| ALBAUGH | CRAMER | HINSEY | Parke | Thaxter |
| ANGEL-ENGEL | Dornin | Hirt | POST | THURSTON |
| Austin | Ehinger | Houser | BRACH-PROUGH | TIMMONS |
| Birch-Burch | EIKENBERRY | KELKER-KÖLLIKER | Ream | VAUGHAN |
| Bräetscher | ESSIG | KINGERY | Requel | WEBB |
| Brecht | FOLLIS | KINSEY | ROYER | Weidman |
| Breininger | FOREMAN | LANDIS | Schneer | Winder |
| Burkholder | Flockerth | Longenfeldt | Schollenberger | Wooley |
| Carter | Fuhrman | Matte | SCHNEIDER-SNYDER | ZEIGLER |
| Carver-Garber | Groff | Mountz | Springer | Zimmerman |
| CARY-CAREY | Hamilton | Meyer | Shook | ZUMBRUN |
| Cheldon | HECKMAN | Naas | SWANK |
A ninth generation FOLLIS descendant living in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, my FOLLIS ancestors have been in the United States of America since before 1731 first found in New Jersey. Living among Quakers and Scots-Irish our assumed heritage, it is partially supported by my yDNA tests matching a Follis currently living in Dublin, Ireland whose family tradition is also Scots-Irish. Descendant's of George Fallis, a son of my 1731 Thomas Follis, were Quaker's in Colonial Virginia and remained Quaker's well into 1960's Washington state.
I became curious about my FOLLIS family history in 1993 a few years after my father died. The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is the largest public Genealogy Center in the United States. Librarian John Beatty narrates a YouTube video on their massive collection which covers half the second floor of the remodeled library. I photocopy anything and everything I find on my families, then digitize most of it. I have visited most courthouses, libraries and hundreds of cemeteries in the counties where my ancestors and their siblings lived here in Indiana and Ohio. I am always looking for additions and corrections to my information, although only a small portion appears on this web site.
If you have genealogy material you want to share, the Allen County Public Library accepts any type of family history material. They make two copies of your information on acid free paper in hard bound books, keeping one copy for library use and return the original materials and second copy to you to pass along to your family, or local library. Their July 31, 2004 newsletter Genealogy Gems points out the procedures.
People appear to change very little over time. Interactions with family and friends, church and social activities, attitude towards government and business are similar to how we live today. Biggest differences are in technology and methods of communication. 100 years ago information was exchanged in person, or written on paper, if it was available, taking days, weeks, even months and years to distribute throughout the world. Only the written word remains over time chiseled in stone, on paper, in books, periodicals, and newspapers.
What a technological change over the centuries from the days of cutting down trees to build your cabin in the woods and walking wherever you wanted to go and living off the land. Most of us couldn't comprehend how to successfully cross a river without a bridge as our ancestors would. The internet information highway with cell phones, ipods, PDA's and Blackberry computers are everywhere in cars, homes, toys, and businesses. We wait for the closest parking spot in the mall nearest the door, complain about pot holes, and sit bumper to bumper on high speed paved highways during "rush hour". We wait longer on the airport tarmac than it takes to fly to our destination in hours rather than the days or weeks it took our ancestors. Our ancestors just 100 years ago knew none of these things and if we were to meet, they may well consider us as strange creatures from some unknown future world beyond their comprehension.
With the change from the information age, to the knowledge age we will have to learn how to do more than just push a button to move information electronically on computers, cell phones and portable devices over high speed interconnected worldwide networks. A big problem for family historians is the ease with which it can be copied and changed. Years of research can be taken with the push of a button, no credit or reimbursement given, whether accurate or speculation subject to doubt as to authenticity. At the same time, many complain about paying for family information, and on the other side, many are reluctant to post family data online for those very reasons. Why should we give away years of research we paid for with our time and real money, often neglecting other aspects of life to find our families? There are a couple of interesting poems that explain some of this, and Dick Eastman addresses the financial costs in his Newsletter Why It Isn't Free! If we expect to make money off our family research, we are probably using false expectations. It does seem reasonable to receive compensation in some form, and receiving proper credit for copying my information and sending missing information in return for what is posted online seems a good starting point. You can leave Comments or Email missing information any time.
One new area I am using is DNA testing. It may prove quite surprising if there are any skeletons in our family closets, revealing family secrets some may not be happy to discover. My DNA tests in June 2009 confirmed the Irish side of our Scots-Irish tradition when I matched with a Follis in Ireland whose ancestry has been traced to the 1770's. I am quite happy with my Follis Surname Project DNA discoveries, other DNA tests may be shocking at what the truth reveals..
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