Hello! Welcome to the manifestation of my life's obsession.

As I'm sure any of you who have stumbled upon this site will know, genealogy can take over your life as soon as you realize how much information you can learn about yourself simply by learning about your own family. This site is the final realization for me of how powerful this influence can be.

I began researching my family history approximately six years ago, shortly after I got married to my wonderful husband, Adam, who is an Australian immigrant (now naturalized!). I began by simply opening the baby book my mother had kept for me and learning the names of my great-grandparents. I searched online for a woman named Alice Toulson Taylor for whom my mother had saved an obituary and discovered a wealth of information already gathered by a distant cousin of mine (see the Taylor Links and Queries page for that site). Once I realized that I had to begin by finding out what had already been done, the obsession began.

Now, I've finished the "easy" part and have started searching for more concrete information on family lines that have not already been researched. It's not an easy task without time or funds, but I do my best. I have approximately 36,000 'names' on my family tree at the moment, and I have met quite a few wonderful, helpful people who have kept me on the straight and narrow path to make sure I have the correct families. Of course, I want to keep adding names to my tree, but I also would love to share what information I have with others who may be distant relatives.

The Latest Updates...

September 25, 2006:
WELL!!! I have been able to do quite a bit of research about Bartley FUREY since I last updated and little else... however, that has been enough! Bartley (born Bartholomew, but always called Bartley) is quite the character. I've received or found the following documents on him: birth certificate, death certificate, passage manifest of his immigration from England, Social Security Application, marriage license to his second wife (Emily Miller), birth record of his second son (Bartley C. Furey, 1916-1989), and 1930 census where he is living with his third wife. I still need to locate the marriage certificate to his third wife (Iona Aber), and I would love to get his obituary. I can only imagine what it might say.

I would also LOVE to find out if Bartley C. Furey ever had any children, because if so, they may still be living, and Adam's family may have American relatives! For the full story on Bartley after he came to the United States, check out the Blomfield Stories page.

June 17, 2006:
Information on both the FUREY family and the MORTON family (both on the Blomfield side) has been fast and furious in coming in! I'm still waiting on a birth certificate for BARTLEY/BARTHOLOMEW FUREY (b. 1888), but it's only been about a month, and due to exceptionally high interest in genealogy in the U.K., delays in this process are to be expected.

In my family, thanks to Kay Davis (I correspond with her about my Nieland/Mueggenborg history), I now know the meaning of the surname Baunhofer. Apparently, the name is likely a very bad rendition of the word "bauernhofer," which is basically a farmer of a "bauernhof," or large farm. A "Hof" in itself is like an estate which would have tenants or small sharecroppers living on it. Usually the farmers were called "Bauers," but obviously our family was unique.

Thanks to the addition of all this new information, I'm going to start adding new pages soon. One of the pages will be a list of all the records and family tree information that I have acquired in the past six years. In this way, not only will I have a list of all the records in my collection, but you will be able to see what records I have, in case you're interested. If the records in my collection are courtesy of other researchers, they will be credited there.

May 2, 2006:
I have narrowed the scope of my search to TWO SPECIFIC LINES of my family tree. In my family, I am pursuing the MILLER surname. Of German ancestry, the MILLER (likely Mueller) family is currently traceable to Pennsylvania through Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Ohio. I hope to be able to find some concrete information on this family in the short term. In my husband's family, I am researching the FUREY surname. This line has long been a source of mystery in the family, but I believe I have broken through a brick wall and am ordering certificates at a rapid rate.

Eventually, I hope to create specific pages for these families and add images of birth, death, and marriage certificates, as well as add newspaper articles, obituaries, and photographs (if available). It will be a long process, but narrowing my search to only two surnames will give me a specific goal.

What You'll Find Here

This site is, of course, an ongoing project! Do check back every once in a while to see if I have updated. Above all else, feel free to e-mail me! Even if you don't feel that you have a connection, I enjoy talking to others who share the same hobby. And you never know when a connection from one family to another will be made.

Listed below are the next pages that you'll probably want to visit:

The middle link is a single page about my husband, children, pets, and I; the surrounding links take you to pages regarding each side of the family. The Blomfield page takes you to my husband's side, and the Taylor page is my side. Beyond the initial tree pages, you will find pages relating to histories of areas where our families have lived, pages containing pictures and stories that I have or have been sent, and a page of links and queries for each side of the family. Let me say a little more about that page. The links portion of that page will contain links to sites I have found useful in my research about a specific part of the family, and the queries portion will contain queries that I would like answers to.

To find more information about my family, such as finding a specific person or family, visit my WorldConnect site.

A Little About the Families

Blomfield

Blomfield, obviously, is a British surname. A college professor with a fetish for etymology once told me it meant 'field of flowers.' Obviously derived from a Germanic as opposed to a Latin base, the Blomfield side of the family is my husband's and, consequently, I have less information on it. Plus, finding Australian genealogical information is not easy. There is very little online at the moment to draw from, and 'snail' mail between here and there can take upwards of a couple weeks one way.

What I have at the moment is that the majority of both my husband's father's family and his mother's family both come out of England. This isn't a great leap of imagination, I know. I am currently attempting to gather information regarding my husband's maternal grandmother's line. I do know that a portion of that line comes directly from Australian First Fleeter Edward Risby, and another portion comes out of an old Irish clan, the Fureys.

Taylor

Taylor, again, is a British name that belies the majority of my ancestry. While my maiden name was Taylor and that portion of my line is currently viable back to Kentucky (and possibly Wales), the vast and overwhelming majority of my lineage is German. These families have such names as 'Baunhofer,' 'Schaefer,' 'Mueggenborg,' 'Boes,' 'Hellwig,' 'Baden,' 'Rathje,' 'Luehmann,' etc., etc., etc. Obviously, with those names, churches have been an excellent source of records. Many of my sources have used baptismal and burial records found in church rolls in Germany. Emigration for most of my family was generally in the mid- to late-1800s. One thing I have discovered already in my research is that I absolutely cannot stand 'Germans to America.' Out of all the folks in my family who have emigrated from Germany, only one - badly spelled - has shown up in that book. However, if it works for you, congrats!

In America, my family history extends primarily from Kansas and Oklahoma eastward through Missouri and Iowa to Pennsylvania and down through Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. According to some sources, if I am able to trace back far enough, my lineage will stretch as far north and back as 1600s New Jersey and pre-Virginia Jamestown, as well as the ancient and untraceable lineage of the Native American Cherokee tribe; however, as I have not confirmed some of that information, it's still a bit suspect.

So That's It!

If you've actually read all that's on this page, kudos to you. You have finally reached the end. If you read on from here, you'll find some general genealogy links to sites I have found helpful in my research as well as a guestbook to sign to let me know you've been here.

Thank you for visiting, feel free to look around, and let me know if you have any questions... or if you don't!

 

                     

                          

You are person number to visit this page since 30 Apr 2004.

This site was last updated 09/25/2006 20:29:11 -0500