Welcome to my new genealogy blog. I’ll be writing about the interesting stories I have discovered about my and my husband’s families while doing genealogy research and the brick walls I still have to break though.
I have been researching for many years, but really got into it after having some family members’ DNA tested and uploading our tree to Ancestry. I have found books written about some of my husband’s ancestors who have been in the US since at least 1634! We knew he had an ancestor who was in the War of 1812, but it turns out he is descended from a few Revolutionary War patriots as well. We also found out that even though we had always thought he was only Irish and English that he has German ancestors, which the DNA testing verified. My ancestors haven’t been here nearly as long, making researching my roots in Ireland and Italy a lot more difficult. But I love finding new cousins we didn’t know about and learning about our ancestors. I think it’s good for our kids to know where they came from and some of the cool things that their ancestors have done. Heck we found out that my kids are 4th cousins 6 times removed to Gideon Welles, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy.
This is a list of the family names that I know of so far: Bond, Miller, Hicks, Shepard, Cooper, Cowles, Stanley, Morrice, Hart, Porter, Woodford, Newell, Reed, Doxtater(Dockstader/Dachstatter), Weber, Cunningham, Brodock, Doran, Kelly, Whelan, Blizard, Finch, Gale, Tooker, Elston, Dye, Spencer, Schoonover, Cole, Foley, Emperor, Lawder, Farrall, Burke, Tynan, Reagan, Doyle, O’Leary, Murtha(Murtagh), Hagney(Heagney), Bigley(Begley), O’Neill, Vespignani, Fanti, Bosi, DiPaolo, Volpe, Barbuzzi, Calzaretta, DiMira, Belsante(Belsanti), Paradiso, Marchetti, Bevilacqua. I am constantly adding new information on my genealogy quest. And who knows maybe someone who has some info to share will stumble across this website and contact me at terrybdna@gmail.com.
Congratulations on getting this started. I am sure it will be great.