Join in the Quest for Family History

My family history includes Mayflower and other early families in New England, Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam, and Germans and Swiss who arrived in 1710 and the mid-1800s. While I am very pleased to have traced many of my lines to these immigrants and sometimes to their European villages, there remain questions, even mysteries.

This blog will focus on news of interest to genealogists and on my ancestral lines. Hopefully, it will aid in breaking down some brick walls for all of us -- with your help! You are welcome to add your own mysteries as comments to any posts below. As genealogists, we know the value of sharing information and working together.

We pool our resources, work together to solve family puzzles... and readily admit that our work is never done. There will always be new information that can upset our carefully drawn conclusions and our cherished history. We carefully consider all the "facts," weigh all the evidence, base our assumptions on only the best logic... and sit back and wait for the long-lost manuscript to be rescued from a garage sale or an aging relative's attic. Let's work together to unearth that old manuscript, or letter, or diary, or bible -- or scrap of paper -- that strengthens our family history.

Will you help? I promise to share everything I know or believe is true, as well as the mysteries and theories, but only for nonliving people. You will not find living people in my online data.

Remember to add your own mysteries to the Comments section! Everyone is welcome to participate. Maybe you too will have that exciting breakthrough.

Happy ancestor hunting!

Monday, March 05, 2012

Genealogy on TV

"Finding your Roots" will launch on March 25. The following is a quote from the website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/:


About the Series

The basic drive to discover who we are and where we come from is at the core of the new 10-part PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the 12th series from Professor Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Filmed on location across the United States, the series premieres nationally Sundays, March 25 – May 20 at 8 pm ET on PBS (check local listings).
Tipple or Teeple family -- Mystery #3

A man named Johann Peter Diewel (Diepel, Diebel, Dipel) and one named Johannes Diewel (Diebel, Tibel, Teeple) came to New York in 1710 with the Palatine movement. The first family moved north to the Hudson Valley; the second stayed in the New York City and then went to New Jersey. Were they related and, if so, how?

We are seeking male descendants of these men to compare their Y-DNA. Can you help?