Throughout my education, I was never very caught up by American and especially State History. I was more attracted to World and especially Ancient History. In my retirement I began an ever expanding search for my roots. In doing so I gained a new found passion for American History when it became populated with the fascinating ancestors that inhabit the branches of the family trees of my wife (DOBSON) and me (STRAUSE).
The development of this website has become an essential tool to facilitate my passion. My goal is to expand these two trees back through each direct ancestor family to that family’s immigrant ancestor. In doing so, I will document for my children, my extended family and all of their unknown "cousins" wherever they may be, what their ancestors had to accomplish so that they are who they are today. It has been a daunting task and I have come to realize that I might just get much further by sharing and my data with other who are researching the same families.
In order to place my data on the web as quickly as possible, I have divided the site into two sections. First, a section which basically is an outline of each of our family surnames, which begins with the earliest of our direct ancestors to bear that name who I have been able to document. Currently I plan to utilize a Descendant Ancestor Chart from the earliest direct ancestor I have documented and as many descendantsthat I have found. The purpose of this section is to allow researchers to quickly determine if we are working on the same families and to facilitate any communication with me. Please use one of the "Compiler" links at the bottom of the pages on this site.
The second or Narrative section is for the exploration of the life and times of our Direct Ancestors and in some cases their siblings. I will occasionally identify important or notable descendants. The focus however, will be on the Direct Ancestors and the careful and comprehensive documentation of their lives including detailed source references. This section naturally will grow more slowly than the first.
I hope that that this website will open a portal for my immediate family to facilitate their sharing of my discoveries with them; as well as a portal to initiate and stimulate a free exchange of documented information between myself and anyone who can assist us all in increasing the amount of accurate information about our ancestors.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The data contained on this site changes and hopefully evolves as I follow my quest. The current information has come from a variety of sources. Individuals who have already contributed have my heartfelt gratitude. All data is only as valid as its documentation, and where it is not documented or verified it will have no source identified.
If you find information which you believe is incorrect, please email me your documented corrections so that I can make those adjustments. If any of you find your family members on this site and would like to have narrative information included on my sight, please contact me and I will tell you how you can submit that information to me so that it is included.
Since this is a Public Website, all data on living persons has been suppressed. Therefore if you can establish a credible reason, I will share that information in a private version of this data which will be available by contacting me via the "Compiler" link at the bottom of this page.
Please select one of our Direct Ancestor surnames from the list in the sidebar to proceed: