Grand and Glorious Tree

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time.  I've been working on a long-hoped-for project, displaying my family tree on a wall in my house.  Here it is in all its glory!  Do you think it is worth the wait?

I received the tree itself for Christmas, and started working on it the next day.  It was just finished yesterday!

We started by taping up all the branches to make sure they would fit.

   Next we stuck the branches on and removed the backing.  It really helps to have tall people around.

And it looks like a tree! 

 Then the post-it notes go up, to see which family will fit on which branch.  The Sulzbachs and Durrettes can go on small branches because I cannot find very many of them, but the Hollemans and Wests will need a lot.  They trace back to the original colonies, and therefore so many people have researched them, they have whole books and websites dedicated to their families.

The post-it notes are too big, so they are replaced by business cards with less information.

A clip-art picture with each person adds visual appeal, and then it gets even better when I add color.  The picture depicts their occupation, home, hobby, or some other tidbit I know about them.  

Bill and John Spence were miners and Mirriam's husband was a blacksmith.  Most lived on a farm. Bessie loved to sew and Phoebe was a talented quilter.  Elmira had a Bible with her initials on the bookmark; George Rector was a Revolutionary War soldier; the Pettygrews emigrated from Ireland.  I don't know anything about Ann and Robert Sparkes except that they lived back in time.It gets really hard, and scary, when I get all the way back to 1607.

 my ancestors

my fiance' Chuck Brown's ancestors

                                                               Chuck's ancestors go back to the 1600s in Virginia Colony.  Richard Bennett was born in Jamestown in 1625.

              The Robertsons and Ackers were all Loyalists.  The Ackers were in Dutch New York in the 1600s.  One Robertson ancestor was a Lumbee Indian.

 

                                                                                                                                                 

My grandmother Bessie Spence's ancestors:  the Spence and Rushton lines don't go back that far, but her grandmother, Susan West, has a huge family tree.  It looks crowded because it is:  they all came to Massachusetts and Connecticut in the same 10-year period, the Great Migration from England, 1630 to 1640.  If you are descended from Grannie English Phoebe Esther Rushton Spence, these are your people.  

our first ancestor born here is John Presbury in 1640

In 1623, Elizabeth Walker and their daughters followed her husband Richard Warren, who came on the Mayflower.  If you are descended from Grannie English Phoebe Esther Rushton Spence, you are a Mayflower descendant.

ships denote immigrants

The Brown line back to Virginia in the 1600s and early 1700s. Brown ancestors go back to Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America

I cannot find many Durrettes

The Robertsons and Rushtons are descended from Loyalists, with the British flag symbol. Loyalists stayed true to England during the Revolutionary War and after they lost, were rewarded with land grants in Canada.

The Sulzbachs have lived in Rockenberg, Hesse, Germany, since 1608.  There is a small castle in Rockenberg.  I can only find Zoellers back to the first immigrants in 1845; they came from Bavaria.

The fun part is seeing the whole tree laid out at once.  Instead of having to look at bits on a screen or just lines on the paper, here it all is in living color!  We just stand there and look at it........

* To find who your ancestors are, try typing your grandparent's name into the search bar.  Or look at Menu, Family Tree Page, and scroll down through the descendant charts until you find a married couple you recognize.  Then you can look back thru pedigree charts.  

Or try one of these free websites, which have family trees posted, and type in the name and dates of the oldest ancestor you know:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/

https://www.familysearch.org

Websites on specific families:

        Ancestors of Brown family of Virginia and North Carolina:

           https://www.the-sims-family.net/genealogy/sims/docs/Adam_Symes_and_His_Descendants.pdf

            https://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/?m=1

        Ancestors of Rushton family:

                https://www.thewarrencousins.com/

                https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/who-were-the-pilgrims/2020/february/richard-warren/