GENEALOGY
I have finally found the time to create a new genealogy website through my current program, Family Tree Maker. It can be visited here. At present I have only launched the Bettler-Edwards line, but will add others as time permits. This of course will always be a work in progress. If you are connected to the family, please check it out, and contact me with any corrections or additions. The program withholds date information on living individuals but does include their names (unlike the Rootsweb database, which only publishes a surname and the relationship). If anyone has any privacy concerns about any of these listings, please also let me know. My own experience with this is that generally only other genealogists are visiting these sites and they are almost entirely not only well-intentioned, but very generous in sharing and exchanging hard-to-find information.
A Bettler contact from Facebook has introduced us to distant cousin Peter Stettler (whose grandfather changed the name from Bettler) of Zurich, Switzerland. Peter has studied the Bettler family history for years and has been very generous both in sharing his research and poring through Swiss records to assist me in connecting with our Bettler roots. After years of fruitless searching we finally have great-grandmother Lena Bettler's birth record, parentage and home village (Lenk, in the Simmental Valley, Canton Bern). If there are living second or third cousins or other more distant connections, we may finally discover them.
My old Frankfort photos, most of which were found in a piece of furniture originally belonging to Aline Edwards Suter, have been published here.
Several years ago our cousin Barbara Vogler in Frankfort made the acquaintance of our third cousin Frank Sower, a former mayor of Frankfort. He kindly provided her with copies of the birth, marriage and death record pages in the family Bible that had belonged to our great-great-grandparents Bennett Edwards and Amanda Scofield Edwards. My database has been enlarged with the collateral descendants included, as this Bible passed on to James Edwards, brother to our great-grandfather Frank. The Edwards and Bettler family info is combined in one file at Rootsweb and also on the Family Tree Maker site.
The
Edwards Bible, featuring family records from the Suter-Edwards and Edwards-Bettler
marriages.
We visited Holton, Kansas in 2003 to research
the three generations of McCrearys that had lived there. Grandfather Wayne was an
only child but his father George Duncan McCreary was one of a large family and
we acquired a lot more names. We most likely have a number of third cousins
in Northeastern Kansas... another future project. The McCrearys and Flournoys
have been provided to Rootsweb in one database.
Our pictures
from Holton feature family homes and grave sites.
The Taylor information, except for recent births and deaths, was the gift of Roger's late cousin Catherine Taylor Rhodes, and has been supplied to Rootsweb.
Jess and Dan's wedding, July 17, 2004
Anna Elizabeth, born May 18, 2006
George McCreary's 88th Birthday, June 2005
Ginny and Roger's 25th Wedding Anniversary, January 2006
Looking for cousin Marjorie Pleasant Jennings
Roger's Retirement
Anna's First Birthday
Jessie's Graduation
Some photographs of the McLin family gravestones can be
seen from Piney Grove Cemetery #2, Nancy, Pulaski
County, Kentucky.
The McLin family, Roger's maternal grandfather, has been provided to Rootsweb.
On Second Cousins
Ginny's musings on her research and the web of family.
Rootsweb.com A valuable one-stop resource for beginning family history research. Many links and a great tutorial program for the novice.
Cyndi’s List Another interesting and very comprehensive collection of genealogy links.
Cousin Number Counter Cyndi’s List features many kinship charts but this is one of the easiest to read and understand. Calculate your relationship to more distant kin via the common ancestor.
The Edwards Hoax. Some older family members may have heard of this; supposedly a Robert Edwards died intestate and leaving a valuable tract of property in lower Manhattan which might be recovered and divided among the Edwards heirs. A current claim is being brought by a Welsh descendant. See here for more than you ever wanted to know about this. This was possibly a version of a nineteenth-century scam; genealogy literature contains several similar examples. They usually offer a now-valuable tract of land in a large city, a 99-year lease, mysterious hidden documents (which will be made available upon payment of large legal retainers) and a family name common enough to attract large numbers of suckers, er, heirs. A good comparable example can be seen here.