For as long as I can remember I have wanted to get into genealogy. I knew little of my ancestors, except that the Chelius family tree was available somewhere, after all there have been Chelius family reunions forever.
I had a great great uncle named Harold Hippenstiel, a professional geneaolgist, who had been researching my great grandmother's ancestry. I remember as a kid being able to look through his box of research in facination. He died without being able to turn the pages and pages of notes into a history. I hoped someday to take up his mantle and finish what he started.
But most of all, I wanted to find out who the Hummels were, and where they came from.
I had tried to research over the internet for years, on "free" genaology sites. The only thing I learned is that to research on the internet, you will have to fork over some cash, if you want to get anywhere. Last May, for my birthday, I finally took the plunge and signed up for a 3-month subscription on Ancestry.com. What a revelation! I have been able to find my Hummel ancestors, and trace a number of branches of my tree to colonial times. Two branches I have traced back to Germany and England.
From that initial subscription to Ancestry.com I have branched out, researching newspaper archives such as the Reading Eagle (available on Google news archive search), scanning other internet sources, the Berks County Genealogical Society, the Berks County Historical Society, records from a number of churches, wills from the Berks County Register of Wills, and a number of cemeteries.
I still have a long way to go. My goal is to not only build the skelaton of my ancestry, but to also flesh it out, learning and adding biographical information and building a narrative. This blog will help the narrative.
I blog my Hummel (surname) family seperately at www.sonofjacobhummel.blogspot.com. This blog will encompass all my ancestry, The Hummels, Strunks, Snyders, Jacksons, Cheliuses, Melchors, Ganters, Beltzes, Rehms, and O'Brians. I will also blog about my wife's family, the Nelsons, Engelmans, Sixsmiths, Pennewells, and Fords.
Hopefully, some day my sons will appreciate knowing from whence they came, and pass it on to their children.
