finally finished with Gehman

Well since 2009, I've been working on the sir name Gehman / Hefley. I have finished the research and put all the information together in 4, 4-inch book binders filled with pictures, records, trees, all kinds of information one might need to know about their family history. This was a big family with a possibility of Indian heritage in it also, which is what took me so long. That was another binder of letters, pictures, records and stuff to prove the heritage. I finally realized, that I needed to start working on my own family genealogy before it's to late. So I've been putting together all my stuff, and getting it ready to put in the binders for my daughters. That alone will take over a year to put together. I'm still gathering information, but I believe I am soon at my end of my research....a few brick walls, but they were over come....Hopefully I won't take as long to write in my blog as it did before....Till then, Happy hunting...

Happy Saint Paddy's Day

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Hefley sir name and the Cherokee Indians

Well, here I went again. Researching for more connections to the Indians Nations. Which I must tell you, is not easy, to say the least.
I was researching the Heffley family of Lancaster County, Pa. and was told by them, that they were 1/16th Cherokee Indian. I knew that somewhere there had to be records saying this fact. You cannot just claim yourself to be Cherokee. So I started searching. First of course I went into the Indian census, and didn't find any Heffley's there on Indian Territory. Then I went on several web sites for Choctaw, and found a woman by the name of Dorcus E. Casteel. She had a daughter Mary Jane ( Mollie ) Casteel Heffley. Dorcus was trying to get reconized as a Choctaw, so she filled out the Dawes Packet, which is an application for membership to the Choctaw Nation. I went on Footnote.com and found her application and copied it. I read the whole thing. And it seems that she was turned down for not having enough proof of her ancestors being in the Mississippi area during the Treaty of the Choctaw in 1830. So she wasn't reconnized to the tribe. Yet her ( Dorcus's ) Great-Grand Mother was full blooded Cherokee and her name was Mary Cloud. Now the further I researched this family, the more I found Indian Blood. Not just with Dorcus, but also with her husband John Morgan Casteel. His Great GrandFather married Princess Nokalackey, a full blooded Cherokee Indian. So both sides of Mary Jane parents had Choctaw and Cherokee Indian Blood in them.
Now I found two really good web sites for information on these two tribes. One is:
MyChoctawFamily.com, That is a web site by Chuck Hudson. I very nice and informative man. He helped me out alot on this research, and Bob Blankenship. If you just Goggle his name, his web site will come up. He is on the Council in Cherokee Nation in North Carolina. You can get alot of information from him also. I got the application of Jennie Y. Hefley who I found on the Guion Miller Index, which is an application to the Cherokee Nation. She and her children were excepted as Cherokee.
With these Hefleys / Heffleys that I found, both were Indian Blooded women who married Hefley / Heffley men. So I almost came to a conclusion that the Heffleys that I am researching are NOT Cherokee Blood in any way.
That's where Joseph W. Heffley comes in. Joseph was born on June 30th 1857-1858 ( 1858 was on his tombstone ) he died on December 24th 1904. He married a woman named Elizabeth ( Lizzie ) C. Enck, she was born June 12th 1866, and died January 31 1928. They had one baby that lived for two days and passed on November 22nd. 1900, One daughter Kate, and one Sallie Enck Heffley . It's Sallie who is the one who told her children that they were 1/16th Cherokee.
Now that's where the hard part comes in. I cannot, for the life of me, find Joseph's parents anywhere. There is no obituary of him, his death record has no parents mentioned, his marriage License Docket does not mention his parents because he was of age, the census has his parents as Donmoyers in 1880 and after Joseph passed away, his wife and baby Sallie went to live with a Peter Heffley, but if you compare dates there, Peter is only 10-11 years apart from Joseph. I looked for Peters parents and there are alot of Peter Heffley's out there, so I'm not sure. I thought maybe, Peter was Joseph's brother.
So what really started out as a search for Heffley Cherokee Blood, ( Which by the way, if I don't find Joseph's parents, I may never find any Cherokee ), Ended up to be a mad search for Joseph W. Heffley....................
And we're off......................................

New Search ( Lountzis )

Wow, Here I go again. I was ask to research the name of a Greek family here in Lancaster, Pa. I thought, " Sure, No Problem ". Well was I ever wrong.
To me they are a pramonent name here in Lancaster. They came to the US in 1973. But it seems the later someone comes over here, the harder it is to research their surname.
I looked everywhere. On alot of different web sites. Alot of Greek web sites, and Italian web sites just incase. I even search for the origin of the Lountzis name, and it never came up. Then finally I got to Lica Catsakis' web site. It seems that, that may be my best bet for any answers at all. I still haven't contacted her on my problem, but I plan to do so today and see where I stand. She may be able to guide me in the right direction. I will let you all know what becomes of this no adventure. In the meantime, if you all can give me hand in this, I'd sure appreciate it. Till Then...............

My Dads Passing

Well, last week on the 22nd of May, my Aunt called me and gave me news that I didn't think I would hear for I while. She told me my Dad passed away. That's disturbing in it's self, but what is really disturbing here is that, I haven't seen my father in about 6 years. He has been in and out of my life for about 40 years now. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. His wife causing most of the camotion between us.
Now I'm struggeling with my emotions, which I find strange. I knew I would be upset, I knew I would miss him, which I did most of my life. But now it's like a perminite emotion I must deal with. That I'm not used too. Before, I could just pick up the phone, or write a letter to him. Now he is no longer on this earth, and it's like he was never here. Other then a few things he gave me years ago, like his gold fish cuff links, his lions club pin, and a iron bank that he had when he was a child.
I 'm also lucky to have great memories of us down at the Chesapeake Bay, boating every summer, eating crabs at Gabblers Crab Shack, and him teaching me how to swim and fish at a very early age. Boy, those were the " Good Ole Days ".
Anyways, I guess I just wanted to write something down about him. It's a part of my life and his. Now he's gone home to His Lord where he can rest.
I planted a flower in his memory this week where I can go to a reflect. It helps to have something like that near.
Well, that's my story for this week, I guess I'll work on getting his birth and death certificates for my records, and put it all behind............

The Prince of Wales

I have been working on my own family tree for sometime now, and decided to add my husbands branch on. Wow !!!! What suprizes were there to be found.
He remembered some talk of Blackfeet Indian blood being in his family. Another person in the family who is researching also told me the same. One thing that had me stumped was the Blackfeet Indian Tribe is from Montana, not Connecticut, where this family was from. So I got to really researching on this story. I actually contacted the Blackfeet Tribe, and they knew who I was talking about. They actually gave the linage, some records, etc., of the people I was researching. I was really thrilled also to find out that the family lore, was really true. My Mother-in-Laws, fathers, mother, was an Allyn. The story was said that it was spelled Allen, but because the ancestor married a Blackfoot Indian, he was forced to changed his name. Hence Allen to Allyn. The ancestor was Henry Allen. He married Anna Gobert. Anna was the daughter of Rock Gobert ( white blood ) and Margret aka Mary Ahkatah ( full blood Piegan ), Margret aka Mary Ahkatah was the daughter of Chief Mountain of the Blackfeet Tribe.
I did go into a web site that has Blackfeet Genealogy, and I found the linage there, which helped me with following the census records.
I now want to find the marriage certificate of Henry and Anna who married in March 1909, I also found that Anna Allen died shortly after marriage to Henry in 1909 as per the records in the Blackfeet genealogy page. It looks like she came back on the reservation to either die or to be buried.
The census can really tell you alot. It's really like reading a book about a persons life.
I also found that my husband has a Prince in his family dating back to the 13th century. That will be another blog..........................

Stranger meeting

This has been a fun week for me. I got an email asking about a family tree I've been working on for several months now. She claimed to be a relative, and wanted to get in touch with someone because she was raised outside the family because of her mothers early death as a baby. So I called my friend and told her about the women, and gave her name. She said it sounded familiar, so I should give the lady her phone number and have her call her. Well I did this, and low and behold, the two are 2nd cousins. And better yet, only live miles from eachother. She got alot of info she needed from my friend, and they will get together and exchange pictures and information with one another too. You never know what you will find on Ancestry.com family trees. I've made several contacts which panned out to be gold mines.
Now I'm in the search for my linage all the way back to the Revolutionary War so I can join DAR. It seems it will be a struggle till I get there, but I won't get upset if it doesn't happen over night. Who knows what I'll find along the way.....................