling business for another three generations.

  During the Civil War the Westerfield family provided it's whiskey under contracts with both the Union and Confederate armies.

Westerfield Bourbon Whiskey

  The Westerfields continued in the distilling business until 1872. The family then sold the brand to a St. Louis businessman who continued to produce Westerfield whiskey at a St. Louis distillery well in to the 20th century.

  Cornelius died in July of 1852. He left a simple will devising his entire estate to his wife.

  Cornelius' son David Westerfield was known as "Happy Jack," (I have not discovered the origin of this nickname). He married first to Elizabeth Ann Moseley on February 19th, 1838 in Daviess county. They had six children: Robert, Sarah, Nancy, Mary Catherine, Serilda, and Charles. Elizabeth passed away in about 1851. In 1852 Happy Jack married Catherine Ralph Sutton, widow of William Sutton, of Ohio county, Kentucky and moved his family there. There they had an additional seven children: Commodore Perry, William, Alexander, Isaac, George, Ida, and John Morgan.

C.P. and Mary Westerfield with daughter Ceona

  Commodore Perry Westerfield was generally known as C.P. He married Mary Louise Hoover on January 11th, 1872. They had four children: sons George and David, and daughters Dona and Ceona. In 1903, C.P. sold his farm and decided to move to Edmond, Oklahoma.  He lived for a while in Oklahoma, then moved to Arkansas, and finally back to Ohio county, Kentucky where he died in 1927. His daughter Dona married a man named William Daniel Taylor, and stayed in Oklahoma and later Arkansas. W.D. and Dona Taylor were my wife's great grandparents.

Selected Sources

Genealogy of the Westervelt Family by Walter Tallman Westervelt

The Old Bergen Dutch Reformed Church

Records of the South Schaarlenburgh Dutch Reformed Church, Hackensack, New Jersey History of the Conewago Colony

"The Westerfield Massacre" Bullitt County Genealogical Society

Transcript of letter of H.R. Stafford, 1865 describing the Westerfield Massacre (via rootsweb)

Cornelius Westerfield and Besty Bruce Marriage Bond

David Westerfield and Catherine Ralph Sutton Marriage Record

Excerpt from History of Whitesville, Ky regarding Cornelius Westerfield's distillery.

Ellen Ruth Roberts, 1919-2009

Ellen Ruth Taylor Roberts, wife of Roy Gilbert Roberts, daughter of William Daniel Taylor and Dona Westerfield, passed away on Monday, September 28, 2009. Ruth, as she was known, was among other talents a wonderful mother, grandmother, and storyteller. Her stories of her family inspired me to get back into genealogy research. I thought I would try and share a few of those stories with you to help celebrate her life. Apologies to her family if I do not quite remember every detail correctly.

Ruth was born in Arkansas on October 31, 1919. Her family moved between Oklahoma and Arkansas several times during her childhood. More than once she told the story of how her family traveled to Oklahoma in a covered wagon (yes, such events did happen in the 20th century, at least in Oklahoma). At one point she was afraid the wagon would fall into the river when they traveled over a particularly gap-filled wooden bridge, so she got out of the wagon and crawled across the bridge on her hands and knees.

When she was 14, she moved to Owensboro, KY to live with her older sister Rose, to whom she was very close throughout her life. She and her sister got jobs at the local GE factory. She told the story of how they stood in line with hundreds of people to apply for a job at the factory, and were somehow noticed by a manager at the factory who pulled them out of line and gave them jobs. I guess he thought they were pretty! Ruth was fiercely proud of her independent nature and worked hard to support herself. By the time she was 16, she had saved enough to buy a full bedroom set for herself (a set which, as a sensible child of the depression, she used to this day).

On August 24, 1940, Ruth married Roy Gilbert Roberts, son of Joseph Lawrence and Agnes Maude Roberts. Even after she was married, Ruth continued to work. She worked as a beautician for the most part, operating a shop out of the back of her home. She also held various other jobs, including for a time postmaster, general store proprietor for the town of Adair, Kentucky, a small town that was little more than a mail stop of the railroad on the way out of Owensboro. She told of how it was her job to put the mail on the mailhook for the train to pick up. When the Roberts family eventually moved back to Owensboro, the mail service in Adair stopped and the town ceased to exist.

Ruth and Roy had five children, and by saving and sacrificing, they were able to send all five to college. Roy died in 1987, but Ruth continued to live on her own until suffering a stroke in 2006. In her later years, Ruth was always full of love and advice and wisdom for her grandchildren. She was fond of proscribing home remedies, such as soaking a sore elbow in epsom salts or giving beer to a colicky baby.

Ruth Roberts' obituary can be found here. Her funeral service is 10am on Friday, October 2 at Sts Joseph & Paul Catholic Church in Owensboro, KY.

The Roberts Family

A few weeks ago I attended the Roberts family reunion in Owensboro, Kentucky. This reunion brought together the descendants of Joseph Lawrence Roberts, my wife's great-grandfather. Joseph Lawrence had 11 children, 8 that lived to adulthood. All 8 of those children have now died, the last, Paul, passing in April of this year. However, the Roberts family is still very much thriving. We had dozens of Roberts cousins attend. Four spouses of the Roberts children are still alive and three of them attended the reunion. The oldest Roberts there was Catherine Roberts, age 93, widow of Manuel Roberts. She is in excellent health and I think she may even have driven herself to the reunion! Here are some pictures from the reunion.

At the reunion, Roy Roberts, son of Roy Gilbert Roberts and Ruth Taylor Roberts, presented each family with a book of the family's genealogy. Roy's book contains a lot of interesting stories about the family and paints a portrait of what life was like for a rural Kentucky family in the early 20th century. I contributed a bit to the book, mostly by referring Roy to other Roberts researchers who had far better and more detailed information than me. Since the Roberts family already has this detailed information on their family, I am merely going to post a summary of my findings on the Roberts family instead of my usual posting that includes source documents:

The earliest confirmed ancestor of the Roberts family is a John Roberts who died in 1724 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Family tradition is that this John Roberts was from Wales, but like most early Virginia settlers, it is impossible to tell where he was from as few colonial documents recorded this information.

John Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Trammell had at least five children. One son, John Jr., lived to be about 100 years old. We do not have exact dates for his life, but we know that he was born prior to 1703, and he is mentioned in an 1802 letter as being "one of the oldest residents in the county." He may have been over 100 when he died. He and his wife Elizabeth Russell had at least four children.

John Jr.'s son Benjamin was born in about 1741. He served as a Sergeant in the General George Rogers Clark's Illinois Regiment in the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1782. This was the group that headed west to defend settlers on the frontier from Indian allies of the British.

It appears that Sgt. Benjamin signed up with Gen. Clark with the intention to permanently move to Kentucky. Three days after enlisting, he sold his land in Culpeper county, Virginia, and his family likely followed the army west.

Once in Kentucky, Sgt. Benjamin was part of the expedition that established a fort at the Falls of the Ohio, which was the founding of the city of Louisville. Also present in the expedition were several of Sgt. Benjamin's cousins, including the confusingly similar Captain Benjamin Roberts, son of George Roberts. Many researchers (including myself) have mistaken these two, as they were about the same age, from the same county, and both married to women named Anne (hence the reason I refer to him as "Sgt. Benjamin").

The Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1912, before dams largely removed the falls as an obstacle to boat travel.

During his service, Sgt. Benjamin filed for a land grant for land in Jefferson County, Virginia that eventually became a part of Henry county, Kentucky. His wife, Anne Duncan, died shortly after arriving in Kentucky in 1780. Sgt. Benjamin remained on his land in Henry county for the rest of his life, and died after 1810. Sgt. Benjamin and Ann had 8 children.

Sgt. Benjamin's son James was born in 1766 in Culpeper county, Virginia. He moved to Henry county, Kentucky with his parents in 1780 and then on to Daviess county, Kentucky around the time his father died after 1810. James was married twice in Henry county. James and his first wife, whose name is unknown, had three sons, James, Merry, and Benjamin. His second wife, Elizabeth, had two sons, Willis and Henry. All five sons moved with their father to Daviess county to the village of Yelvington. James died there in 1822.

James's son Benjamin was born about 1793 in Henry county. Moved to Yelvington in Daviess county prior to 1820. In 1821, he married Rebecca Frazier, daughter of James and Nancy Frazier. The had seven children, and lived in Yelvington their entire lives.

Marion Franklin Roberts and Relly Ann Bowlds Roberts

One of Benjamin's sons, Marion Franklin, known as Frank, was a bricklayer in the Knottsville area in Hancock county, Kentucky, who helped build one of the first Catholic schools in that area. On May 9, 1917, at age 80, Frank converted to Catholocism. He died at age 88 in 1924 and is buried at St. Lawrence Catholic Cemetery in Maceo, Kentucky along with his wife, Arilia Ann (Relly Ann) Bowlds, daughter of William N. Bowlds and Sarah Pickerell. Frank and Relly Ann had six sons and five daughters. Their son Joseph Lawrence, born July 6, 1881, married Anges Maud Hartley on January 2, 1909. It is the descendants of their children that attended the Roberts family reunion. Most of their descendants still live in Daviess and Hancock counties, Kentucky.

Frank Family Reunion

Late summer seems to be the choice time for a family reunion. I have three between now and October. This last weekend was the Frank family reunion in O'Fallon, Missouri. Next weekend is the Roberts family reunion in Owensboro, Kentucky. Then in early October is the Dickson family reunion in Tebbetts, Missouri. I have been busy preparing information to share at each reunion, and I hope to come back from all three with lots of new information.

The Frank reunion was a lot of fun. The Frank family is very small, and the reunion was just the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of my grandma and grandpa Frank. We used to all get together for Chirstmas and Thanksgiving, but now many of us live in other states and have conflicting schedules for which holidays are with which families. The summertime reunion is a great way for me to keep in touch with all my cousins.

Below are some pictures from the Frank Family reunion at my Aunt Zoe and Uncle Dave's house in O'Fallon, Missouri. This reunion also served as the 90th birthday for my grandpa, Forrest F. Frank Jr. His birthday isn't until the end of the month, but we celebrated early because that was when everyone could get together. We also used the reunion as a time to remember my grandma, who passed away last year. My mother brought all my grandma's jewelry to the party and the grandkids all went through picking out items. As you can see, there was a lot of jewelry. It was really fun to see all that jewelry spread across the table and to remember some of the huge earrings, bracelets and necklaces that she was so fond of.

Click on the photo slideshows to go directly to the albums and see more detailed descriptions.

While I was there, I also took some photos of old family photographs. These include photos of my 90-year-old grandpa as a young boy in a sailor suit, him as a young man going off to World War II, his mother and father, and a few very old and priceless photographs from the Dickson family.

Finally, on my way out of town I stopped by St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery to take photos of the grave of my mother's great-grandfather. I recently learned that the Archdiocese of St. Louis has records of all their cemeteries online. Most of my family was not Catholic, but I searched anyway, as a few of the cemeteries were popular with non-Catholics as well. I found a listing for my great-great grandfather, John Patrick Hickey, a native of Ireland. What's more, the Archdiocese website revealed there were five related graves in the same family plot: His wife and four children who never married. Stopped by the cemetary and easily found the graves. Below are some photos of the graves.

Back in Action

For the last few months my genealogy research has taken a back seat while I finished my final semester of law school and studied for and took the Bar exam (and hopefully passed it!). Now I am finally free of school obligations. I am not completely free as I now have to go from excessive studying to be a lawyer to excessive working as a lawyer. Still, I hope to squeeze in the time for a post a week on this blog.

I have a large backlog of information that I have collected over the last few months that I need to process and organize into posts. Some of my finds have been quite exciting and I really hope to get the time to post about them soon. I have contacted other researchers who gave me a wealth of information on my wife's family. I also have received a large set of obituaries for the Frank family that I hope to post soon. There have also been numerous updates to other related families in my tree. I will spotlight some of the more interesting people in these less well known parts of my tree through regular "Spotlight" posts.

It will take me a while to get a lot of this information digitized and organized enough for publication. Until then, here is a status update on the various families of interest in my research:

Frank (my father's family): I have obtained numerous obituaries for my earliest Frank ancestors. These included the obituary of my earliest known Frank ancestor, Jacob Frank. His obituary (actually, several obituaries in various local papers) confirm many of my theories about him, including his town of origin and his occupations.

Sullivan (my mother's family): My mother has provided me her family photo album which contains a wonderful collection of old family photographs of ancestors going back to the Civil War. I am currently scanning these photographs when I have free time. Unfortunately, most all of the photographs are unlabled. I am trying to identify as many photographs as I can. I am hopeful this will help me identify some current Sullivan relations.

Dickson (my paternal grandmother's family): I have begun writing the story of this family for a blog post. I have one major missing link in this family that I am trying to resolve first. I was hopeful to answer some questions about this family when I took a recent trip to Raleigh, North Carolina for a wedding. Raleigh is home to the State Archives, which have the old court records for all NC counties. Unfortunately, the office was closed for an extended Memorial Day holiday while I was there. I will either write to them or contact other researchers that might have the information before I post.

Roberts (my wife's father's family): I have been in contact with a few researchers who have extensive information on this family. I am also going to a Roberts Family Reunion in Owensboro Kentucky next weekend. After this I will try and post my findings.

Ebelhar (my wife's mother's family): As I have previously mentioned, I found out a great deal of information on this family. My wife's mother's families have especially interesting stories to them, including murder and other shocking deaths. I simply have too much information to sort out right now, and will need to get that done before I write some posts.

I also have updated information on several related families in Missouri, Indiana and Kentucky, including the following surnames: Beasley, Gruenewald, Hickey, Kelley, Riney, Runge, Shelton, Shields and Weber. If you are a researcher interested in any of these surnames in these areas, please contact me!

A genealogy weekend

This weekend I visited my wife's family in Owensboro, Kentucky. She was there for a cousin's wedding shower. While she was at the shower, I decided to use my free time to try and track down some of the dead ends I had run into in researching her family.

There were three main roadblocks I have encountered in researching her family. First is finding the maiden names of some of the women in her maternal grandfather's family. Her grandfather's family, the Ebelhars/Uebelhors, are German (Actually Alsacian French) Catholics who emigrated to southern Indiana. I know that Catholic churches in the area kept excellent records, and that I would have no problem locating this information if I was to go to the local churches and view the record books. That, however, is something I have yet to find time to do. Fortunately, I spoke with one of my mother-in-law's cousins who has already done much of that work. He offered to exchange information with me next time I am in town. He has a collection of record copies and old photographs that I hope to digitize. He also had quite a few interesting stories to share about his family, such as how his great grandfather was the owner of a rather rowdy saloon, and once shot a man in a barfight.

The second roadblock I addressed was my wife's maternal grandmother's family. Her great grandmother was a Mabel Kelley, born in 1895 in the Owensboro area. I had Mabel on the 1900 and 1910 censuses as a child, but was unable to determine the names of her parents. Mabel was raised by her aunt and uncle, Rose and William Tuck. Her parents either abandoned her to their relatives, or died before she was 5. I found the answer in old, handwritten notes my wife's grandmother's aunt, Sister Elizabeth Kelley. Sr. Elizabeth left 16 pages of meticulous handwritten notes on her family. She even made multiple handwritten copies to share with her family! These notes revealed the names of her parents and grandparents, opening up whole new branches of research for me to explore over the next few months. I took high resolution digital photos of Sr. Elizabeth's notes and will be sharing those along with my own research.

The final roadblock is the most challenging: My wife's paternal grandmother's father. My wife's grandmother was born in 1919 in Arkansas to William Daniel Taylor and Dona Westerfield. Her mother was 16 when she married William D. Taylor, who at the time was at least 50 years old, possibly as old as 55. Even in Arkansas in 1903, a 50 year old marrying a 16 year old girl was not common. Simply put, and without getting into details, William D. Taylor was not a good person. He was also very secretive, which led to much speculation and rumors in his family. We do not know if William D. Taylor is his real name, where he was from, or exactly when he was born.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find any significant information on William D. Taylor prior to his marriage in 1903. My trip only raised more questions about who this man might have been. What I do know about him remains limited. I know he was likely from Tennessee, though he wouldn't even give the census takers a square answer on this question. Other than that, I have only many, many rumors. He may have left Tennessee because he got a 15 year old girl pregnant and was run out of town. He may have served as a water boy for soldiers in the Civil War. He may have briefly been a member of the James-Younger Gang, and participated in a stagecoach heist near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. He may have had a twin brother whose identity he assumed. He may even have had a second family living in Oklahoma and Tennessee.

That is quite a lot to explore. I could spend years researching to discover which of these stories is true. For now, I am going to focus on finding him on an earlier census and hopefully determining the names of his parents and where he was from.

I'll post more on these families after I get some time to review the information I received this weekend. Unfortunately, my genealogy work might be rather limited for the next few months, as I am headed towards finals, and after that I must begin preparing for the bar exam in July. But I will at least try and post stories on the families I have already researched in the next few months.

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.