The purpose of this site is to:
- Help us get to know those that came before us.
- Share pictures and stories with other family members.
- Connect with distant relatives that share our common ancestry.
- Locate lost pictures, stories and artifacts.
- Provide help to new family researchers.
Overview
Tracing our roots
If you're reading this, either you are a close family member that
was told about this web page, or you are a genealogist who came across
it while doing a family name search. The information you will find in
these pages is not guaranteed to be one-hundred percent accurate or
complete. In fact, it's a work in progress by an amateur (at best)
genealogist.
Looking for ones ancestors can be an exciting and rewarding
enterprise at times. It can also be very frustrating and time
consuming. I've likened it to trying to solve a hundred year old
mystery by looking back in time through a telescope. There are many
aids available.
Some are listed here:
State and county vital records.
Federal and local census data.
Written works of reliable (and not so reliable) genealogists.
Local historical organizations and libraries.
Even with all of this information, you will hit a "brick
wall" sooner or later. Therein lies the greatest pain/pleasure of this
addiction called genealogy. While the brick wall will be your greatest
frustration, breaking through it will be your greatest joy.
Temporarily, that is. Until the next brick wall. Then the next
breakthrough. etc...etc. So it goes on and on.
Learning to use and interpret information sources like the ones
listed above will help, but sometimes a little luck or a tip off from
a fellow researcher is all you need. I've found clues in the tiniest
of details. Like who was living next to whom when a particular census
was taken. Or when someone that responded to one of my message board
posts told me the "Julia" was an Americanized version of the Norwegian
"Gunhilde".
That brings me back to one of the main reasons for building this
site. It's to help us all pool our information and see if we can trace
ourselves back as far as possible. Find our family farms or kindred
estates in the countries of our origin. Like I said, the information
on this site is not nearly complete and not presumed to be correct.
I'm hoping that piece by piece we can put the puzzle together so that
we, and future generations, can look back and be proud of our
heritage.
My main ancestral lines
With the help of many researchers, most of whom I don't know,
here is a brief look at my four main ancestral lines and the first
individuals known to these shores:
Wright - English/Scottish - Benjamin Wright 1610-1677 or James
Wright 1701-1769 This mystery has yet to be solved.
