This compilation is intended to be a record of our ancestors I've actually met or heard about. I'll write from my perspective in each individual file. You'll understand if my military-influenced writing has a clinical flavor. You'll notice (technically) incorrect spelling, punctuation and grammar. Some of it, like the spelling of granddad as grandad, is just because I'm cantankerous. I see it as a 'd' that doesn't need to be. Also, you may notice a smug insinuation on my part that we all come from pretty damned good stock. :-)
I plan to add pictures as I run across them and include anecdotes and information I recall or have from older relatives. I hope this format will make our family history a bit more readable and interesting than just the cold, hard data in most family records.
I plan to add pictures as I run across them and include anecdotes and information I recall or have from older relatives. I hope this format will make our family history a bit more readable and interesting than just the cold, hard data in most family records.
Overview
FOR MY SON AND GRANDCHILDREN:
A Family Record.
4. Possible famous ancestry: Grandma Jane said her family told her that the name Lucretia (and possibly Lavinia) occur in each generation of her maternal branch handed down from a close relative of the early US President, John Quincy Adams. Mother told me that the name Webster which occurs in each generation of her maternal branch stems from Noah Webster of dictionary fame.
5. Observation about technology (to mention a few): The -5 generation witnessed the advent (or at least, general usage) of railroads, photography, telegraph & recorded media; -4: electricity, telephones,
5. Observation about technology (to mention a few): The -5 generation witnessed the advent (or at least, general usage) of railroads, photography, telegraph & recorded media; -4: electricity, telephones,
automobiles & airplanes; -3: Radio & movies; -2: TV, jets, plastic, man-made fibers & satellites and -1: transistors, computer chips & GPS. What wonders will the present generation witness?
6. Allow me one quote: Bill Bryson, author of (A Short History of Nearly Everything) says, "It took two parents to produce each of us, and four people to produce our parents. If we look back eight generations, to Lincoln's day, more than 250 people contributed to the creation of each of us. Look back to Shakespeare's day, and we are directly descended from 16,384 ancestors. Look back 64 generations, to the era of the Roman Empire, and we have a thousand trillion ancestors." (See Note) Keeping this in mind, delving back very far in family history seems folly. Following is something I threw together for kicks:
6. Allow me one quote: Bill Bryson, author of (A Short History of Nearly Everything) says, "It took two parents to produce each of us, and four people to produce our parents. If we look back eight generations, to Lincoln's day, more than 250 people contributed to the creation of each of us. Look back to Shakespeare's day, and we are directly descended from 16,384 ancestors. Look back 64 generations, to the era of the Roman Empire, and we have a thousand trillion ancestors." (See Note) Keeping this in mind, delving back very far in family history seems folly. Following is something I threw together for kicks:
Note: Exponential numbers are misleading. Suggest you look up the term, Pedigree Collapse.
P.S.: Conflicting memories: (To be read, if at all, after becoming familiar with the individual files.)
It's interesting to note how perspectives differ. This exemplifies how facts can become skewed when being recorded from memory. The following is only interesting for those of us who are trying to remember, but my cousins disagree with me on the following points:
1. Cousin Pat Gibson remembers Uncle Walter (Grandmother Bray's brother) as a very nice person who had great respect for the family. He also said he'd always been told that Grandad Bray's hair was red, but agrees it was possibly dyed black. He thinks the Lyerla family tree is traced back to 1610 to Switzerland vice Germany, to a city named Constance or Constantine. The town was on the shores of the lake by that name.
2. Cousin Jeanine says Grandma Bray had another sister named Adah Heletha (Addi). I never heard of her. She also had a double first cousin in Crestline named Otha (Lyerla) Bailey. I knew of her and we always called her Aunt Otha so I thought she was Grandma's sister. Oh well!
Here's a paraphrased excerpt from another family chronicler (sent to me by Cousin Sibyl) which sheds some light:
Two brothers, Solomon and Aaron Lyerla, married sisters in Illinois. The sisters had a brother who married a sister to the men. They were big families on adjoining farms. A long trip on foot, or horse (if/when one could be spared), for courting further away was unlikely. Their country school probably consisted solely of the two families. Solomon and Aaron Lyerla migrated with their families together in covered wagons to Cherokee County when it was opened for homestead. Eva Delilah Lyerla was about five years old at the time of the migration. Her sister Adah was a teenager and had a boyfriend so didn't want to move, and was old enough to make her desires stick. She stayed with her aunt and uncle (aunt and uncle on both sides) in Illinois, and married there. She kept in touch with her parents and siblings by detailed letter as long as they lived. Among all three families, there were a lot of double cousins, which kept everybody close (closer still in the two families that came to Kansas), and, naturally, it was cemented in genetic characteristics.
3. Aunt Hulda disagrees with me on the relationship between my Father and Grandma Jane. Aunt Hulda says she always felt that he was her favorite child. Grandma always referred to him as 'Son'.
P.S.: Conflicting memories: (To be read, if at all, after becoming familiar with the individual files.)
It's interesting to note how perspectives differ. This exemplifies how facts can become skewed when being recorded from memory. The following is only interesting for those of us who are trying to remember, but my cousins disagree with me on the following points:
1. Cousin Pat Gibson remembers Uncle Walter (Grandmother Bray's brother) as a very nice person who had great respect for the family. He also said he'd always been told that Grandad Bray's hair was red, but agrees it was possibly dyed black. He thinks the Lyerla family tree is traced back to 1610 to Switzerland vice Germany, to a city named Constance or Constantine. The town was on the shores of the lake by that name.
2. Cousin Jeanine says Grandma Bray had another sister named Adah Heletha (Addi). I never heard of her. She also had a double first cousin in Crestline named Otha (Lyerla) Bailey. I knew of her and we always called her Aunt Otha so I thought she was Grandma's sister. Oh well!
Here's a paraphrased excerpt from another family chronicler (sent to me by Cousin Sibyl) which sheds some light:
Two brothers, Solomon and Aaron Lyerla, married sisters in Illinois. The sisters had a brother who married a sister to the men. They were big families on adjoining farms. A long trip on foot, or horse (if/when one could be spared), for courting further away was unlikely. Their country school probably consisted solely of the two families. Solomon and Aaron Lyerla migrated with their families together in covered wagons to Cherokee County when it was opened for homestead. Eva Delilah Lyerla was about five years old at the time of the migration. Her sister Adah was a teenager and had a boyfriend so didn't want to move, and was old enough to make her desires stick. She stayed with her aunt and uncle (aunt and uncle on both sides) in Illinois, and married there. She kept in touch with her parents and siblings by detailed letter as long as they lived. Among all three families, there were a lot of double cousins, which kept everybody close (closer still in the two families that came to Kansas), and, naturally, it was cemented in genetic characteristics.
3. Aunt Hulda disagrees with me on the relationship between my Father and Grandma Jane. Aunt Hulda says she always felt that he was her favorite child. Grandma always referred to him as 'Son'.
Lessons/Observations:
1. A practical result of having a knowledge of family history is an awareness of possible inherent health problems. Some branches of our family appear to have had tendencies toward arthritis, prostate enlargement (to include cancer), gall bladder, appendix, kidney, heart, stroke, cataract, glaucoma and hypertension problems. Except for kidney, appendix and hypertension they all appear later in life. (i.e., 60+). Grandma Bray had Ptosis (drooping upper eyelids). Aunt Linda had a breast removed as a young woman. I suspect two male homosexuals on my maternal branch. Both Grandma Jane and Aunt Linda had major hearing loss later in their lives. Early male pattern balding appears to be minimal on both branches.
2. Due to death and divorce, my Son appears to be playing the first significant father role in four (or five) generations.
3. Just a note about "shirttail" relationships: When one's history in a small community goes back far enough, family connections begin to get intertwined. It seemed that almost anyone I got to know at school could eventually be connected somehow if we discussed it long enough. Crestline's history doesn't go back far enough, but in Germany, people in the small village where Renate and I lived the last 12 years there, and surrounding villages, even had similar facial characteristics which one could identify as being indicative of the community from which they came. Not exactly inbreeding, but limited selection over centuries. The following Bill Mauldin cartoon from WW2 addresses this phenomenon:
The early generations center in and around Crestline, Kansas in Cherokee County.