This all started with an innocent question,"who is that person your talking about to me mom?" My daughter would get confused when listening to family stories about who was in what family, so I tried to sort it out and here I am, 13 years later, still trying. I hope you will join me in my journey, I will gladly share what I have and help were I can.
Some of the lines are easy, others seem to want to stay hidden, it's the game of hide and seek that keeps me coming back for more.
The families I am trying to track down are on the maternal side, The Harmon Van Patten's Of Schenectady New York, James Henry Weldon, of Schenectady New York, Christopher Jerome Wallace, Albany New York and Antonette Gebauer of Saxony Germany, who when she was a child lived in Albany New York with her parents and sister, upon the death of her mother, her father moved the family back to Saxony Germany, when she was older she worked on ships sailing to America, at some point she met Christopher J. Wallace, married and decided to stay in America, at this her father disowned her.
My Gibbs history, my paternal side, starts with "A woman of the Long Hair Clan married a Scotsman, Ludvic Grant, a Jacobite captured and sent to America." this Gibbs line travels from Virginia to Georgia to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears, names include Grant, Martin, Emory, Big Kettle and Davis.
Then we come to the Giltz line, my husband's side, the story here is that Conrad Giltz came to America from Germany as a draft dodger. This side of the family has surnames of Little, coming from Canada and settling in Boston and eventually Watertown, New York, Davis, also from Canada and settling in Watertown, New York, and Rourke I only have a record of them in Orleans, New York.
So, you see we have a lot of territory to cover. I know we have Revolutionary War soldiers, Cherokee Indians, Civil War Soldiers, slave owners, draft dodgers and many more playing the game of hide and seek. I hope you will join me in my journey.
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