How to Navigate this Web Site
I have four grandparents. So do you. We all do. And eight great-grandparents. And sixteen great-great grandparents. And so on and so on. Of course, that’s a generalization. Some people have fewer. How? When cousins marry, you can get the same person appearing more than once in your line of direct ancestors. If you go back far enough (and if we had the records to prove it), you would find many of the same people over and over again in your family tree. That’s how we can have have nearly eight billion people in the world today but only around half a billion people on earth five hundred years ago when good record-keeping for the masses in Europe began.
I have organized this web site around a basic fact in my family tree that is probably true of yours as well. I have four grandparents whose lines don’t intersect (at least in recorded history). That helps keep everything here relatively neat and tidy. It also helps you navigate this site. I have discovered and met lots of first, second, third, and even more distant cousins in my genealogy work over the years, and as you might imagine, few of them are interested in my entire family tree. So having this site organized into four rather discrete parts lets you explore the branches you want while ignoring the branches you don’t want.
Happy wandering!
Paul Family
My paternal grandfather Edward Paul was born in 1907 in rural Langlade County, Wisconsin. His parents, Julius Paul and Bronisława Rottke, emigrated to the United States from Poland. This section is about Edward’s family of origin, their ancestors, and their descendants.
Davidson Family
My maternal grandfather James W. Davidson was born in 1910 near Denver, Colorado. His father James A. Davidson was born in Scotland and immigrated to the United States as a boy. James W.’s mother Ethel Whaley was born in Kansas, with lines extending into New England (Whaley) and the American South (Fisher) back to colonial times. This section is separated into two subsections, one detailing the Davidson line and the other the Whaley and Fisher lines.
Jenkins Family
My paternal grandmother Wilma Jenkins was born in 1913 in rural Langlade County, Wisconsin. Both her parents, David H. Jenkins and Fanny Clark, were born in the Allegheny Plateau region in west-central Appalachia. This section is about Wilma’s family of origin as well as her half-siblings, their ancestors, and their descendants.
Fields Family
My maternal grandmother Elsie Fields was born in 1913 near San Diego, California. Elsie’s father Oscar Fields was born in North Carolina with his line going back there into colonial times. Elsie’s mother Alice Williams was born in Colorado to immigrants from Cornwall, England. This section is separated into two subsections, one detailing the Fields line and the other the Williams line.