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THE FAMILY TREE

As we stand at the trunk of our Family Tree and look backwards in time, we see many branches. Each branch is a family line that has contributed to our family and ultimately to our own existence. As individuals we tend to think of ourselves as being separate from our ancestors and relatives. Because of this, we sometimes develop an impersonal view of our family history. True, we live most of our lives as separate individuals but in the bigger picture we can not and should not forget our origins. C. S. Lewis, author of several children's books such as "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" has expressed this relationship as follows:

"Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well, and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing - rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other."

C. S. Lewis

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to visualize our ancestors is through the use of a graphic presentation called the Family Tree. This section presents our family tree for all of our 391 known direct ancestors.

This Family Tree section has four main parts. It begins with the Composite Family Tree. The Composite Family Tree is an overview of our many historical family branches. It shows how each branch or surname of our 100 or so family lines are connected. Each family forms a branch of the tree. Each branch is identified by its respective surname.

Following the Composite Family Tree is the "Index of Individuals" to the detailed Family Tree. This Index of Individuals is provided so the reader can easily find the specific Family Tree Chart(s) for any one of our 391 ancestors.

If our family tree were printed on a single, continuous sheet of paper it would be the width of two sheets of 8 ½ " by 11" paper and would be 33 sheets of paper long. It would cover an area of about 40 square feet which would be far too large for this book. As an alternative to such a large page, the family tree has been broken into 77 individual charts. Each

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ancestor is shown in an individual block that includes their name and their year of birth and death, if it is known. Each chart has an entry note on the left side of the page that tells the reader what page it is continued from. On the right side of each page is a note that identifies the page on which the chart is continued.

The first two charts in the series of 79 Family Tree Charts, pages 66 and 67, are somewhat different from the remaining charts. Since this book is the first in a series of books about our family, these two charts have been added ahead of our Family Tree ancestor charts to provide a connection to the current generation. The chart on page 67 will serve to both provide the reader with a graphic description of how Audra Young Harrington fits into the ancestral tree and identify her siblings, the parents of my cousins. The Family Tree Chart on page 66, beginning with my siblings and myself, provides a linkage between our ancestors and the current generation. By substituting themselves and their parents into this latter chart, each of my 1st cousins can personalize this book to themselves.

A word of caution is in order regarding the use of the Index of Individuals. This index contains several names that appear on more than one page of the Family Tree charts. This occurs when an individual happens to fall at the beginning or end of a particular chart and the chart is continued on a previous or subsequent chart, respectively. It also occurs when the same name appears more than once within the family. That is, when the same name has been used for people of different generations or in different branches of the family. The index does not distinguish individual names based on the date of birth or death.

The individual blocks on the family tree charts contain only a limited amount of data; namely, the name of the individual, the year of birth and the year of death, if these are known. Much more information can usually be found for an individual in the section titled, "Ancestor Data." This section can be found immediate following the "Family Tree" section.

The reader is also reminded that if you want to know what was going on in the world during the period a particular ancestor lived, the section titled, "Time-Line" provides some of this information.

Throughout this book, an asterisk (*) has been used to identify the given name that the individual was known by. For example, Johann Jakob* Brubach was known by the name of Jakob.

Enjoy your perusing of these charts and the opportunity to get to know your ancestors a little better. Also, keep in mind C.S. Lewis's observation above that we are all connected together in this web of family tree.

 


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