So, you would like to know about your ancestors! If you are a member of a family whose surname appears on page i of this book, this might well be a good place to begin.

I too became curious about my roots in the early 1990s, following the death of my mother. So I began to look around for information. I soon found almost more information than I could successfully manage. But thanks to the personal computer and the genealogy programs that have been written for these computers, I was able to eventually get most of the information organized into a presentable form. That is what this series of books is all about.

Is all of the available information about our ancestors and family tree(s) contained in these books? Not by a long shot. One could easily spend many fascinating decades doing further research on our family. And, I invite and encourage any of you with an interest in doing so to push back the boundaries of knowledge on this subject, even further. My hope is that this series of books, in addition to providing you with valuable information, will give you some clues about where to look.

We are fortunate to be able to trace our family lines back almost 600 years. You might say that our known, documented family lines begin about the year 1400. Our family tree is a fascinating history of many individual family lines. As I pursued the family back in time, into Germany, the pre-German states, Switzerland and England, the number of known family lines grew to over 130. Many of the branches of the family remain unexplored, however, and are lucrative challenge for future family genealogists.

The year 1400 A.D. was not the beginning of our ancestral lines, of course. It is just that we do not know the names of ancestors prior to about 1400. For the strong-of-heart among you, I can assure you that information prior to 1400 undoubtedly exists and discovering these ancestors is not only possible but a real opportunity.

In order to understand our ancestors who lived around and after1400, it is important to have some appreciation of history when they lived. To do this we begin our visit by considering how their predecessors lived. We look briefly at some of the things that molded their lives; factors such as the status and evolution of science and the ambitions and impacts of tribal and national leaders. But, perhaps the single most influential factor that we consider is that of religion and the dictates of the various religious factions of the time.

In this first book, Young/Jung Family and Related Ancestors from Europe, we look at the way our human civilization was progressing before the coming of Christianity. We then look at the first millennia with emphasis on the role of religion and the progress of our first millennia ancestors. We then consider the period beginning 1000 A.D. to about 1400 A.D. leading up to our first recorded ancestors.

Most of our attention, however, is devoted to tracking our several specific families beginning about 1400 and continuing to the point that they emigrate to America.

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